dismissed EB-2 NIW Case: Computational Linguistics

(b)(6)
U.S. Department of Homeland Security 
U.S. Citizenship and Immigr ation Servic es 
Administrativ e Appeals Office (AAO) 
20 Massachu setts Ave., N. W., MS 2090 
Washington , DC 20529-20 90 
U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
DA TE:OCT 1 0 2014 OFFICE: NEBRASKA SERVICE CENT ER FILE: 
INRE: Petitioner: 
Beneficiary: 
PETITION: Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker as a Member of the Profe ssions Holding an Advanced 
Degree or an Alien of Exceptional Ability Pursuant to Section 203(b)(2) of the Immigration 
and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1153(b)(2) 
ON BEHALF OF PETITIONER: 
SELF-REPRESENTED 
INSTRUCTIONS : 
Enclosed please find the decision of the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) in your case. 
This is a non-precedent decision. The AAO does not announce new constructions of law nor establish agency 
policy through non-precedent decisions . lf you believe the AAO incorrectly applied current law or policy to 
your case or if you seek to present new facts for consideration, you may file a motion to reconsider or a 
motion to reopen , respectively. Any motion must be filed on a Notice of Appeal or Motion (Form I-290B) 
within 33 days of the date of this decision . Please review the Form I-290B instructions at 
http:/ /www.uscis.gov/forms for the latest information on fee, filing location, and other requirements. 
See also 8 C.F .R. § 1 03.5. Do not file a motion directly with the AAO. 
Thank you, 
r ~Jf:£..:;trative Appeals Office 
www.uscis.gov 
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DISCUSSION: The Director, Nebraska Service Center, denied the employment-based immigrant visa 
petition. The matter is now before us at the Administrative Appeals Office on appeal. We will dismiss 
the appeal. 
The petitioner seeks classification pursuant to section 203(b)(2) of the Immigration and Nationality Act 
(the Act), 8 U.S.C. § 1153(b)(2), as a member of the professions holding an advanced degree. The 
petitioner seeks employment as a computational linguist. When he filed the petition, the petitioner was 
a junior database analyst/programmer at The petitioner asserts 
that an exemption from the requirement of a job offer, and thus of a labor certification, is in the national 
interest of the United States. The director found that the petitioner qualifies for classification as a 
member of the professions holding an advanced degree but that the petitioner had not established that an 
exemption from the requirement of a job offer would be in the national interest of the United States. 
On appeal, the petitioner submits a personal statement , two letters (one previously submitted), and 
background evidence. 
Before the filing of the appeal, attorney represented the petitioner in this proceeding. 
There is, however, no evidence that Mr. participated in preparing or filing the appeal. Form 
I-290B, Notice of Appeal or Motion, advises that attorneys "must attach a Form G-28, Notice of 
Entry of Appearance as Attorney or Representative" to the appeal, as required by the U.S. 
Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) regulation at 8 C.F.R. § 
292.4(a). The appeal does 
not include this form. We therefore consider the petitioner to be self-represented. 
Section 203(b) of the Act states, in pertinent part: 
(2) Aliens Who Are Members of the Professions Holding Advanced Degrees or Aliens of 
Exceptional Ability.-
(A) In General. - Visas shall be made available ... to qualified immigrants who are 
members of the professions holding advanced degrees or their equivalent or who 
because of their exceptional ability in the sciences, arts, or business, will substantially 
benefit prospectively the national economy, cultural or educational interests, or welfare 
of the United States, and whose services in the sciences, arts, professions, or business 
are sought by an employer in the United States. 
(B) Waiver of Job Offer-
(i) . .. the Attorney General may, when the Attorney General deems it to be in 
the national interest, waive the requirements of subparagraph (A) that an alien's 
services in the sciences, arts, professions, or business be sought by an employer 
in the United States. 
The director did not dispute that the petitioner qualifies as a member of the professions holding an 
advanced degree. The sole issue in contention is whether the petitioner has established that a waiver of 
the job offer requirement, and thus a labor certification, is in the national interest. 
