dismissed EB-1A Case: Oncology

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
In Re: 13212638 
Appeal of Texas Service Center Decision 
Non-Precedent Decision of the 
Administrative Appeals Office 
Date : JAN. 29, 2021 
Form 1-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker (Extraordinary Ability) 
The Petitioner, an oncologist, 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 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. 
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 
international 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 
he or she must provide sufficient qualifying documentation that meets at least three of the ten criteria 
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). 
II. ANALYSIS 
The Petitioner earned his medical degrees a~ I University id._ ___ ___.l China, where he 
has since held positions of increasing authority in the Department of Oncology, including chief 
physician, director, and professor. 
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 Petitioner claims to have met three criteria, summarized below: 
• (iv), Participation as a judge of the work of others; 
• (v), Original contributions of major significance; and 
• (vi), Authorship of scholarly articles. 
The Director concluded that the Petitioner met the two evidentiary criteria numbered (iv) and (vi). On 
appeal, the Petitioner asserts that he also meets the criterion numbered (v). 
After reviewing all of the evidence in the record, we agree with the Director that the Petitioner has 
met only two of the criteria. Below, we address the third claimed criterion. 
Evidence of the alien's original scient#fic, scholarly, artistic, athletic, or business-related 
contributions of major significance in the.field. 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(v) 
In order to satisfy this criterion, the Petitioners must establish that not only has he made original 
contributions, but also that those contributions have been of major significance in the field. For 
example, a petitioner may show that the contributions have been widely implemented throughout the 
field, have remarkably impacted or influenced the field, or have otherwise risen to a level of major 
significance. The phrase "major significance" is not superfluous and, thus, it has some meaning. See 
2 
Silverman v. Eastrich Multiple Investor Fund, L.P., 51 F. 3d 28, 31 (3rd Cir. 1995) quoted inAPWU 
v. Potter, 343 F.3d 619,626 (2nd Cir. Sep 15, 2003). 
The Petitioner claims three qualifying research contributions: 
• He studied "the efficacy of.__ _____________ _. in preventing I 
I I hepatitis B virus (rBV: rearivation"; ~----~ 
• He "identified a series of markers and ) for the prediction of ... 
I lcancers"; and ~-------~ 
• He "discovered that I l . eliminated cancer stem cells and enhanced the efficacy of 
conventional chemotherapeutic drugs, suggesting a novel strategy for overcoming the 
chemoresistance during cancer treatment." 
The Petitioner asserts that the significance of his work is evident through heavy citation of his published 
work and "letters provided by independent experts in his field." As an example of the latter, a letter 
signed by a professor at the University! I Cancer Center includes the following 
passage: 
[The Petitioner] discovered that the reduced expression ofi I was associated with 
chemoresistance and the increased risk of tumor recurrence in patience with I I 
cancer, while the overexpression ofl I suppressed the growth of1 I cancer cells 
and enhanced chemosensitivity. He further elucidated the molecular mechanism and 
demonstrated tha~ I exerted its function mainly through the inhibition of the 
I I pathway. [The Petitioner's findin s identified! las a 
tumor suppressor! I and suggested that th ~------~ axis could serve as 
a valuable therapeutic target for enhancing chemosensitivity and suppressing tumor 
recurrence itj !cancer. 
Apart from the speculative nature of the assertion that the Petitioner's findings "suggested:' what "could 
serve as a valuable therapeutic target," a letter signed by the chairman of the Prostate Cancer Research 
and Education Foundation contains nearly identical wording: 
[The Petitioner] discovered that the reduced expression of~-------~, was 
associated with chemo-resistance and the increased risk of tumor recurrence in patience 
with! 0 I cancer, while the overexpression ofl I su pressed the growth o~ I 
cancer cells and enhanced chemo-sensitivi wit exerting its function mainly 
through the inhibition of the,__ ________ __,pathway. This work highlighted 
thel I axis as a valuable therapeutic target for enhancing chemo 
sensitivity and suppressing tumor recurrence inl I cancer. 
These similarities strongly suggest common authorship. See Mei Chai Ye v. US. Dep 't. of Justice, 
489 F .3d 51 7, 519 (2d Cir. 2007) ( concluding that an immigration judge may reasonably infer that 
when an asylum applicant submits strikingly similar affidavits, the applicant is the common source). 
In evaluating the evidence, the truth is to be determined not by the quantity of evidence alone but by 
its quality. See Matter ofChawathe, 25 I&N Dec. 369,376 (AAO 2010) (quoting Matter of E-M-, 20 
3 
I&N Dec. 77, 80 (Comm'r 1989). This evidence necessarily raises questions about who actually wrote 
(rather than signed) the other submitted letters. 
The remaining letters describe different work by the Petitioner, but fit the same pattern of describing 
specific findings in technical detail without explaining how they are of major significance (rather than 
merely interesting or useful). For instance, an assistant professor at the Universit~ I states 
that the Petitioner "identified the underlying mechanism b] whicH I suppressed the transcription 
oft I by increasing th~._ _________ __. promoter," but does not explain why this 
particular finding is more significant than the findings published in many other articles each year. 
