dismissedJUN132018_01B52032018-06-13 · 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 production/manufacturing engineer in the automotive industry, proposed to continue working as a production engineer for U.S. automobile manufacturers, aiming eventually to become a lead manufacturing director.
Field: automotive/production engineering · Read the decision (uscis.gov)
EB-2 threshold — addressed
Director found and AAO corroborated that Petitioner qualifies as an advanced degree professional based on her Venezuelan bachelor's and MBA equivalency evaluation.
Prong 1 — national importancenot established · dispositive
“the scope of ... production alone is not sufficient to demonstrate the Petitioner's proposed endeavor's national importance”
“she has not demonstrated that her proposed engineering work for a single company and its manufacturing projects stands to impact the automotive industry, the production engineering field, or our nation's economy more broadly”
“In determining national importance, the relevant question is not the importance of the fields or industries in which the individual will work; instead we focus on the "the specific endeavor that the foreign national proposes to undertake."”
“The Petitioner has not established that the economic benefits of her proposed work for [employer] or any other U.S. automobile manufacturer stand to extend beyond her prospective employer and its operations”
AAO decision text
How the evidence was treated
- media · discounted
“they are not sufficient to demonstrate the Petitioner's proposed work as a production engineer has broader implications for her field”
AAO decision text - recommendation letter · discounted
“this letter does not provide sufficient details about the capacity in which she would work so as to demonstrate the potential implications of her proposed endeavor”
AAO decision text - degree · credited
Where this case turned
- Employer-specific benefit · p1 — "work furthers my company's product" — value accrues to one firm
- 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
- Occupational shortage argument rejected · p1 — argues a labor shortage — the labor-certification question, not Dhanasar
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Notable
AAO explicitly rejected reliance on industry-wide labor shortage articles and industry economic-impact studies as insufficient to establish the national importance of the individual's specific endeavor, reinforcing that field-level importance cannot substitute for endeavor-specific impact.
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