The Petitioner, a nail salon manager, proposed to develop and manage an accounting and financial advisory services company offering accounting, payroll, tax consultancy, and financial services, with a headquarters in an Illinois hub zone.

Prong 1 — national importancenot established · dispositive

“A financial advisory services company and a shortage of finance managers in the United States does not render the proposed endeavor nationally important”

“the alleged shortage of occupations or occupational skills does not render a proposed endeavor nationally important under the Dhanasar framework”

“Broad statements and projections regarding the role that financial management professionals play in the U.S. economy do not demonstrate the prospective impact directly attributable to her proposed endeavor”

“these projections are not supported by relevant or probative evidence, details showing their basis, or an explanation of how they will be realized”

“Generalized conclusory statements that do not identify a specific impact to the field have little probative value.”

AAO decision text

How the evidence was treated

• business plan · discounted

  “these projections are not supported by relevant or probative evidence, details showing their basis, or an explanation of how they will be realized”

  AAO decision text
• other · discounted

  “Broad statements and projections regarding the role that financial management professionals play in the U.S. economy do not demonstrate the prospective impact”

  AAO decision text
• resume experience · ignored
• recommendation letter · ignored

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
• Occupational shortage argument rejected · p1 — argues a labor shortage — the labor-certification question, not Dhanasar

Notable

Petitioner's occupation (nail salon manager) was unrelated to the proposed endeavor (accounting/financial advisory firm), though this mismatch was not coded as a threshold issue since AAO did not frame it as a degree/experience threshold failure; AAO instead treated the industry-shortage and third-party article evidence as insufficient to establish national importance of the specific endeavor.

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.

• 8 C.F.R. 103.3
• Flores v. Garland
• Matter of L-A-C-
• USCIS Policy Manual F.5(D)(1)

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