The Petitioner, a mechatronics engineer and consultant, proposed to help American industrial companies reduce costs, improve performance, and reduce environmental impact, carrying this out through creation of his own industrial machinery services company.

Prong 1 — national importancenot established · dispositive

“any likely effects would be "immeasurable or insignificant" beyond the individual clients he served.”

“his business would likely only have an effect on its individual clients, and that any farther effects would be immeasurable or insignificant to the overall economy.”

“the Petitioner has not established that the Director erred by analyzing the company's potential impact on the field or the economy more broadly in assessing the national importance of the endeavor.”

AAO decision text

How the evidence was treated

• business plan · discounted

  “any farther effects would be immeasurable or insignificant to the overall economy”

  AAO decision text

Where this case turned

• Economic claims unsupported · p1 — job/revenue projections with no corroborating basis
• Employer-specific benefit · p1 — "work furthers my company's product" — value accrues to one firm
• Local, not national scope · p1 — impact confined to clients / a region

Notable

AAO adopted and affirmed the Director's decision on prong 1 alone, explicitly declining to reach prongs 2 and 3 under Bagamasbad/L-A-C- reservation doctrine; Petitioner's argument that the Director impermissibly conflated the endeavor with his proposed self-employment/company was rejected because the Petitioner's own statements tied the endeavor to that company's creation.

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
• Chen v. INS
• Flores v. Garland
• Matter of L-A-C-

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