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, an electrical technician, proposed to operate her own consulting company providing electrical energy management services in the United States.
Field: electrical energy management / electrical technology · Read the decision (uscis.gov)
EB-2 threshold — addressed
AAO noted in a footnote that the record lacked credential evaluations showing the Petitioner's Brazilian vocational/technical degrees equate to a U.S. bachelor's degree, and that she initially only submitted evidence for exceptional ability, not advanced degree professional status; the AAO reserved this issue as unnecessary to reach since prong one was dispositive.
Prong 1 — national importancenot established · dispositive
“the Petitioner did not establish that her specific proposed endeavor has national importance”
“the Director highlighted the lack of objective evidence to support the staffing projections and figures proposed in the business plan”
“in evaluating the national importance aspect of the Dhanasar's first prong, we focus on the Petitioner's specific endeavor, rather than the field or profession.”
“the Petitioner has not "provided a sufficiently direct connect between her proposed endeavor and any national initiatives."”
AAO decision text
How the evidence was treated
- business plan · discounted
“the lack of objective evidence to support the staffing projections and figures proposed in the business plan”
AAO decision text - other · discounted
“we focus on the Petitioner's specific endeavor, rather than the field or profession”
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
Notable
AAO expressly reserved the threshold EB-2 classification question (unresolved degree-equivalency issue for Brazilian vocational/technical credentials) because prong one was dispositive; also relied on adopt-and-affirm doctrine (Matter of Burbano, Giday v. INS, Chen v. INS) to affirm the Director's reasoning wholesale rather than independently restate it.
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
- Chen v. INS
- Flores v. Garland
- Matter of L-A-C-
What this case teaches
Analyst reading of the decision text.
Petitioner failed to connect her specific proposed endeavor (a personal consulting business) to national importance, relying on field-level articles and unsupported projections instead of endeavor-specific evidence.
Support business/economic projections with objective evidence and tie the specific endeavor, not general field trends, directly to national-scale impact.
vague
economic_job_creation · stem_positive_factor · field_advancement
person_focused
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