dismissed EB-1A Case: Chemistry

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
In Re : 5962784 
Appeal of Texas Service Center Decision 
Non-Precedent Decision of the 
Administrative Appeals Office 
Date : JAN. 16, 2020 
Form I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker (Extraordinary Ability) 
The Petitioner , a research chemist, seeks classification as an alien of extraordinary ability . See 
Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act) section 203(b)(l)(A) , 8 U.S.C. § 1153(b)(l)(A). This first 
preference classification makes immigrant visas available to those who can demonstrate their 
extraordinary ability through sustained national or international acclaim and whose achievements have 
been recognized in their field through extensive documentation . 
The Director of the Texas Service Center denied the petition , concluding that the record did not 
establish that the Petitioner had satisfied at least three of ten initial evidentiary criteria , as required. 
The Director also found that the Petitioner did not establish that his entry into the United States will 
substantially benefit prospectively the United States. The matter is now before us on appeal. 
In these proceedings , it is the Petitioner's burden to establish eligibility for the requested benefit. 
Section 291 of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1361. Upon de nova review, we will dismiss the appeal. We 
decline the Petitioner's request for oral argument. 8 C.F.R. § 103.3(b). 
I. LAW 
Section 203(b )(1 )(A) of the Act makes immigrant visas available to aliens with extraordinary ability 
if: 
(i) the alien has extraordinary ability in the sciences , arts, education , business , or 
athletics which has been demonstrated by sustained national or international 
acclaim and whose achievements have been recognized in the field through 
extensive documentation , 
(ii) the alien seeks to enter the United States to continue work in the area of 
extraordinary ability , and 
(iii) the alien's entry into the United States will substantially benefit prospectively the 
United States . 
The term "extraordinary ability" refers only to those individuals in "that small percentage who have 
risen to the very top of the field of endeavor." 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(2). The implementing regulation 
at 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3) sets forth a multi-part analysis. First, a petitioner can demonstrate sustained 
acclaim and the recognition of his or her achievements in the field through a one-time achievement 
(that is, a major, internationally recognized award). If that petitioner does not submit this evidence, 
then they must provide sufficient qualifying documentation that meets at least three of the ten 
categories listed at 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(i)-(x) (including items such as awards, published material 
in certain media, and scholarly articles). 
Where a petitioner meets these initial evidence requirements, we then consider the totality of the 
material provided in a final merits determination and assess whether the record shows sustained 
national or international acclaim and demonstrates that the individual is among the small percentage 
at the very top of the field of endeavor. See Kazarian v. USCIS, 596 F.3d 1115 (9th Cir. 2010) 
( discussing a two-part review where the documentation is first counted and then, if fulfilling the 
required number of criteria, considered in the context of a final merits determination); see also 
Visinscaia v. Beers, 4 F. Supp. 3d 126, 131-32 (D.D.C. 2013); Rijal v. USCIS, 772 F. Supp. 2d 1339 
(W.D. Wash. 2011). This two-step analysis is consistent with our holding that the "truth is to be 
determined not by the quantity of evidence alone but by its quality," as well as the principle that we 
examine "each piece of evidence for relevance, probative value, and credibility, both individually and 
within the context of the totality of the evidence, to determine whether the fact to be proven is probably 
true." Matter of Chawathe, 25 I&N Dec. 369, 376 (AAO 2010). 
II. ANALYSIS 
The Petitioner earned his bachelor's degree at the University ofl [ and his doctorate at 
the University o~ I, where he was working as a postdoctoral research~ 
time he filed the petition. He later began working as a research associate at the University ofl____J 
I I The record does not reveal his current employment. 1 
A. Evidentiary Criteria 
Because the Petitioner has not indicated or established that he has received a major, internationally 
recognized award, he must satisfy at least three of the alternate regulatory criteria at 
8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(i)-(x). The Director found that the Petitioner met two of the ten evidentiary 
criteria: the fourth, relating to judging the work of others, and the sixth, relating to authorship of 
scholarly articles. On appeal, the Petitioner asserts that he also meets the third criterion, relating to 
published material about the alien, and the fifth, relating to original contributions of major 
significance. After reviewing all of the evidence in the record, we find that the Petitioner has also 
satisfied the fifth criterion, relating to original contributions of major significance in the field. 
The Petitioner states that "two of his notable discoveries" are "a new method of decontaminating! 
