dismissed EB-2 Case: Information Technology

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
Non-Precedent Decision of the
Administrative Appeals Office 
Date: SEP. 26, 2023 In Re: 28470110 
Appeal of Texas Service Center Decision 
Form 1-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Workers (Advanced Degree) 
The Petitioner, a provider of information technology consulting services, seeks to permanently employ 
the Beneficiary as a principal consultant , ERP. 1 The company requests his classification under the 
employment-based, second preference (EB-2) immigrant visa category as a member of the professions 
holding an "advanced degree" or its equivalent. See Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act) section 
203(b )(2)(A), 8 U.S .C. § 1153(b )(2)(A). U.S. businesses may sponsor noncitizens for permanent 
residence in this category to work in jobs requiring at least bachelor's degrees followed by five years 
of progressive experience in applicable specialties. See 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(k)(2) ( defining the term 
"advanced degree") . 
The Acting Director of the Texas Service Center denied the petition. The Director concluded that the 
Petitioner did not demonstrate the Beneficiary's possession of a bachelor's degree as required for the 
offered job and the requested immigrant visa category . On appeal, the Petitioner submits additional 
evidence and contends that the Director improperly disregarded parts of an expert opinion letter. 
The Petitioner bears the burden of demonstrating eligibility for the requested benefit by a 
preponderance of the evidence. Matter of Chawathe, 25 l&N Dec. 369, 375-76 (AAO 2010). 
Exercising de novo appellate review, see Matter of Christa 's, Inc. , 26 I&N Dec. 537, 537 n.2 (AAO 
2015), we conclude that the company has not established the equivalency of the Beneficiary's three­
year foreign degree to a U.S. baccalaureate. We will therefore dismiss the appeal. 
I. LAW 
Immigration as an advanced degree professional generally follows a three-step process . First, a 
prospective employer must 
obtain certification from the U.S . Department of Labor (DOL) that: there 
are insufficient U.S. workers able, willing, qualified, and available for an offered position; and a 
noncitizen's employment in the position will not harm wages and working conditions of U.S. workers 
with similar jobs . See section 212(a)(5)(D) of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(5)(D). 
Second, an employer must submit a DOL-approved labor certification with an immigrant visa petition 
to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) . See section 204(a)(l)(F) of the Act, 8 U.S.C. 
1 The record indicates that "ERP" stands for enterprise resource planning software. 
§ l 154(a)(l)(F). Among other things, USCIS determines whether a noncitizen beneficiary meets the 
requirements of a DOL-certified position and a requested immigrant visa category. 8 C.F.R. 
§ 204.5(k)(3); Matter of Wing's Tea House, 16 I&N Dec. 158, 160 (Acting Reg'l Comm'r 1977). 
Finally, if USCIS approves a petition, a beneficiary may apply for an immigrant visa abroad or, if 
eligible, "adjustment of status" in the United States. See section 245 of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1255. 
II. ANALYSIS 
An advanced degree professional must have an advanced degree or its equivalent. Section 
203(b)(2)(A) of the Act. The term "advanced degree" means: 
any United States academic or professional degree or a foreign equivalent degree above 
that of baccalaureate. A United States baccalaureate degree or a foreign equivalent 
degree followed by at least five years of progressive experience in the specialty shall 
be considered the equivalent of a master's degree. 
8 C.F.R. § 204.5(k)(2). 
Also, a petitioner must demonstrate that, by a petition's priority date, a beneficiary met all DOL­
certified job requirements on a labor certification. Matter of Wing's Tea House, 16 I&N Dec. 158, 
160 (Acting Reg'l Comm'r 1977). This petition's priority date is April 4, 2022, the date DOL accepted 
the Petitioner's labor certification application for processing. See 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(d) (explaining how 
to determine a petition's priority date). 
When assessing a beneficiary's qualifications, USCIS must examine the job-offer portion of a labor 
certification to determine a job's minimum requirements. USCIS may neither ignore a certification 
term nor impose unstated requirements. See, e.g., Madany v. Smith, 696 F.2d 1008, 1015 (D.C. Cir. 
1983) (holding that "DOL bears the authority for setting the content of the labor certification") 
( emphasis in original). 
The Petitioner's labor certification states the mm1mum requirements of the offered pos1t10n of 
principal consultant, ERP as a U.S. bachelor's degree or a foreign equivalent degree in management 
information systems (MIS), accounting, or a "related" field, plus five years of experience "in the job 
offered" or as a business systems analyst, senior functional consultant, or a related occupation. Also, 
part H.14 of the labor certification - "Specific skills or other requirements" - states that "experience 
must include Oracle Financial tools, SCM, Oracle Costing Modules, SQL, TOAD, XLM Publisher 
and Workflow." 
