The Petitioner, a financial manager, planned to offer accounting, controllership, business restructuring, auditing, and cross-border financial consulting services to U.S. businesses, including coordinating business activities between the U.S. and Latin America.

Prong 1 — national importancenot established · dispositive

“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."”

“this fact alone is insufficient to establish that the services the Petitioner plans to offer will benefit the U.S. economy, labor market, or financial industry on such a scale as to rise to the level of national importance”

“The Petitioner has not offered the names of any specific organizations that he will work with or how he will provide his financial services to U.S. companies.”

“we conclude that generalized conclusory statements that do not identify a specific impact in the field have little probative value”

“there is little indication from the letters that his achievements impacted the field of financial management as a whole”

“we conclude they are not substantiated with evidence”

“the record does not show that benefits to the U.S. regional or national economy resulting from the Petitioner's projects would reach the level of "substantial positive economic effects" contemplated by Dhanasar”

AAO decision text

How the evidence was treated

• recommendation letter · discounted

  “generalized conclusory statements that do not identify a specific impact in the field have little probative value”

  AAO decision text
• other · discounted

  “the evaluators' opinions are of little probative value as they have not offered sufficient evidence to substantiate them”

  AAO decision text
• resume experience · discounted

  “the authors' examples of the Petitioner's past success do not suggest that the Petitioner's impact extended beyond the businesses he worked with”

  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
• Letters conclusory · p1 — letters praise skills in general terms without tracing specific impact
• Letters not independent · p1 — letters come from employers and close collaborators, not independent experts

Notable

AAO treated two university-affiliated 'advisory opinion' evaluators similarly to recommendation letters, discounting both for lacking specificity about the endeavor's broader impact; case turned entirely on prong 1's national importance requirement with prongs 2 and 3 expressly reserved.

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
• INA 203(b)(2)
• Matter of L-A-C-
• Matter of V-K-

Cases in adjacent profiles

• The Petitioner proposed to work as an IT consultant in the United States, providing cybersecurity and digital transforma
• The petitioner proposed to establish his own company providing specialized business consultancy, auditing, and training
• The petitioner proposed to work as a consultant engineer through his own company, specializing in development projects t
• The Petitioner proposed to start a project management consultancy in the United States that would help small and mid-siz
• The Petitioner proposed to establish a legal consultancy in the United States focused on alternative dispute resolution