The Beneficiary, as a partner/pricing analyst for a restaurant operator/franchisor serving Asian-inspired cuisine, proposed to lead the company's U.S. expansion from roughly 52 locations to 100 locations over five years, adding franchise restaurants and creating direct and indirect jobs.

Prong 1 — national importancenot established · dispositive

“The Petitioner has not sufficiently demonstrated that the proposed endeavor has national importance.”

“The company has not explained the national significance of the proposed direct jobs, and, without further information, we cannot determine the significance of those jobs.”

“The record does not sufficiently support the Petitioner's claim that it would create 'many' jobs in economically depressed areas.”

“The study does not indicate an 'unmet demand for Asian cuisine.' States with lesser percentages of Asian restaurants may simply have less demand.”

“The record, however, lacks sufficient independent evidence that the products the Petitioner cites represent nationally important innovations in its industry.”

“The record, however, lacks sufficient evidence that the proposed expansion would produce those results in a nationally important way.”

AAO decision text

How the evidence was treated

• business plan · discounted

  “questions regarding the significance of the Petitioner's projected job creation remain”

  AAO decision text
• other · discounted

  “the record does not sufficiently support the Petitioner's claim that it would create 'many' jobs in economically depressed areas”

  AAO decision text
• other · discounted

  “the study does not indicate an 'unmet demand for Asian cuisine.' States with lesser percentages of Asian restaurants may simply have less demand”

  AAO decision text
• other · discounted

  “the record, however, lacks sufficient independent evidence that the products the Petitioner cites represent nationally important innovations in its industry”

  AAO decision text
• recommendation letter · discounted

Where this case turned

• Economic claims unsupported · p1 — job/revenue projections with no corroborating basis
• 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

Notable

The AAO acknowledged a significant factual error in the SCOPS denial — a three-paragraph section incorrectly stated 'the company is not yet formed and does not have a physical location' when the Petitioner had been operating for about 10 years with over 50 locations — but found the error harmless because the denial otherwise correctly described the evidence and provided adequate notice for appeal. The AAO also accepted SCOPS' uncontested findings that EB-2 threshold and prong 1 substantial merit were met, limiting the dispositive issue solely to national importance under prong 1. The AAO performed its own arithmetic to recalculate net new jobs from the expansion (subtracting pre-existing employment), arriving at approximately 3,289.7 total new direct and indirect jobs, but then discounted the figure due to the prevalence of part-time server positions and lack of wage data.

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