On the labor certification, the Beneficiary attested that, by the petition's priority date, he received a 
bachelor's degree in accounting. The Petitioner submitted copies of documents from an Indian 
university indicating the Beneficiary's receipt of a three-year bachelor of commerce degree in 1999. 2 
The Petitioner also provided an independent evaluation equating his Indian bachelor's degree to three 
2 On the labor certification, the Beneficiary stated his receipt of a 2007 degree from the Institutb 
I I The record, however, lacks evidence that he has such a credential, or that the issues degrees. 
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years of U.S. college or university studies towards a bachelor of science degree in accounting. The 
record also contains a printout from the Electronic Database for Global Education (EDGE), stating 
that a three-year Indian bachelor of commerce degree equates to three years of U.S. college or 
university studies. Federal judges have found EDGE, an online resource created by the American 
Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, to constitute a reliable source of foreign 
educational equivalencies. See, e.g., Viraj, LLC v. US. Atty Gen., 578 Fed. Appx. 907, 910 (11th Cir. 
2014) (describing EDGE as "a respected source of information"). 
In a request for additional evidence, the Director noted that the record did not indicate the equivalency 
of the Beneficiary's three-year foreign credential to a U.S. bachelor's degree, which usually requires 
four years of full-time, post-secondary studies. See Matter of Shah, 17 I&N Dec. 244, 245 (Reg'l 
Comm'r 1977). The Director therefore asked the Petitioner to submit additional evidence of the 
Beneficiary's possession of the required degree. 
The Petitioner's response included a new educational evaluation from a different evaluator and an 
expert opinion letter from a professor at a Costa Rican university. These documents state the 
equivalency of the Beneficiary's three-year Indian degree to a U.S. bachelor of science degree in MIS. 
Despite the additional evidence, the Director concluded that the Petitioner did not demonstrate the 
Beneficiary's qualifying education for the offered job or the requested immigrant visa category. 
A. The Expert Opinion Letter 
On appeal, the Petitioner contends that the Director improperly disregarded the expert's opinion that 
the Beneficiary's number of university classroom hours of instruction in India demonstrates the 
equivalence of his three-year degree to a U.S. baccalaureate. The record indicates that U.S. 
baccalaureates generally require completion of 120 credit hours. The Beneficiary attested that his 
university in India required him to attend 2,400 classroom hours of instruction to obtain his degree. 
The expert's letter states: 'This [amount] equates to a total of 160 credit hours when converted to the 
United States system." 
We do not find the expert opinion letter to be persuasive, however. First, its conclusion that the 
Beneficiary's three-year foreign credential equates to a U.S. bachelor's degree conflicts with the 
findings of the prior evaluation the Petitioner submitted and the EDGE report. The expert letter states 
that it "supersedes any previous evaluation." But we decline to disregard the prior evaluation and the 
EDGE report submitted by the Petitioner. The immigration service may reject or afford lesser 
evidentiary weight to an advisory opinion that conflicts with other information or is "in any way 
questionable." Matter of Caron Int'!, Inc., 19 I&N Dec. 791, 795 (Comm'r 1988). 
Also, the expert opinion letter miscites information. For example, the letter quotes an article to assert 
that, because U.S. universities admit three-year degree holders from the European Union and Israel 
into master's degree programs, "Indian [three-year] bachelor degree-holders should be provided the 
same opportunity to pursue graduate education in the U.S." See Leo J. Sweeney & Ravi Kallur, "Three 
Year Undergraduate Degrees: Recommendations for Graduate Admission Consideration," ADSEC 
News, 5, Apr. 2005. But the cited article does not suggest that all three-year Indian degrees equate to 
U.S. baccalaureates. Rather, the article proposes only two specific equivalents: a first-class honors 
three-year degree awarded after a secondary degree; and a three-year degree awarded in addition to a 
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post-graduate diploma. The record does not indicate the Beneficiary's receipt of his degree after 
obtaining a secondary degree or his additional receipt of a post-graduate diploma. Thus, the cited 
article does not truly support the Beneficiary's purported possession of the equivalent of a U.S. 
bachelor's degree. 
Also, the expert opinion letter does not demonstrate that lecture hours are an appropriate measure for 
assigning credits in the Indian higher-educational system. The U.S. system presumes two hours of 
individual study time for each classroom hour of post-secondary instruction. See 34 C.F.R. § 600.2 
( defining the term "credit hour"). If India has a different ratio between classroom instruction and 
individual studies, application of the U.S. credit system to Indian classroom hours would be 
inappropriate. 
