dismissed EB-2 NIW Case: Business Consulting

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
Non-Precedent Decision of the
Administrative Appeals Office 
Date: AUG. 28, 2023 In Re: 28081750 
Appeal of Texas Service Center Decision 
Form I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Workers (National Interest Waiver) 
The Petitioner, a manager and lawyer, seeks classification as a member of the professions holding an 
advanced degree. See Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act) section 203(b )(2), 8 U.S.C. 
§ 1153(b )(2). The Petitioner also seeks a national interest waiver of the job offer requirement that is 
attached to this EB-2 immigrant classification. See section 203(b )(2)(B)(i) of the Act. U.S. 
Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) may grant this discretionary waiver of the required job 
offer, and thus of a labor certification , when it is in the national interest to do so. 
The Director of the Texas Service Center denied the petition , concluding that the record did not 
establish that the Petitioner qualifies for the national interest waiver. The matter is now before us on 
appeal. 8 C.F.R. § 103.3. 
The Petitioner bears the burden of proof to demonstrate eligibility by a preponderance of the evidence . 
Matter ofChawath e, 25 I&N Dec. 369, 375-76 (AAO 2010). We review the questions in this matter 
de nova. Matter of Christa 's, Inc., 26 I&N Dec. 537, 537 n.2 (AAO 2015). Upon de nova review , 
we will dismiss the appeal. 
I. LAW 
To qualify for a national interest waiver , a petitioner must first show eligibility for the underlying 
EB-2 visa classification , as either an advanced degree professional or an individual of exceptional 
ability in the sciences , arts, or business. Section 203(b )(2)(B)(i) of the Act. 
Once a petitioner demonstrates EB-2 eligibility, they must then establish that they merit a discretionary 
waiver of the job offer requirement "in the national interest." Section 203(b )(2)(B)(i) of the Act. 
While neither the statute nor the pertinent regulations define the term "national interest ," Matter of 
Dhanasar , 26 I&N Dec. 884, 889 (AAO 2016), provides the framework for adjudicating national 
interest waiver petitions . Dhana sar states that USCIS may, as matter of discretion, 1 grant a national 
interest waiver if the petitioner demonstrates that: 
1 See also Poursina v. USCIS, 936 F.3d 868 (9th Cir. 2019) (finding USCIS' decision to grant or deny a national interest 
waiver to be discretionary in nature). 
• The proposed endeavor has both substantial merit and national importance; 
• The individual is well positioned to advance their proposed endeavor; and 
• On balance, waiving the job offer requirement would benefit the United States. 
II. ANALYSIS 
The Director made no determination as to whether the Petitioner qualifies as a member of the 
professions holding an advanced degree or as an individual of exceptional ability. The decision only 
addressed the Petitioner's eligibility for a national interest waiver. Therefore, the issue for 
consideration on appeal is whether the Petitioner has established that a waiver of the requirement of a 
job offer, and thus a labor certification, would be in the national interest. The Director concluded that 
the Petitioner had established the substantial merit of the proposed endeavor and that the Petitioner is 
well positioned to advance the proposed endeavor, but the Petitioner had not shown the national 
importance of the proposed endeavor. The Director made no determination regarding the third 
Dhanasar prong, concerning whether, on balance, a waiver of the job offer requirement would benefit 
the United States. For the reasons discussed below, we conclude that the Petitioner has not sufficiently 
demonstrated the national importance of her proposed endeavor under the first prong of the Dhanasar 
analytical framework. We will also withdraw the Director's conclusion that the Petitioner satisfied 
the second Dhanasar prong by showing that she is well positioned to advance the proposed endeavor. 
The Petitioner holds degrees in education and law. From 2000 to 2007, the Petitioner worked as a 
pedagogical coordinator for "a company providing services in the field of educational computing." 
From 2003 to 2019, a holding company that manages several fast food restaurants in Brazil employed 
the Petitioner as executive director, and later as a lawyer. In late 2018 and 2019, while still employed 
by the restaurant company, she was also general and operations manager and a lawyer at a law firm. 
The Petitioner most recently entered the United States in November 2019 as a B-2 nonimmigrant 
visitor, later changing status to that of an F-1 nonimmigrant student. When she filed the petition in 
December 2021, the Petitioner did not claim any employment experience in the United States. 
