The petitioner proposed to create and commercialize an AI-driven cybersecurity platform specifically designed to protect women in positions of power and entrepreneurship from gender-specific cyber threats such as harassment, doxxing, and social engineering.

Prong 1 — national importancenot established · dispositive

“merely working in an important field is insufficient to establish the national importance of the proposed endeavor”

“The projections of the Petitioner's company's revenue and job creation as stated in the business plan are unsupported in the record.”

“the business plan does not cite to any reference that supports these projected figures”

“these assertions are generalized claims without independent and objective substantiating evidence”

AAO decision text

How the evidence was treated

• business plan · discounted

  “The projections of the Petitioner's company's revenue and job creation as stated in the business plan are unsupported in the record.”

  AAO decision text
• other · discounted

  “the economic impact report relies on data from an analysis of a different endeavor, a system for patient violence risk assessment in U.S. hospitals”

  AAO decision text
• citations publications · discounted

  “The research articles do not include dates or publication information.”

  AAO decision text
• resume experience · credited
• certification membership · credited

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

Notable

The AAO acknowledged that SCOPS made factual errors in its decision (e.g., referencing a different petitioner's business plan and misattributing articles) but found these errors harmless because SCOPS's ultimate national-importance conclusion was otherwise correct. The AAO also included an alternative-holding footnote stating it would have dismissed the appeal even if it had reached the second and third prongs, despite formally reserving those prongs.

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 L-A-C-
• Matter of O-R-E-
• USCIS Policy Manual F.5(D)(1)
• USCIS Policy Manual F.5(D)(2)

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