The Petitioner sought to continue working in the United States as a software engineer in test/back-end developer, working independently or for various companies to improve testing automation and software quality.

Prong 1 — national importancenot established · dispositive

“By extension activities which only benefit the Petitioner's prospective employers, as is the case here, do not rise to a level of national importance.”

“a shortage of qualified professionals alone does not render the work of an individual software developer nationally important”

“he does not provide sufficient evidence to substantiate these assertions, and instead continues to rely on the potential economic benefits of the software development field in general”

“the industry or customer base a petitioner will serve alone is not sufficient to establish national importance”

AAO decision text

How the evidence was treated

• recommendation letter · discounted

  “they do not establish the national importance of the Petitioner's proposed endeavor, as they are primarily limited to discussing his past accomplishments”

  AAO decision text
• other · credited
• other · discounted

  “he does not elaborate on how his work would lead to broader implications to the field, beyond development of his prospective employer's software”

  AAO decision text

Where this case turned

• Economic claims unsupported · p1 — job/revenue projections with no corroborating basis
• 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
• Occupational shortage argument rejected · p1 — argues a labor shortage — the labor-certification question, not Dhanasar

Notable

AAO withdrew the Director's finding on substantial merit (crediting it) but still found national importance unmet, making this a split prong-1 analysis. The decision reserves both the underlying EB-2 classification issue and prongs 2/3 as unnecessary given the dispositive prong-1 failure. A footnote reference to 'the pharmacy industry' economic impact appears to be a template/boilerplate artifact inconsistent with the software-engineering facts of this case.

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
• 8 C.F.R. 204.5(k)(2)
• Flores v. Garland
• Matter of L-A-C-

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