The Petitioner described her proposed endeavor. Errors in the original text have not been changed: 
My proposed endeavor is to own and operate an Immigrants Entrepreneurship Support 
Solutions Office ... , in order to provide immigrant's personal and business consulting 
and advisory .... 
Immigrants Entrepreneurship Suppo1i Solutions Office will handle all aspects of 
immigrant's personal management, such as access to basic North-American 
documents, personal and family location, accessibility to higher education; 
immigration consultancy and advice in the USA, such as visas and questions of 
nationality; immigrants business consulting and advisory, such as remodeling existing 
business and developing new business. 
A business plan submitted with the petition indicates that the proposed endeavor would be: 
focused on the following sectors: immigrant individuals and companies created or to 
be created by immigrants. This office will provide consultancy and advisory [sic] on 
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general personal immigrant regularization and Latin-American immigrant business 
development inl IVirginia. In addition, the office will provide online training 
services for general regularization of immigrant individuals and corporations 
throughout the United States of America. 
A. Substantial Merit and National Importance 
The first Dhanasar prong, substantial merit and national importance, focuses on the specific endeavor 
that the individual proposes to unde1iake. The endeavor's merit may be demonstrated in a range of 
areas such as business, entrepreneurialism, science, technology, culture, health, or education. In 
determining whether the proposed endeavor has national importance, we consider its potential 
prospective impact. Matter ofDhanasar, 26 I&N Dec. at 889. 
The Petitioner submitted an advisory letter from an associate teaching professor at ~I----~ 
University School of Law. We may, in our discretion, consider advisory opinion statements as expert 
testimony. But when an opinion conflicts with other information or is in any way questionable, we 
are not required to accept that evidence, and may give it less weight. Matter of Caron Int'!, Inc., 
19 I&N Dec. 791 (Comm'r 1988). 
The description of the proposed endeavor in the advisory letter is significantly different from the 
Petitioner's own description. The advisory letter indicates that the Petitioner "will use her experience 
in immigration advisory [sic]," but in her own statement and resume, the Petitioner did not claim to 
have any experience as an immigration lawyer, advisor, or consultant. Her business plan emphasizes 
"experience ... in the areas of human resources, legal and training." 
The advisory letter indicates that "[t]he U.S. Commercial Service recommends that U.S. firms, with 
no physical presence in Brazil, partner with Brazilian firms before entering the market." The letter 
also states that the proposed endeavor will "help small and medium-sized enterprises in the U.S. 
improve operations and achieve better productivity and profitability levels." The relevance of these 
statement is not clear. The Petitioner herself did not claim that she intends to help optimize small and 
medium-sized U.S. businesses, or to operate a "Brazilian firm" to help "U.S. firms" seeking to 
establish a presence in Brazil. Rather, she stated that she seeks to establish an "Immigrants 
Entrepreneurship Support Solutions Office" inl IVirginia, providing "personal and business 
consulting and advisory [sic]" to immigrants. 
Likewise, the business plan includes a table listing the services that the Petitioner's company will 
provide. That table does not include providing services to U.S. companies seeking to expand into 
Brazil. Rather, its items include "Immigration Consultancy and Advisory in the USA" and 
"Immigrants business consultancy and Advisory inl IV A." The business plan specifies "a 
focus on the Latin-American community, as well as consultancy and advisory services for businesses 
of immigrants who already reside in the region ofl !Virginia." 
This stated "focus on .. .I Iwould tend to limit the wider impact of the proposed endeavor. 
The business plan also refers to "on line training services for general regularization of individuals and 
corporations throughout the United States," but provides few details about these services. The 
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Petitioner has not explained how, or shown that, this element of her proposed endeavor would have a 
significant impact on the immigrant community at a national level. 
The Petitioner stated that her proposed endeavor "will directly create 5 new job opportunities in the 
US," while "[u]pdated employment multipliers" project about 29 "indirect jobs." The Petitioner 
asse1ied that her services would "creat[ e] a chain ofjob creation," leading to fmiher tax revenue. The 
proposed direct employees would consist of a receptionist, an audio/video technician, and two 
paralegals. The Petitioner provided statistics about the immigrant community in thel Iarea, 
but did not estimate the impact her proposed endeavor would have on that community. The estimates 
in the business plan focus, instead, on the company's planned income. The Petitioner did not show 
that the aggregate benefit to individual clients would have national importance. 
