NIW Bearings
dismissedFEB172026_01B52032026-02-17 · 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, an assistant professor of Arabic, proposed to continue teaching Levantine-Modern Standard Arabic to U.S. military special forces personnel and to develop an integrated Arabic-Levantine language curriculum aimed at enhancing military operational readiness and cultural competency.

Field: Arabic language instruction and curriculum development (military language training) · Read the decision (uscis.gov)

EB-2 threshold — addressed

SCOPS and AAO both confirmed the Petitioner qualifies as a member of the professions holding an advanced degree (doctoral degree in modern languages and cultures). Threshold was not at issue on appeal.

Prong 1 — national importancenot established · dispositive

“the record does not include evidence demonstrating that her teaching activities impact national security to a degree commensurate with national importance.”
“it is not clear how her teaching would have an impact beyond her students and their work to benefit the military or national security.”
“the Petitioner mainly relies on the importance education and military readiness to demonstrate the importance of her specific endeavor, rather than any prospective positive impact resulting from the endeavor itself.”
“general statements predicting positive and expansive outcomes are not supported by evidence.”
“she has not provided a cohesive proposal for how she will undertake the widespread research effort she envisions.”
“This statement presumes collaborations without the support of a plausible plan to construct them.”
“the assumption that an endeavor is nationally important because of a purported occupational shortage is misplaced; the shortage of an occupation does not render a proposed endeavor nationally important under the Dhanasar framework.”

AAO decision text

How the evidence was treated

  • recommendation letter · discounted
    “although letters from the program's members of management indicate that her work serves national security purposes, the record does not include evidence demonstrating that her teaching activities impact national security to a degree commensurate with national importance.”
    AAO decision text
  • other · discounted
    “general statements predicting positive and expansive outcomes are not supported by evidence.”
    AAO decision text
  • business plan · discounted
    “she has not provided a cohesive proposal for how she will undertake the widespread research effort she envisions.”
    AAO decision text
  • other · discounted
    “This assertion concerning the more extensive implications of the Petitioner's work was not accompanied by further explanation identifying specific contributions and their impacts.”
    AAO decision text
  • resume experience · credited
All 6 evidence items
  • other · discounted
    “she has not explained what that impact would entail, nor has she provided evidence of her mentorship of other language instructors for military students.”
    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
  • Occupational shortage argument rejected · p1 — argues a labor shortage — the labor-certification question, not Dhanasar
1,312coded decisions carry the failure named in this record. A placement shows where your profile sits among them, not what it predicts.See where your profile sits — 90 seconds →

Notable

The AAO explicitly invoked the Dhanasar precedent's own teaching-activities example (26 I&N Dec. at 893) to analogize and reject the Petitioner's claim, noting that teaching activities that do not impact a field more broadly do not rise to national importance. SCOPS had already conceded substantial merit (prong 1, first element), so the sole dispositive issue was national importance. The AAO also noted the gender pronoun inconsistency in the decision (SCOPS referred to 'he' while the AAO used 'she' throughout), suggesting possible OCR or drafting artifact. The occupational-shortage argument was expressly rejected with a footnote to Policy Manual F.5(D)(3).

What this case teaches

Analyst reading of the decision text.

Decisive factor

Petitioner failed to show her teaching/curriculum work had impact beyond her own classroom and students, relying on unsupported general claims of far-reaching influence rather than evidence of broader field or national-security-scale effect.

Transferable lesson

Support claims of broader impact with concrete evidence (adoption elsewhere, quantifiable reach, documented mentorship/curriculum dissemination), not just supervisor praise of individual teaching performance.

Endeavor framing

moderate

National-importance theory

national_security · field_advancement · geographic_or_shortage_area

Evidence targeting

person_focused

Cases in adjacent profiles

← Back to the case explorer