I I in water" and "a ~ cluster having a guest-host relationship," the latter of which~"h_a_s~ 
1 In September 2018, the Petitioner submitted printouts fron:C7's website, identifying him as a research associate there. 
The web addresses of the submitted printouts are http:I I and https:/.__ _____ __, 
As of December 2019, those pages are no longer available, indicating that the Petitioner left 
that institution. 
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significant medical, commercial, and environmental applications." Professors fromD and D 
provided technical details about the nature of the Petitioner's contributions to those discoveries, and 
one of the scholarly articles arising from his research at D has been heavily cited, indicating 
widespread attention from others in the field. The record sufficiently establishes the nature and 
~cance of contributions that the Petitioner made to research connected to his doctoral research at 
L_J and we withdraw the Director's contrary finding. 
As the Petitioner has demonstrated that he satisfies three criteria, we will evaluate the totality of the 
evidence in the context of the final merits determination below. 
B. Final Merits Determination 
As the Petitioner submitted the reqms1te initial evidence, we will evaluate whether he has 
demonstrated, by a preponderance of the evidence, his sustained national or international acclaim and 
that he is one of the small percentage at the very top of the field of endeavor, and that his achievements 
have been recognized in the field through extensive documentation. In a final merits determination, 
we analyze a petitioner's accomplishments and weigh the totality of the evidence to determine if their 
successes are sufficient to demonstrate that they have extraordinary ability in the field of endeavor. 
See section 203(b)(l)(A)(i) of the Act; 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(2), (3); see also Kazarian, 596 F.3d at 
1119-20. 2 In this matter, we determine that the Petitioner has not shown his eligibility. 
During this proceeding, the Petitioner has noted the citation of his published work. The Petitioner's 
research while he was a doctoral student at~ led to a heavily-cited article published in the Journal of 
the American Chemical Society (JACS) in 2011. One such article, however, does not establish a pattern 
of producing heavily-cited research consistent with the sustained acclaim that the statute demands. At 
the time of filing, no other article by the Petitioner had accumulated more than 14 citations. The Petitioner 
contends that even the less-cited articles have been "cited at a rate far exceeding the average." The 
classification requires an individual to be at the very top of the field, which is a much higher threshold 
than "exceeding the average." 
The Petitioner states that his "major scientific contributions have provoked widespread commentary," but 
the Petitioner identifies only one source of this claimed commentary. Shortly after the Petitioner's most­
cited article appeared in JA CS, it was "the subject of a feature article within the newsletter of the American 
Chemical Society, Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN)." 
The Director noted that the Petitioner's name does not appear in the C&EN article, and therefore that 
article cannot contribute to the Petitioner's acclaim in the field. Furthermore, as the Petitioner has 
acknowledged, the American Chemical Society (ACS) publishes both the JACS and C&EN. Therefore, 
the C&EN article essentially amounts to a promotional press release, by which the ACS informed ACS 
members of a new article in an ACS journal. On appeal, the Petitioner maintains that C&EN "is not 
marketing material," but he has not shown that his 2011 JA CS article attracted any media attention beyond 
2 See also USCTS Policy Memorandum PM 602-0005.1, Evaluation of Evidence Submitted with Certain Form T-140 
Petitions; Revisions to the Adjudicator's Field Manual ( AFM) Chapter 22.2, AFM Update AD 11-14 4 (Dec. 22, 2010), 
https://www.uscis.gov/policymanual/HTML/PolicyManual.html (stating that USCIS officers should then evaluate the 
evidence together when considering the petition in its entirety to determine if the petitioner has established, by a 
preponderance of the evidence, the required high level of expertise for the immigrant classification). 
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its own publisher (the ACS). A single ten-sentence article does not support the Petitioner's contention 
that "his work has been discussed in detail by major trade publications." 
The Petitioner's earlier work aO led to a patent application, filed in 2011 and approved in 2013. The 
Petitioner is the third of three named co-authors of that application. The patent concerned a B I I compound" that could be used to removel I contaminants, for example i 
I I. The record attests more to the potential of this work than to its existing, demonstrated impact. 
A patent attests to an invention's originality, but not to its impact, importance, or recognition. 
