The Petitioner, a Brazilian food-service entrepreneur, proposed to expand a U.S. company (L-C- Corp.) offering natural/healthy food restaurants, including a chain of franchised locations in Hub Zones, while also asserting he would provide business development and management consulting services to U.S. companies.

Prong 1 — national importancenot established · dispositive

“the Petitioner did not sufficiently articulate and document these asserted "ripple effects,"”

“this evidence does little to substantiate the prospective national impact of the Petitioner's specifically proposed endeavor.”

“The impact of all management, business development, and sales professionals aggregately, is not relevant to demonstrating his potential prospective national impact individually.”

“the Petitioner appeared to provide differing assertions with respect to his proposed endeavor, in some cases appearing to indicate that he would open a chain of franchised health food restaurants, and elsewhere suggesting he would provide consulting services”

“the record does not show that the Petitioner's proposed endeavor stands to sufficiently extend beyond his proposed clientele”

“In sum, the Petitioner's business plan does not demonstrate that his proposed endeavor would, more likely than not, have significant potential to employ U.S. workers or generate other substantial positive economic effects.”

AAO decision text

How the evidence was treated

• business plan · discounted

  “the Petitioner does not sufficiently describe in detail the nature of the services his company would provide.”

  AAO decision text
• recommendation letter · discounted

  “none of these support letters discuss the potential prospective impact of the Petitioner's specifically proposed endeavor.”

  AAO decision text
• resume experience · discounted

  “the Petitioner's knowledge, skills, and experience in his field relate to the second prong of the Dhanasar framework”

  AAO decision text
• other · discounted

  “it is not clear how the impact of all immigrant entrepreneurs on the U.S. economy specifically supports the potential prospective impact of his specific proposed endeavor.”

  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
• Endeavor too vague · p1 — described as a job role, not a defined undertaking
• 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

AAO emphasizes that aggregate statistics about immigrant entrepreneurs or industry-wide economic importance (FDI, job creation averages) do not establish the national importance of the petitioner's individual specific endeavor; also notes internal inconsistency between restaurant-chain and consulting-services characterizations of the 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
• Matter of Ho
• Poursina v. USCIS

Cases in adjacent profiles

• The Beneficiary proposed to establish an asset investment management and compliance advisory firm in New York offering c
• The Petitioner proposed to develop and commercialize zeolite-based products in the United States, including agricultural
• The Petitioner proposed to operate a medical billing and healthcare revenue cycle management firm in the United States,
• The Petitioner proposed to establish and lead as CEO a cybersecurity and crisis management company in Florida, offering
• The Petitioner proposed to establish and operate an IT consultancy company in Michigan providing cloud migration, cybers