The petitioner, a financial manager with 28 years of experience, proposed to work as a Chief Finance Officer or financial manager consulting U.S. companies, particularly in the oil and gas industry, on growth and profitability.

Prong 1 — national importancenot established · dispositive

“the Petitioner must demonstrate the national importance of his providing specific financial management or CFO services rather than the national importance of the positions or the wide range of fields or industries in which he intends to work”

“he has not offered sufficient, specific information and evidence to demonstrate that the prospective impact of his specific proposed endeavor rises to the level of national importance”

“the record does not show that the Petitioner's proposed endeavor of serving as a financial manager or CFO stands to sufficiently extend beyond his potential or futuristic employers”

“the Petitioner has not established that the specific endeavor he proposes to undertake has significant potential to employ U.S. workers or otherwise offers substantial positive economic effects”

AAO decision text

How the evidence was treated

• other · discounted

  “the record contains evidence regarding general information relating to financial services, international and trade investment, financial planning”

  AAO decision text
• resume experience · discounted

  “The Petitioner's experience and abilities in his field relate to the second prong of the Dhanasar framework”

  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

Notable

AAO explicitly rejected petitioner's argument based on general LinkedIn job vacancy statistics as evidence of national importance, characterizing it as relevant only to job offer availability, not the national interest waiver analysis.

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. 204.5(k)(2)
• INA 203(b)(2)
• Poursina v. USCIS

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