A senior scientist at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration states that the Petitioner's "work has been 
adopted by the I I and the,___ ___________ __, 
~---------- ...... in their guidelines for international physicians," but does not elaborate. 
Other documents in the record show that the Petitioner is a co-author of one of 60 articles cited in the 
bibliography of an article in a~ ljoumal, establishing ~------r--.----~' for I I 
' and one of more than 200 articles cited in an article in a journal, setting forth 
" Thel I article ~------------------------,-----r--~ cites the Petitioner's paper to support the observation that "~ __ __. is more effective than 
I I for the prevention of HBV reactivation associated with I I 
chemoimmunotherapy." The0, article cites the Petitioner's work to show that "recent studies 
suggest thatl ~ can be successfully usld in rrronic HBV] patients." The record does not 
include information from either thd I or the which would support a finding that citations 
of this type are indicative of contributions of major significance. Because each article cites dozens or 
hundreds of sources for guidelines on relatively narrow topics, it is reasonable to infer that the 
organizations' complete guidelines rely on a substantially greater number of sources. 
The articles establishing the clinical guidelines do not indicate that the Petitioner developed the drugs 
discussed, or discovered new applications for them. Rather, they cite an article in which the Petitioner 
and his collaborators discussed a clinical trial of drugs already in use to treat hepatitis B. The record 
shows that the citation rate of the Petitioner's article places it among the top 1 % of articles in its field 
from 2014. This is not an insignificant citation rate, but the record does not sufficiently establish the 
nature and extent of the Petitioner's contributions to the paper. The Petitioner was one of 15 authors 
of the paper, which described a clinical trial involving more than 60 patients~--------~ 
I I Given the size of the undertaking, the burden is on the Petitioner to specify the nature of his 
involvement in the study. There is no presumption that he conceived, designed, or directed the study, 
rather than received author credit by virtue of treating and collecting data from some of the patients 
involved in the study. We note that, although various individuals have signed letters on the Petitioner's 
behalf, the principal authors of the highly-cited articles are not among those individuals. 
On appeal, the Petitioner states that three of his other articles have amassed citations placing them in 
the top 1 % for their respective years of publication. For the reasons discussed below, these articles do 
not establish that the Petitioner has made original contributions of major significance: 
• The Petitioner is one of 10 authors of a 2010 article describing a clinical trial that spanned 
several institutions and involved 140 patients. The record establishes that the Petitioner was 
4 
one of several participating physicians, but does not specify the nature of his contributions to 
the study described in the paper. 
• A 2014 article about I I profiling and I I cancer. The Petitioner previously 
submitted the first page of this article among many other examples of his work, but did not 
discuss this article. The submitted letters do not mention the research behind this article. On 
appeal, the Petitioner does not explain how it relates to any of the three identified contributions 
that he specifically claims to be of major significance. 
• A 2017 article associating the reduced expression o~~--~lwith chemoresistance. This article, 
which we discussed above, is the subject of the passage that appeared in more than one letter. 
This article has a much lower citation count, but reached the top 1 % of citations because it was 
published less than two years before the petition's September 2018 filing date, and even low 
citation numbers can reach high percentages in the time immediately following publication. 
The Petitioner has not presented a consistent, specific, and fully corroborated claim regarding the 
significance of his contributions. Therefore, the Petitioner has not satisfied the requirements of the 
criterion at 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(v). 
III. CONCLUSION 
The Petitioner has not submitted the required initial evidence of either a one-time achievement or 
documents that meet at least three of the ten criteria. As a result, we need not provide the type of final 
merits determination referenced in Kazarian, 596 F.3d at 1119-20. Nevertheless, we advise that we 
have reviewed the record in the aggregate, concluding that it does not support a conclusion that the 
Petitioner has established the acclaim and recognition required for the classification sought. 
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. In this instance, the 
Petitioner has satisfied the plain wording of two of the regulatory criteria through activities that are 
routine in the field of medical research - specifically, authorship of scholarly articles and peer review 
of articles written by others. A few of his co-authored articles have received a significant number of 
citations, but, as explained above, the Petitioner has not shown that his specific contributions to those 
papers are of major significance in the field. Participation in an influential study does not inherently 
meet this high threshold. Letters submitted to support the petition describe the findings from some of 
the Petitioner's papers, but do not detail the Petitioner's contributions to those articles or establish 
their significance other than in general and speculative terms. Furthermore, as discussed above, the 
provenance of the letters is questionable. 
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 )(1 )(A) of the Act. Moreover, the record does not otherwise demonstrate that the Petitioner is 
among the small percentage who has risen to the very top of the field of endeavor. See section 
203(b)(l)(A) of the Act and 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(2). 
5 
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. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed. 
G