NIW Bearings
dismissedDEC022016_02B52032016-12-02 · certification · Texas 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, a chemist/biomedical engineer by background, sought to work in the United States as a bilingual high school science and math teacher.

Field: chemistry / secondary science education · Read the decision (uscis.gov)

EB-2 threshold — addressed

Director found, and AAO did not disturb, that the Petitioner holds a foreign equivalent bachelor's degree plus progressive experience equivalent to an advanced degree, qualifying him as a member of the professions holding an advanced degree.

Prong 1 — national importancenot established · dispositive

“he has not established that the benefits of his work would extend beyond his students and school district such that they will have a national impact”
“general arguments or information regarding the importance of a given field of endeavor, or the urgency of an issue facing the United States, cannot alone establish that an individual benefits the national interest by virtue of engaging in the field”
“we agree with the Director's determination that the proposed benefit of the Petitioner's employment as a teacher would not be national in scope”

AAO decision text

Prong 3 — balance of factorsnot established · dispositive

“did not explain how the Petitioner's work has affected the field of chemistry, secondary education, or STEM teaching”
“Any statements that a petitioner possesses useful skills or a unique background, however, relate to whether similarly trained workers are available in the United States”
“DOL addresses worker shortages through the labor certification process, and therefore a shortage of qualified professionals alone is not sufficient to demonstrate eligibility for the national interest waiver”
“the Petitioner has not established by a preponderance of the evidence that he has a past record of demonstrable achievement with some degree of influence on the field of chemistry or education as a whole”

AAO decision text

How the evidence was treated

  • recommendation letter · discounted
    “did not explain how the Petitioner's work has affected the field of chemistry, secondary education, or STEM teaching”
    AAO decision text
  • certification membership · discounted
    “This evidence does not demonstrate that the Petitioner has had an influence on the field of education.”
    AAO decision text
  • resume experience · credited

Where this case turned

  • 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
  • Letters conclusory · p3 — letters praise skills in general terms without tracing specific impact
  • Occupational shortage argument rejected · p3 — argues a labor shortage — the labor-certification question, not Dhanasar
  • Record of success insufficient · p3 — a claimed track record the documents do not establish
  • U.S. worker availability · p3 — the impracticality of a labour-market test was asserted, not established
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Notable

Applies the pre-Dhanasar NYSDOT three-part test just weeks before Dhanasar was issued; the second (national scope) and third (comparative benefit over a similarly qualified U.S. worker) NYSDOT prongs are both mapped here, with the DOL-shortage/US-worker-availability reasoning arising under the third prong even though that code is nominally grouped under Prong 1 in the vocabulary, illustrating the cross-prong flexibility contemplated by these coding rules. Procedurally unusual: originally an appeal that AAO remanded, then the Director issued an NOID and a new denial that was certified (not appealed) back to AAO, and the Petitioner submitted no further brief or evidence at this stage.

Authorities this decision leans on

From the doctrinal survivor set — 187 authority tests across 47 distinct authorities cleared the differential-lift gates. Only those appear here.

  • INA 203(b)(2)
  • Matter of Otiende

What this case teaches

Analyst reading of the decision text.

Decisive factor

Petitioner failed both national-scope and influence prongs: his teaching work was localized to one school district and no evidence showed field-wide influence beyond employer letters describing his skills.

Transferable lesson

For local-service occupations (teaching, etc.), petitioners must show demonstrable field-wide influence and impact beyond the immediate locality, not just shortage statistics or personal skill descriptions.

Endeavor framing

vague

National-importance theory

geographic_or_shortage_area · stem_positive_factor

Evidence targeting

person_focused

Cases in adjacent profiles

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