Who vouches matters more than how many vouch.

Collaborator letters sit on both sides and separate nothing; independent validation concentrates on the win side.

In the denial record

Of recommendation-letter items the AAO discussed in dismissals, 1.4% were credited — items the AAO wrote about, not everything filed.

coded appeal decisions · S57

In the sustained decisions

Independent-expert validation appears in 91% of sustained decisions against 36% of losses; government or national-lab validation 44% against 8%. Collaborator letters — 70% against 55% — barely separate the two.

sustained decisions (n=89) · stratified dismissals (n=202) · S82

Published approvals

348 of 479 cite independent experts; 350 cite citations; 1 name funding; 1 cite media.

of a 479-approval stratified sample of law-firm published approvals

Advertised approvals a firm chose to publish — a story is counted where it advances an argument, not where it proved decisive — and never merged with the appeal record.

Work on this with your AI

Copy this prompt, paste it to your AI assistant, and add your draft where marked.

I am preparing an EB-2 NIW (National Interest Waiver) petition and want you to review a draft against a finding from the public record of NIW decisions.

THE FINDING: Who vouches matters more than how many vouch. Collaborator letters sit on both sides and separate nothing; independent validation concentrates on the win side.

YOUR TASK: Review my letter-writer list. Classify each as collaborator, independent expert, or governmental. Tell me where independent validation is thin and what kind of voucher would strengthen it.

RULES: Work only from what I paste — do not invent facts about me. Do not predict outcomes or estimate chances. Point to specific sentences and propose concrete rewrites.

--- MY DRAFT ---
[Paste your draft here]

The prompt asks your AI to review your own draft against this finding — it never predicts an outcome.

Sources & references

Case setDecisions where letters were discussed and discounted — open in Case Search →

Primary docFOIA’d 2016 USCIS officer-training binder, Letters section — what officers are trained to credit

Insight vaultInsight vault: Letters & independent validation →

Each record describes itself; sustained decisions are the wins inside the appeal record, not a separate population. No figure predicts an individual outcome.

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