NIW Bearings
dismissedAPR082026_01B52032026-04-08 · appeal · SCOPS Service Center

This is an AAO appeal decision — a case denied once and appealed. It shows how the framework is applied; it is not the filing population.

The Petitioner proposed to work as an IT consultant in the United States, providing cybersecurity and digital transformation services during software development, and to operate his own IT consulting company offering web development, mobile development, project management, and related services.

Field: information technology consulting · Read the decision (uscis.gov)

EB-2 threshold — not met

Petitioner claimed exceptional ability but met only one of the required six criteria (criterion B, ten years full-time experience). Failed criteria A (no academic record submitted; business plan indicates only high school diploma), C (workshop completion certificates not shown comparable to professional license or certification), D (salary document lacked authorization details and corroboration; claimed salary not shown to exceed average IT specialist pay in Dominican Republic), E (AIIP membership not shown to be a 'professional association' within regulatory meaning; no evidence of bachelor's degree equivalent), and F (recommendation letters praised personal traits and completed projects but did not show recognition for significant contributions to the field or industry beyond former employer).

Prong 1 — national importancenot established · dispositive

“the relevant question is not the importance of the field, industry, or profession in which the individual will work; instead, we focus on the 'the specific endeavor that the foreign national proposes to undertake.'”
“The Petitioner has not provided any details regarding his particular IT solutions or complex IT projects that will be widely used by the businesses and benefit the nation, as he claimed.”
“The business plan does not provide any financial and staffing projections or adequately explain how he intends to grow his company.”
“the evidence does not sufficiently demonstrate how his IT consulting services would reach the field overall or have an impact so broad as to affect the economy or create a significant number of jobs.”
“the letters do not address the Petitioner's future endeavor with persuasive details, such as how it stands to sufficiently extend beyond himself and his clients to impact the field.”

AAO decision text

How the evidence was treated

  • resume experience · credited
  • certification membership · discounted
    “the record lacks any supporting evidence explaining the nature of this certificate or establishing the requirements for obtaining this certificate.”
    AAO decision text
  • recommendation letter · discounted
    “they do not indicate how the petitioner has been recognized for his achievements, nor do they explain his contributions have risen to the level of 'significant' consistent with this regulation.”
    AAO decision text
  • business plan · discounted
    “The business plan does not provide any financial and staffing projections or adequately explain how he intends to grow his company.”
    AAO decision text
  • other · discounted
    “the evidence from Glassdoor.com does not support that his claimed salary of DOP $114,625.43 is higher than a typical IT specialist or consultant in similar geographical area.”
    AAO decision text
All 7 evidence items
  • other · discounted
    “the expert opinion letter from a professor of computer science and information systems provides a general overview of the field and the Petitioner's credentials but does not include any persuasive details regarding the Petitioner's endeavor and its future impact.”
    AAO decision text
  • other · discounted
    “The record contains only two letters of interest in collaborating with the Petitioner, without any additional contracts or agreements for his services.”
    AAO decision text

Where this case turned

  • Business plan speculative · p1 — projections without a documented basis or steps
  • Economic claims unsupported · p1 — job/revenue projections with no corroborating basis
  • Field importance conflated with endeavor · p1 — argues the field matters, not the specific endeavor
  • Letters conclusory · p1 — letters praise skills in general terms without tracing specific impact
  • Local, not national scope · p1 — impact confined to clients / a region
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Notable

This is a second appeal following a prior AAO remand; SCOPS denied again on remand and the petitioner appealed a second time. The AAO partially agreed with the petitioner on appeal, withdrawing SCOPS' substantial-merit determination and finding substantial merit established, but still found national importance unmet. The AAO noted an internal tension in the petitioner's situation: he claimed he would run his own consulting company while simultaneously holding employment as an associate software engineer, without explaining how both would be pursued concurrently. The petitioner's field (IT consulting for a beverage company in the Dominican Republic) and the absence of any academic credentials beyond a high school diploma made the exceptional-ability threshold particularly difficult to meet.

What this case teaches

Analyst reading of the decision text.

Decisive factor

Petitioner failed to establish underlying exceptional-ability classification (met only 1 of 6 criteria) and separately failed to show national importance beyond generic industry/economic claims.

Transferable lesson

Substantiate exceptional-ability criteria with concrete documentary proof and support national importance claims with specific, quantified evidence of scale, not generic industry importance.

Endeavor framing

vague

National-importance theory

economic_growth_generic · economic_job_creation · stem_positive_factor

Evidence targeting

person_focused

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