dismissedJUN062023_01B52032023-06-06 · 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, an ESOL/foreign-language teacher, proposed to continue teaching English and foreign languages to adults and children, including at a local middle school, using her own instructional methods and linguistics-based strategies.

Field: ESOL/English and foreign language teaching · Read the decision (uscis.gov)

Prong 1 — national importancenot established · dispositive

“the record does not contain any evidence showing that her specific teaching methods contribute to the field of language instruction overall”

“the Petitioner does not offer corroborating evidence of how her specific teaching endeavor directly affects the federal government spending”

“merely working in an important field is insufficient to establish the national importance of the proposed endeavor”

“we find that the Petitioner has not established her proposed endeavor in this case will sufficiently extend beyond her school and students to affect the regional or national economy more broadly”

“The Petitioner's claims linking her proposed endeavor...to raising those students' employment prospects and ultimately stimulating economic growth with their employability are too attenuated”

AAO decision text

How the evidence was treated

recommendation letter · discounted
“these recommendation letters do not address how her teaching endeavor at the local middle school rises to the level of national importance”
AAO decision text
other · discounted
“the relevant question is not the importance of the industry or profession in which the individual will work”
AAO decision text
resume experience · ignored
motion resubmission · discounted
“The Petitioner resubmits on appeal three expert opinion letters”
AAO decision text

Where this case turned

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

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Notable

AAO invokes Dhanasar's own example of a classroom teacher as not nationally important, applying it directly to this Petitioner's case; expert letters and articles on the ESOL field generally were deemed insufficient because they addressed field importance rather than 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
Matter of E-M-

What this case teaches

Analyst reading of the decision text.

Decisive factor

Petitioner failed to show her specific teaching endeavor's impact extends beyond her school/district to a national or regional scale, per Dhanasar's classroom-teacher analogy.

Transferable lesson

Define a scalable, disseminated endeavor (e.g., adopted curriculum, published methodology) and provide evidence quantifying impact beyond the immediate workplace.

Endeavor framing

vague

National-importance theory

field_advancement · economic_job_creation · government_interest · other

Evidence targeting

person_focused

Cases in adjacent profiles

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