The Petitioner, a business consultant, proposed to provide consulting, management, and process implementation advice and educational activities to small and medium-sized, Latino-owned businesses in the United States.

Prong 1 — national importancenot established · dispositive

“the Petitioner improperly relies upon the importance of the industry to establish the national importance of her proposed endeavor”

“it can only be determined that the proposed endeavor's impact will be limited to the clients and the companies it will serve”

“the record does not establish that the Petitioner's proposed endeavor itself will have substantial positive economic effects”

AAO decision text

How the evidence was treated

• other · discounted

  “it does not establish the national importance of the Petitioner's specific proposed endeavor”

  AAO decision text
• recommendation letter · ignored

  “it was also appropriately analyzed under the exceptional ability criteria, even though the exceptional ability analysis was not needed”

  AAO decision text
• degree · credited

Where this case turned

• 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 corrected the Director's erroneous threshold analysis (which had wrongly evaluated exceptional ability instead of advanced degree professional), finding the Petitioner did qualify for EB-2 classification, but still dismissed on prong 1 national importance, reserving prongs 2 and 3.

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-

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• The Petitioner proposed to establish a legal consultancy in the United States focused on alternative dispute resolution