The petitioner started a company providing civil engineering, construction management, and sustainability consulting services to corporate entities, developers, builders, and individual clients.

Prong 1 — national importancenot established · dispositive

“The Petitioner provided very general notions of national impacts but did not provide specific information on how his business that services clients and specific companies in a certain area can actually have a national impact.”

“As such, a claimed shortage of professionals alone is not sufficient to establish the national importance of an endeavor.”

“As previously discussed, when evaluating national importance, the relevant question is not the importance of the industry or profession in which the individual will work; instead, we focus on the "the specific endeavor that the foreign national proposes to undertake."”

“However, the plan does not provide sufficient detail of the basis for these projections, or adequately explain how these sales and staffing targets will be realized.”

“Without sufficient evidence regarding the projected U.S. economic impact or job creation directly attributable to her future work, the record does not show that benefits to the regional or national economy resulting from the Petitioner's endeavor would reach the level of "substantial positive economic effects"”

AAO decision text

How the evidence was treated

• business plan · discounted

  “the plan does not provide sufficient detail of the basis for these projections, or adequately explain how these sales and staffing targets will be realized”

  AAO decision text
• resume experience · ignored
• recommendation letter · ignored
• other · discounted

  “The industry reports and articles do not discuss the Petitioner's endeavor, nor do they establish how the benefits provided to his clients would result in broader implications to the field.”

  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
• 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
• 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

AAO explicitly withdrew the Director's finding on substantial merit, finding merit established, but still found national importance lacking and dismissed on that basis alone; decision inconsistently switches between 'he' and 'she' pronouns for the same petitioner.

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 E-M-
• Matter of L-A-C-

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