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 sought to own and operate a mobile financial-literacy and lending-facilitation app/credit data analytics company aimed at helping users track informal loans, build credit profiles, and improve borrowing and lending decisions, particularly in immigrant and economically disadvantaged communities.
Field: financial technology / credit data analytics · Read the decision (uscis.gov)
Prong 1 — national importancenot established · dispositive
“the Petitioner has not submitted sufficient supporting evidence corroborating the projected employment and financial figures”
“the Petitioner has not sufficiently demonstrated the proposed endeavor has significant potential to employ U.S. workers or otherwise offer substantial positive economic effects beyond her company and the users of its app”
“merely working in an important field is insufficient to establish the national importance of a proposed endeavor”
“she has not sufficiently demonstrated her endeavor will extend beyond her company's and its users' interests in a manner that has national or global impact”
AAO decision text
How the evidence was treated
- business plan · discounted
“the Petitioner has not submitted sufficient supporting evidence corroborating the projected employment and financial figures”
AAO decision text
Where this case turned
- Business plan speculative · p1 — projections without a documented basis or steps
- Economic claims unsupported · p1 — job/revenue projections with no corroborating basis
- 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 reserved prongs 2 and 3 as unnecessary once prong 1 was found dispositive; decision cites Flores v. Garland (5th Cir. 2023) regarding discretionary nature of NIW grants.
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 L-A-C-
What this case teaches
Analyst reading of the decision text.
A mission everyone credits, financial inclusion for immigrants and the underserved, still failed prong one: the uncorroborated plan projected implausible margins, a handful of employees, and welfare effects that never extended beyond the app's own users.
A socially worthy mission is field-level merit, not national importance; an app's impact stays bounded to its users until evidence shows effects beyond them, and implausible projections poison credibility.
moderate
economic_job_creation · economic_growth_generic · field_advancement
endeavor_focused
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