With respect to the claimed indirect jobs, the cited figure of 29 jobs appears to be a rough estimate 
based on "multipliers" averaged from all "[p ]rofessional, scientific, and technical services," rather 
than any specific analysis of the Petitioner's particular proposed endeavor. Later, in response to a 
notice of intent to deny (NOID), the Petitioner cited different statistics to project about 10 indirect 
jobs, about a third of the initial projection. The Petitioner did not address or resolve this discrepancy. 
Even then, the Petitioner did not establish that the direct and possible indirect jobs would have a 
significant or substantial economic impact consistent with national importance. Dhanasar does not 
state that every employment-generating endeavor has national importance. Rather, it states: "An 
endeavor that has significant potential to employ U.S. workers or has other substantial positive 
economic effects ... may well be understood to have national importance." The burden is on the 
Petitioner to establish these effects. 
The Petitioner's response to the NOID largely repeated prior assertions, already addressed above, and 
also included statistics about small businesses in the United States. The Petitioner has not claimed 
that her proposed endeavor will affect all small businesses in the United States. Rather, her stated 
focus is on immigrant-owned businesses in thel larea. 
The Petitioner also cited statistics about the field of management consulting. General statements about 
a particular field do not establish the national importance of the work of one individual in that field. 
Congress did not exempt management consultants from the statutory job offer requirement. 
The Director denied the petition, stating that the Petitioner had not shown that significant benefit from 
her proposed endeavor would extend beyond her own clients "to impact the industry or field more 
broadly." 
On appeal, the Petitioner submits a brief consisting largely of arguments and asse1iions previously 
submitted in the business plan and in response to the NOID, and thus already addressed above. The 
Petitioner cites additional figures relating to small businesses, but does not explain how her proposed 
endeavor will affect small businesses that are not her clients. 
The Petitioner also states that current USCIS policy gives special consideration to entrepreneurs. This 
policy, however, does not broadly or presumptively exempt entrepreneurs from the statutory job offer 
requirement. Rather, it calls for flexibility in evaluating the evidence in each case, while affirming 
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that entrepreneurs must submit evidence to satisfy all the Dhanasar prongs. The USCIS Policy Manual 
states that "many entrepreneurial endeavors are measured in terms ofrevenue generation, profitability, 
valuations, cash flow, or customer adoption," but "other metrics may be of equal importance." See 
generally 6 USCIS Policy Manual F.5(D)(4), https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual. This guidance 
does not indicate that a petitioner meets the Dhanasar prongs simply by submitting estimates or 
projections about revenue and other factors. Rather, we must weigh those claims, while also 
evaluating the corroborating evidence. The Petitioner has not shown that her projections rise to the 
level of national impmiance. The Petitioner submits statistics about local unemployment rates and tax 
revenue, but has not shown that her proposed endeavor will significantly improve the cited figures. 
The appeal includes the new claim that the Petitioner will locate her business in 
I I The Petitioner cites unemployment statistics regarding Hopewell and~su_rr_o_u_n_d_1-_n_g_a_r_e_a-s,~ 
but she does not show that her proposed endeavor would have a significant or substantial impact on 
unemployment, either locally or nationally. 
For the reasons discussed above, the Petitioner has not established the national importance of her 
proposed endeavor. 
B. Well Positioned to Advance the Proposed Endeavor 
The second Dhanasar prong shifts the focus from 
the proposed endeavor to the individual. To 
determine whether an individual is well positioned to advance the proposed endeavor, we consider 
factors including, but not limited to: their education, skills, knowledge and record of success in related 
or similar efforts; a model or plan for future activities; any progress towards achieving the proposed 
endeavor; and the interest of potential customers, users, investors, or other relevant entities or 
individuals. Matter ofDhanasar, 26 I&N Dec. at 890. 
In this case, the Director concluded, without further explanation, that the Petitioner has established 
that she is well positioned to advance her proposed endeavor. We disagree. 