Further, the expert opinion letter states that the Beneficiary had a different major field of study (MIS) 
than the one indicated in the prior evaluation ( accounting) and does not adequately explain the 
inconsistency. A copy of the Beneficiary's consolidated marks memorandum indicates that half of 
the 14 university subjects he completed relate to accounting, including: Accountancy I; Accountancy 
II; Accountancy III; Cost Accountancy; Auditing; Management Accountancy; and Income Tax. His 
other completed courses include: Business Economics; Industrial Organization Management; Indian 
Heritage and Culture; Business Statistics; Banking Theory and Philosophy; Science and Civilization; 
and Mercantile and Indian Law. Despite the Beneficiary's concentration of accounting courses and 
his lack of classes in information systems, the expert letter concludes that the Beneficiary has the 
equivalent of a U.S. bachelor's degree in MIS. The expert reasons that, because some U.S. MIS 
graduate programs admit students holding degrees in undergraduate commerce, the Beneficiary's 
commerce degree equates to a bachelor's degree in MIS. The letter states: 
The acceptability of a bachelor's degree in commerce as [a] pre-requisite for admission 
to graduate study in MIS at an accredited institution in the United States establishes a 
functional equivalency ... [because] the recognition of a foreign qualification should 
be determined according to its practical utility. 
The expert opinion letter, however, does not adequately explain how the Beneficiary's degree equates 
to a U.S. bachelor of science degree in MIS when the record indicates that he did not complete any 
courses in information systems. This deficiency also casts doubt on the credibility of the expert 
opinion letter as a whole. See Matter ofHo, 19 I&N Dec. 582,591 (BIA 1988) (stating that doubt cast 
on any aspect of a petitioner's proof may lead to a reevaluation of remaining evidence). 
The Petitioner also contends that the Director disregarded the expert's critique of Shah, which the 
Director cited in both the RFE and the decision. In Shah, the Regional Commissioner ruled, in part, 
that the petitioner did not demonstrate the equivalency of a beneficiary's three-year Indian bachelor's 
degree in chemistry to a U.S. baccalaureate in the same field. Matter ofShah, 17 I&N Dec. at 245-
46, 247. The expert's letter contends that the Regional Commissioner erred for various reasons, 
including that he: reviewed incomplete evidence; and disregarded the "intensity" of the beneficiary's 
university instruction in India and his admission into a U.S. university graduate program. 
The Director, however, cited Shah only for the proposition that U.S. bachelor's degrees usually require 
four years of full-time, post-secondary education. See Matter of Shah, 17 I&N Dec. at 245. Other 
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publicly available sources confirm this uncontroversial proposition. See, e.g., Nat'l Ctr. for Educ. 
Statistics, App'x B. Glossary, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/raceindicators/glossary.asp (defining the 
term "bachelor's degree" as a "degree granted for the successful completion of a baccalaureate 
program of studies, usually requiring at least 4 years ( or equivalent) of foll-time college-level study"). 
Thus, even if the Regional Commissioner wrongly decided Shah, the Director correctly found that 
U.S. bachelor's degrees usually require four years of foll-time, post-secondary education. Thus, the 
Director's disregard of this part of the expert's letter is immaterial. 
B. Evidence on Appeal 
The Petitioner also submits an affidavit from a purported former classmate of the Beneficiary 
regarding the number of classroom hours their university required them to complete to obtain their 
bachelor of commerce degrees. We do not consider evidence submitted on appeal, however, if a 
petitioner received a prior request for such evidence and a reasonable opportunity to provide it, and, 
at the time of the request, the evidence was reasonably available. Matter of Soriano, 19 I&N Dec. 
764, 766 (BIA 1988); Matter ofObaigbena, 19 I&N Dec. 533,537 (BIA 1988). 
The Director's RFE asked the Petitioner to submit additional evidence of the Beneficiary's educational 
qualifications and provided the company more than 12 weeks to respond. Thus, the record shows the 
company received adequate notice and opportunity to respond. The Petitioner states that university 
evidence of the Beneficiary's classroom hours is unavailable because his school no longer operates. 
But the company did not provide documentation of the university's purported closure, or assert or 
demonstrate the unavailability of the letter from the Beneficiary's classmate at the time of the RFE. 
Thus, we assume that the letter was reasonably available. We therefore decline to consider it on 
appeal. 
Even if we accepted the letter on appeal, it would not establish the equivalency of the Beneficiary's 
degree to a U.S. bachelor's degree. As previously discussed, the expert opinion letter does not 
persuade us regarding the relevancy of his number of classroom hours in India, particularly where the 
record shows he took no substantive courses in MIS, the claimed major field of study. 
III. CONCLUSION 
The Petitioner has not demonstrated the Beneficiary's educational qualifications for the offered job or 
the requested immigrant visa category. We will therefore affirm the petition's denial. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed. 
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