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 found and operate a civil engineering consulting services company in Massachusetts, offering construction consulting services using project management techniques, BIM methodologies, and sustainable technologies.
Field: civil engineering consulting · Read the decision (uscis.gov)
EB-2 threshold — not met
SCOPS erroneously found the Petitioner qualified based on a foreign diploma equivalent to a U.S. bachelor's degree alone. AAO withdrew that conclusion, finding no official academic record to substantiate the diploma's equivalency, and noting that the Petitioner's professional registration card showed less than five years of experience before filing. Ambiguities and inconsistencies in employment records further undermined the progressive-experience claim. However, the AAO declined to make a final determination on EB-2 eligibility because failure of Dhanasar prong 1 was dispositive.
Prong 1 — national importancenot established · dispositive
“the record does not demonstrate how his company's activities may have national or even global implications within the field of civil engineering or any other field”
“the financial forecast appears to be arbitrarily determined without substantiation”
“the record does not substantiate how employing 21 workers with certain job titles and duties addressed in the business plan may be significant”
“the issue is not whether the proposed endeavor may align with federal priorities as the Petitioner claims”
“the financial assertions in the record in general and in the business plan specifically bear minimal reliability and sufficiency”
AAO decision text
How the evidence was treated
- business plan · discounted
“the financial forecast appears to be arbitrarily determined without substantiation”
AAO decision text - degree · discounted
“the record does not substantiate the degree program to which the Petitioner's unknown coursework may be equivalent”
AAO decision text - resume experience · discounted
“present ambiguous or inconsistent information about the number of simultaneous employers he had, the duties he performed, the number of hours he worked”
AAO decision text - motion resubmission · discounted
“the copy of the business plan the Petitioner submitted in response to SCOPS' RFE was dated July 2023, earlier than the original business plan”
AAO decision text - other · discounted
“The extent to which many material documents in the record purportedly written by the Petitioner himself misspell the Petitioner's own name casts substantial doubt on the reliability and sufficiency”
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
- Local, not national scope · p1 — impact confined to clients / a region
Notable
The AAO withdrew SCOPS' favorable threshold EB-2 determination, finding it legally erroneous (bachelor's equivalent alone does not satisfy the advanced degree requirement), but declined to make a final EB-2 eligibility finding because prong 1 failure was dispositive. The decision is notable for extensive credibility findings: the Petitioner's own name was misspelled on nearly every page of the business plan and the RFE response brief (40 and 27 pages respectively), the Form I-140 contained internally inconsistent name information, and the Petitioner resubmitted a business plan dated earlier than the original. The AAO invoked Matter of Ho to allow these credibility concerns to undermine the entire record. The business plan's thin profit margins (under 10%, declining to under 5%) were specifically cited as undermining economic-impact claims even on the plan's own terms. The Petitioner self-represented and argued SCOPS applied a 'beyond a reasonable doubt' standard, which the AAO flatly rejected.
What this case teaches
Analyst reading of the decision text.
Business plan's financial projections were arbitrary/unsubstantiated and, even taken as true, showed only localized benefit to the company's own clients—no broader national or global implications for the field or economy.
Support endeavor's economic/job-creation claims with substantiated, verifiable data and explicitly connect projected impact to national-scale significance, not just local client benefit.
vague
economic_job_creation · economic_growth_generic · stem_positive_factor · us_competitiveness · field_advancement
endeavor_focused
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