A significant part of the Petitioner's proposed endeavor involves providing consultation to "Latin­
Americans who want to immigrate regularly or who have already immigrated and are in an irregular 
situation," meaning undocumented status. The Petitioner, however, claims no prior experience or 
training in U.S. immigration law. Instead, the business plan cites the Petitioner's "experience as 
General Manager of Operations in the areas of human resources, legal and training," all of which took 
place in Brazil. The Petitioner's law school transcript, in the record, does not show any courses in 
immigration law. While documents in the record indicate the Petitioner is an F-1 nonimmigrant 
student, those documents specify her course of study as English as a second language, rather than law. 
In response to the NOID, the Petitioner stated that the law firm where she worked for about a year 
"focused on law for Brazilian immigrants and their settling in Portugal." The Petitioner did not claim 
or establish that Portuguese immigration law is similar enough to U.S. immigration law that her 
experience with one conveyed a working knowledge of the other. 
The Petitioner has not documented what steps, if any, she has taken to secure either bar membership 
in a U.S. jurisdiction, certification as a foreign legal consultant in the Commonwealth of Virginia, or 
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accreditation as a representative by the Board of Immigration Appeals. As a result, the Petitioner has 
not established that she is, or has taken steps to become, lawfully qualified to provide immigration 
services in Virginia. 
The Petitioner has not established that she has education, skills, knowledge and a record of success in 
efforts related or similar to immigration consulting. 
For the above reasons, the Petitioner has not shown, by a preponderance of the evidence, that she is 
well positioned to advance a proposed endeavor that involves providing legal advice relating to 
immigration. Also, the Petitioner has not established the nature or extent of her past experience 
helping individual entrepreneurs to establish or strengthen their businesses. 
The Petitioner's response to the NOID includes a copy of a certificate from ServSafe, indicating that 
she had passed the "Food Protection Manager Certification Examination." The Petitioner took this 
examination in August 2022, eight months after she filed the petition. Therefore, this certification 
cannot establish eligibility at the time she filed the petition, as required by 8 C.F .R. § 103 .2(b)(1 ). 
Furthermore, although the Petitioner claimed that the certification "demonstrate[s her] ability to assist 
and guide entrepreneurial immigrants in the food area," the certification appears to be for managers in 
the food industry, rather than for management consultants who advise those managers. The Petitioner 
did not claim to have taken similar examinations relating to other industries. Viewed in conjunction 
with the Petitioner's years of experience in the restaurant industry in Brazil, her pursuit of this 
particular certification appears to be more consistent with her own intention to work in the food 
industry than with a planned career in management and immigration consulting. 
The Petitioner has submitted a business plan, but she has not shown progress toward implementing 
the plan or otherwise achieving the proposed endeavor, and she has not shown past experience 
establishing and running a similar business abroad. General statistics about small business and the 
immigrant community inl Ido not suffice to establish the interest of potential customers, 
users, investors, or other relevant entities or individuals. 
Evidence establishing a petitioner's past entrepreneurial achievements and that corroborates 
projections of future work in the national interest are favorable factors. Claims lacking corroborating 
evidence are not sufficient to meet the petitioner's burden of proof. See generally 6 USCIS Policy 
Manual, supra, at F.5(D)(4). Here, the Petitioner has not shown a past record of entrepreneurial 
achievements. Most of her past experience was with a holding company that she does not claim to 
have owned or established, and she has not shown that she has, in the past, established and successfully 
operated a business resembling her proposed endeavor. 
In light of the above conclusions, the Petitioner has not met her burden of proof to show that she 
satisfies the prongs of the Dhanasar national interest test relating to national importance and being 
well positioned to advance the proposed endeavor. Detailed discussion of the remaining prong cannot 
change the outcome of this appeal. Therefore, we reserve argument on the third prong. 2 
2 See INS v. Bagamasbad, 429 U.S. 24, 25-26 ( 1976) (stating that, like courts, federal agencies are not generally required 
to make findings and decisions unnecessary to the results they reach); see also Matter olL-A-C-, 26 I&N Dec. 516, 526 
n.7 (BIA 2015) ( declining to reach alternative issues on appeal where an applicant is otherwise ineligible). 
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III. CONCLUSION 
The Petitioner has not established the national importance of the proposed endeavor or that she is well 
positioned to advance the proposed endeavor. Therefore, the Petitioner has not shown eligibility for 
the national interest waiver, and we will dismiss the appeal as a matter of discretion. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed. 
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