dismissed EB-2 NIW Case: Civil And Mechanical Engineering

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
Non-Precedent Decision of the
Administrative Appeals Office 
Date: SEP. 22, 2023 In Re: 28401026 
Motion on Administrative Appeals Office Decision 
Form 1-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Workers (National Interest Waiver) 
The Petitioner, a civil and mechanical engineer, seeks second preference immigrant classification as a 
member of the professions holding an advanced degree, as well as a national interest waiver of the job 
offer requirement attached to this EB-2 classification. See Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act) 
section 203(b)(2), 8 U.S.C. § 1153(b)(2). While neither 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 and states that USCIS may, as a matter 
of discretion, grant a petition if the petitioner demonstrates that: I) the proposed endeavor has both 
substantial merit and national importance; 2) the individual is well-positioned to advance their 
proposed endeavor; and, 3) on balance, waiving the job offer requirement would benefit the United 
States. 
The Director of the Texas Service Center denied the petition, concluding that the record established 
that the Petitioner qualified for the classification as an advanced degree professional, but did not 
establish that a waiver of the required job offer is in the national interest. We dismissed a subsequent 
appeal. The matter is now before us on motion to reconsider. 1 
The Petitioner bears the burden of proof to demonstrate eligibility by a preponderance of the evidence. 
Matter of Chawathe, 25 I&N Dec. 369, 375-76 (AAO 2010). Upon review, we will dismiss the 
motion. 
A motion to reconsider must establish that our prior decision was based on an incorrect application of 
law or policy and that the decision was incorrect based on the evidence in the record of proceedings 
at the time of the decision. 8 C.F.R. § 103.5(a)(3). Our review on motion is limited to reviewing our 
latest decision. 8 C.F.R. § 103.5(a)(l)(ii) . We may grant motions that satisfy these requirements and 
demonstrate eligibility for the requested benefit. 
1 The Petitioner requests in the alternative that the Texas Service Center reconsider its initial denial. See 8 C.F.R. 
§ 103.3(a)(2)(iii). However, this regulation, which is applicable to appeals on adverse decisions, permits the office that 
issued an unfavorable decision to reconsider its decision for favorable action instead of forwarding the appeal to the AAO. 
Id. In this motion, the decision at issue is our decision to dismiss the Petitioner's appeal, which the Petitioner moves us to 
reconsider pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 103.5(a)(3). The office that has jurisdiction over motions is the office that made the 
latest decision in the proceeding, which in this case is the AAO. See 8 C.F.R. 103.5(a)(l)(ii) . Therefore, the Texas Service 
Center no longer has jurisdiction over this matter and 8 C.F.R. § 103.3(a)(2)(iii) is not applicable. 
In our previous decision dismissing the Petitioner's appeal, incorporated here by reference, we 
concluded that the record did not establish the national importance of the Petitioner's proposed 
endeavor, as required by the first prong of the Dhanasar framework. 
On motion, the Petitioner contests the correctness of our prior decision. He asserts that our conclusion 
was based upon an incorrect application ofMatter ofDhanasar. In support of this claim, the Petitioner 
relies primarily on our vacated decision in Matter of New York State Department of Transportation 
(NYSDOT), 22 I&N Dec. 215 (Act. Assoc. Comm'r 1998). 2 Specifically, the Petitioner asserts that 
his proposed endeavor would have met the prior "national in scope" standard established in NYSDOT 
and that, because Dhanasar did not "increase the difficulty" of establishing national importance as 
compared to establishing national in scope, his endeavor must therefore also have national importance. 
The Petitioner asserts that NYSDOT's national in scope requirement was a "very low standard," based 
upon his characterization of the beneficiary in NYSDOT as "a single engineer working on a bridge 
project in New York," and the statement in Dhanasar that it "caused relatively few problems in 
adjudications." See Matter of Dhanasar, 26 I&N Dec. at 887. The Petitioner further asserts that 
Dhanasar 's national importance standard should be just as easy to establish, if not easier, because 
Dhanasar, in changing standards, sought to reduce the emphasis on the geographic impact of a 
proposed endeavor. Id. 
However, the Petitioner misreads Dhanasar 's statement that the prior national in scope standard 
"caused relatively few problems" to mean that it was an easy one to reach. In reading this discussion 
in the context of the decision, this language refers to the relative ease for adjudicators in implementing 
this standard and noting that it did not frequently result in the "problem" of subjective or unpredictable 
adjudications. See id. It does not necessarily follow that the national in scope standard was a low one; 
a standard may be clear for adjudicators to implement and predictable for petitioners to understand, 
regardless of whether it is an easy or difficult one to reach. But more generally, regardless of whether 
the Petitioner fairly characterizes the meaning of "national in scope," the standard is not applicable 
here. While we appreciate that the Petitioner is a transportation engineer, and thus is in a similar field 
to the beneficiary in NYSDOT, that framework has been replaced by the analytical framework 
introduced by our binding precedent decision in Dhanasar. 
Additionally, the only language in Dhanasar that directly compares the two standards is the statement, 
invoked by the Petitioner, that the national in scope standard was "occasionally ... construed too 
narrowly by focusing primarily on the geographic impact" of the proposed endeavor. Id. at 887. But 
this statement does not imply that national importance should in general be easier to establish than 
national in scope. Moreover, our decision to dismiss the Petitioner's appeal did not rely improperly 
upon finding a lack of geographic breadth in the potential impact of the proposed endeavor, and the 
Petitioner does not assert that it did. 
In determining whether a petitioner has established the national importance of their proposed 
endeavor, we must rely on the language of Dhanasar, which requires that we consider an endeavor's 
2 NYSDOT, which was vacated by our precedent decision in Matter ofDhanasar, established the previous framework used 
for evaluating national interest waiver petitions. See Matter ofDhanasar, 26 l&N Dec. at 884. 
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potential prospective impact. Matter ofDhanasar, 26 I&N Dec. at 889. An endeavor that has national 
or global implications within a particular field, such as those resulting from certain improved 
manufacturing processes or medical advances, may have national importance. Id. Additionally, an 
endeavor that is regionally focused may nevertheless have national importance, such as an endeavor 
that has significant potential to employ U.S. workers or has other substantial positive economic effects, 
particularly in an economically depressed area. Id. at 890. 
This is the standard by which the Petitioner's proposed endeavor was evaluated in our prior decision, 
and the Petitioner's assertions on motion-primarily comparing his endeavor to the endeavor in 
NYSDOT and asserting that it is easier to establish eligibility under Dhanasar than NYSDOT-do not 
demonstrate that we incorrectly applied this standard. In dismissing the appeal, we concluded that the 
Petitioner had not submitted sufficient evidence to establish what the broader implications of his work 
would be, or that his work would impact his field more broadly to demonstrate national importance. 
For example, we noted that much of the evidence related to the Petitioner's past positions rather than 
to his specific endeavor, and that the record lacked documentary evidence to support the Petitioner's 
claims about his grant proposals to the Transportation Research Board and the potential impact of his 
specific proposed endeavor to advance the field of transportation and engineering. 
On motion to reconsider, the Petitioner relies on a decision that no longer carries legal authority and 
does not demonstrate that our previous decision was based on an incorrect application of law or policy 
at the time we issued our decision. Therefore, the motion will be dismissed. 8 C.F.R. § 103.5(a)(4). 
ORDER: The motion to reconsider is dismissed. 
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