Opinion ID: 4558485
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Middleton and Jet Blast in Mississippi

Text: Shannon Duke Middleton was the owner of Jet Blast, a “power sport” dealership in Gulfport, Mississippi. In 2013, Jimenez contacted Middleton and pitched the idea of paying Middleton to participate in a business venture to help Chinese millionaires immigrate to the United States. Middleton understood that the prospective Chinese immigrant would never work at his company. Thereafter, in September 2013, Jimenez caused to be filed with CIS an I-140 petition for an EB-1C visa and supporting documentation in Jet Blast’s name on behalf of a Chinese national named Yan Xu. A cover letter submitted to CIS in support of the I-140 petition referenced that, in December 2011, Jet Blast had entered into a joint venture agreement with a Chinese company, Arden Garments Guangzhou, Co. Ltd., and Yan Xu had been appointed the executive director of the joint venture. Middleton had never heard of Yan Xu or Arden Garments, did not employ Yan Xu, did not agree to a joint venture, and did not sign a joint venture agreement or any other documents, including the cover letter and a job offer letter, submitted with the I-140 petition.5 5 The supporting documentation also included a shared Chinese bank account statement showing a “portfolio” of over $2 million and a $300,000 deposit, a description of Yan Xu’s job duties and an organizational chart of the joint venture with Yan Xu as the executive director and 9 Case: 18-10569 Date Filed: 08/25/2020 Page: 10 of 25 The I-140 petition, purportedly filed by Jet Blast on behalf of Yan Xu, states in Part 2 that the petition is filed for a “multinational executive or manager.” Part 6 of the petition represents that Jet Blast will employ Xu in a new, full-time, permanent position, paying her $50,000 per year, with the job title “Executives & Managers.” For the “Nontechnical Description of the Job,” the petition states: “Establishing long-term and mid-term Company objectives, setting of business plans, and the design of business models for the company; Assigning marketing strategies and reforming the business procedures, and strengthening our distribution and client channels; see job offer letter for more.” The cover letter submitted with the I-140 petition and purportedly signed by Middleton states, inter alia, that Arden Garments and Jet Blast have entered into a joint venture agreement and that documents are hereby “submitted to establish that there is a qualifying relationship between Jet Blast and Arden under 8 CFR § 204.5(j)(2)(D),” including: (1) “the Jet Blast Joint Venture Agreement entered on December 1, 2011, and (2) a “Joint Venture Management Conceptual Flow Chart,” and (3) a “Bank Confirmation into Joint Venture in the amount of $300,000.”6 containing the names of some of Jet Blast’s employees. Middleton had never seen any of these documents before and said they were all false. 6 Among the co-conspirators’ emails, federal investigator Don Herrington found one email from Jimenez to his co-conspirators stating that he would soon finish the joint venture agreement for Jet Blast and a subsequent email from Jimenez sending to his co-conspirators the Jet Blast joint venture agreement that ultimately was submitted to CIS with the Jet Blast I-140 10 Case: 18-10569 Date Filed: 08/25/2020 Page: 11 of 25 The cover letter also states that the partners of the joint venture had appointed Xu as the executive director of the joint venture, and attached multiple documents “to establish the executive position to be offered to Ms. Xu,” including a “Job Offer Letter by Jet Blast.” The cover letter includes a section on “Ability to Pay,” stating that “petitioner has submitted its 2012 federal tax returns” and Jet Blast’s “gross income of $147,273.00 is more than able to pay the beneficiary’s proffered wage of $50,000.00 a year.”