The Petitioner, an oil and gas completions and artificial lift specialist, proposed to develop and deploy AI-powered inventory and procurement systems to reduce downtime, waste, and safety risk in artificial lift systems used in U.S. oil production.

Prong 1 — national importancenot established · dispositive

“The Petitioner submitted ambiguous plans regarding his proposed endeavor, leaving substantial question as to the actual intentions in the United States.”

“The Petitioner also provided insufficiently defined prospective plans and proposed technology rather than concrete business plans and supporting evidence”

“Benefits to a specific company alone, even a company with a national footprint, are not sufficiently relevant to the question of whether a person's endeavor has national importance.”

“However, it is not clear how these company-specific impacts and their savings of $1 million would equate to a potential prospective national impact in the oil and gas industry”

“Generalized conclusory statements that do not identify a specific impact to the field have little probative value.”

“Likewise, the importance of artificial lift systems and the implementation of AI-technology do not establish national importance.”

AAO decision text

How the evidence was treated

• recommendation letter · discounted

  “these letters include little discussion of the specifics of his proposed endeavor and its likelihood of having a potential prospective national level impact”

  AAO decision text
• business plan · discounted

  “The Petitioner also provided insufficiently defined prospective plans and proposed technology rather than concrete business plans”

  AAO decision text
• resume experience · discounted

  “it is not sufficient to establish the national importance of their proposed endeavor”

  AAO decision text
• other · discounted

  “general alignment with, or a mere potential contribution, to matters of national-level interest does not establish that a proposed endeavor is of national importance”

  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
• Employer-specific benefit · p1 — "work furthers my company's product" — value accrues to one firm
• Endeavor too vague · p1 — described as a job role, not a defined undertaking
• Field importance conflated with endeavor · p1 — argues the field matters, not the specific endeavor
• Letters conclusory · p1 — letters praise skills in general terms without tracing specific impact

Notable

AAO cited Flores v. Garland (5th Cir. 2023) regarding the discretionary nature of NIW decisions, and directly compared the Petitioner's evidence to the original Dhanasar petitioner's hypersonic propulsion research to illustrate the shortfall. AAO also discounted a newly submitted expert letter on motion/appeal partly because the expert's background was in medical/rehabilitative technology, not oil and gas.

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. 103.5
• Matter of Ho

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