Asked to establish the extent, if any, to which mining companies have actuall~ been usinJ. the patented 
technology, the Petitioner showed that D licensed the patent to I , which then 
assigned the license to I I an environmental remediation company. The Petitioner asserts 
that this license shows that the "patent is being used by one of the world's leading sustainable technologies 
companies to remediatel I" 
The record indicates that I I and I I did not specifically seek to license the 
patent to which the Petitioner contributed. Rather, that license fell under a larger agreement that had been 
in place since 2006, before the Petitioner worked on the project. An article published in Johnson Matthey 
Technology Review referred to the Petitioner's patent and stated: I I 
'---------------~----------'" This article was published in 2015, 
several years after the Petitioner left The article has no author credit, but it begins with biographical 
information about a D professor and ends with an ackno~ent of ~aduate student's "work 
on this project," suggesting that the article originated fromL_J The record shows thatl I 
has sought to commercialize several years of research results from D including but not limited to the 
Petitioner's contributions to that research. The record does not show that the Petitioner's involvement in 
research atO has resulted in sustained national or international acclaim, or placed him at the top of his 
field. Rather, the Petitioner appears to have been one of many productive contributors to an ongoing 
research program that predated his work atO and continued after he left that institution. 
The Petitioner asserts that the Director should have given more weight to letters from various individuals 
in the Petitioner's field. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) may, in its discretion, use 
as advisory opinions statements from universities, professional organizations, or other sources 
submitted in evidence as expert testimony. Matter of Caron Int'!, 19 I&N Dec. 791, 795 (Comm'r. 
1988). However, USCIS is ultimately responsible for making the final determination regarding a 
foreign national's eligibility. The submission of letters from experts supporting the petition is not 
presumptive evidence of eligibility. Id. His selection of individuals who are familiar with his work 
does not imply that his work is known widely enough to be consistent with national or international 
acclaim. The Petitioner has not shown that these individuals, most of whom have personally 
supervised the Petitioner's research, represent a consensus or representative cross-section of his field. 
Also, the letters focused on the significance of P.articular contributions. For example, an associate 
professor au !Technological University,! I discussed the Petitioner's patent and a 
more recent article regarding l f The Petitioner's Ph.D. thesis advisor at 
I lstated that the Petitioner's technical expertise "gives him a singular value to the field that few 
other scientists can replicate." These individuals offered the subjective assessment that the Petitioner's 
discoveries are of the highest caliber, but this is not tantamount to sustained national or international 
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acclaim at the very top of the field. Likewise, the Petitioner's peer review work is indicative of subject 
matter expertise rather than sustained national or international acclaim. His Ph.D. thesis advisor is 
also the editor-in-chief of one of the journals for which he has peer-reviewed manuscripts. 
The submitted evidence shows that the Petitioner's graduate study and postdoctoral training have been 
productive, and have resulted in some important findings, but the Petitioner has not established that 
he has earned sustained national or international acclaim, or that he has reached the very top of his 
field. 
Because the Petitioner has not reached the threshold requirement of sustained acclaim, we need not 
address the Director's secondary finding substantial prospective benefit to the United States. We 
therefore reserve that issue. 
III. CONCLUSION 
The Petitioner seeks a highly restrictive visa classification, intended for individuals already at the top 
of their respective fields, rather than for individuals progressing toward the top. USCIS has long held 
that even athletes performing at the major league level do not automatically meet the "extraordinary 
ability" standard. Matter of Price, 20 I&N Dec. 953,954 (Assoc. Comm'r 1994). Here, the Petitioner 
has not shown that the significance of his work is indicative of the required sustained national or 
international acclaim or that it is consistent with a "career of acclaimed work in the field" as 
contemplated by Congress. H.R. Rep. No. 101-723, 59 (Sept. 19, 1990); see also section 203(b )(l)(A) 
of the Act. Moreover, the record does not otherwise demonstrate that the Petitioner has garnered 
national or international acclaim in the field, and he is one of the small percentage who has risen to 
the very top of the field of endeavor. See section 203(b )(1 )(A) of the Act and 8 C.F .R. § 204.5(h)(2). 
Here, the Petitioner has shown that, during his training, he belonged to research teams performing 
important work, but he has not established that he set the direction for that work or made findings that 
the teams would not have made without him. 
For the reasons discussed above, the Petitioner has not demonstrated his eligibility as an individual of 
extraordinary ability. The appeal will be dismissed for the above stated reasons, with each considered 
as an independent and alternate basis for the decision. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed. 
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