NIW Bearings
dismissedJUL242024_02B52032024-07-24 · appeal · 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 nurse, proposed to establish and operate a home health care business in Florida offering general, personal, palliative, and urgent care services, with plans to franchise and expand.

Field: nursing / home health care · Read the decision (uscis.gov)

EB-2 threshold — addressed

Director found Petitioner qualifies as an advanced degree professional based on her nursing degree and progressive post-baccalaureate experience; this was not disputed on appeal.

Prong 1 — national importancenot established · dispositive

“the relevant question is not the importance of a particular field in which the Petitioner will work; instead, to satisfy the first prong”
“the record does not show that her proposed endeavor stands to sufficiently extend beyond her potential patients or clients”
“she has not established the business's "significant potential to employ U.S. workers or [that it] has other substantial positive economic effects,”
“This information, which reveals the industry's substantial size, does not support the Petitioner's claim that her proposed endeavor... will likely have "national or ... global implications”

AAO decision text

How the evidence was treated

  • business plan · discounted
    “does not support the Petitioner's claim that her proposed endeavor... will likely have national or global implications”
    AAO decision text
  • recommendation letter · discounted
    “The letters do not establish or discuss the national importance of the proposed endeavor.”
    AAO decision text
  • degree · credited
  • resume experience · credited

Where this case turned

  • 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
2,501coded 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

Petitioner had previously filed an EB-2/NIW petition in 2019 that was denied and the denial affirmed on appeal in October 2022; this is her second such petition. AAO expressly declined to reach prongs two and three, citing Bagamasbad and Matter of L-A-C- for the proposition that agencies need not resolve unnecessary issues.

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
  • INA 203(b)(2)
  • Matter of L-A-C-
  • Poursina v. USCIS

What this case teaches

Analyst reading of the decision text.

Decisive factor

Petitioner failed to show her single local home health care business had national or field-wide implications beyond her own clients/local economy, despite job/revenue projections and generic industry growth data.

Transferable lesson

For prong 1, quantify how the specific venture's projected impact (jobs, revenue, region) rises to national scale—generic industry statistics or personal skill letters cannot substitute for endeavor-specific magnitude evidence.

Endeavor framing

moderate

National-importance theory

economic_job_creation · economic_growth_generic · field_advancement

Evidence targeting

person_focused

Cases in adjacent profiles

← Back to the case explorer