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Neither the statute nor the pertinent regulations define the tenn "national interest." Additionally, 
Congress did not provide a specific definition of "in the national interest." The Committee on the 
Judiciary merely noted in its report to the Senate that the committee had "focused on national interest by 
increasing the number and proportion of visas for immigrants who would benefit the United States 
economically and otherwise .... " S. Rep. No. 55, lOlst Cong., 1st Sess., 11 (1989). 
Supplementary information to regulations implementing the Immigration Act of 1990, Pub. L. 
101-649, 104 Stat. 4978 (Nov. 29, 1990), published at 56 Fed. Reg. 60897,60900 (Nov. 29, 1991), 
states: 
The Service [now USCIS] believes it appropriate to leave the application of this test 
as flexible as possible, although clearly an alien seeking to meet the [national interest] 
standard must make a showing significantly above that necessary to prove the 
"prospective national benefit" [required of aliens seeking to qualify as "exceptional."] 
The burden will rest with the alien to establish that exemption from, or waiver of, the 
job offer will be in the national interest. Each case is to be judged on its own merits. 
In reNew York State Dep 't ofTransportation, 22 I&N Dec. 215, 217-18 (Act. Assoc. Comm'r 1998) 
(NYSDOT), has set forth several factors which must be considered when evaluating a request for a 
national interest waiver. First, a petitioner must establish that the alien seeks employment in an area of 
substantial intrinsic merit. Id at 217. Next, a petitioner must establish that the proposed benefit will be 
national in scope. Id Finally, the petitioner seeking the waiver must establish that the alien will serve 
the national interest to a substantially greater degree than would an available U.S. worker having the 
same minimum qualifications. Jd at 217-18. 
While the national interest waiver hinges on prospective national benefit, the petitioner must establish 
that the alien's past record justifies projections of future benefit to the national interest. !d. at 219. The 
petitioner's assurance that the alien will, in the future, serve the national interest cannot suffice to 
establish prospective national benefit. The term "prospective" is included here to require future 
contributions by the alien, rather than to facilitate the entry of an alien with no demonstrable prior 
achievements, and whose benefit to· the national interest would thus be entirely speculative. !d. 
The USCIS regulation at 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(k)(2) defines "exceptional ability" as "a degree of 
expertise significantly above that ordinarily encountered " in a given area of endeavor. By statute, 
aliens of exceptional ability are generally subject to the job offer/labor certification requirement ; 
they are not exempt by virtue of their exceptional ability. Therefore , whether a given alien seeks 
classification as an alien of exceptional ability, or as a member of the professions holding an 
advanced degree, that alien cannot qualify for a waiver just by demonstrating a degree of expertise 
significantl y above that ordinarily encountered in his or her field of expertise. 
The petitioner filed the Form 1-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker, on March 21, 2013. An 
accompanying introductory statement discussed the petitioner's work and his claim of eligibility for 
the national interest waiver: 
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At the 
the Petitioner is currently a lead architect and a key team member 
on the Concurrently, he also is providing 
his expertise in computational linguistics, natural language processing , and linguistics 
to build a standard reference platform on language relationships .... [H]is expertise in 
scripts, information extraction, multilingual lexicon development and machine 
translation will yield cutting-edge language technologies that cover several important 
national goals. His expertise may be utilized [in] building [a] computational database 
for critical languages, preserving endangered languages and cultural information by 
[a] centralized website that is accessible to all researchers around the world and 
advancing research and development of software methods and tools for language 
related analysis and education. Conceivably, his efforts and contributions on 
development of computational and linguistic resources serves an important national 
interest of ensuring that the US leadership role in language and information 
technologies would not be compr[ om ]ised in this globally competitive field. 
The introductory statement identified two conference papers that the petitioner had presented, stating 
that "[t]he petitioner's achievement in computer application and linguistic[s] is exceptional." The 
statement concluded with the assertion that "the petitioner has established a record of distinguish[ ed] 
achievement and contribution in his research and development endeavor in computational 
linguistics." 
In his personal statement, the petitioner stated: 
I have extensive knowledge in computational analyses of such languages as Thai, 
Burmese, Khmer, Lao, Pashto and Farsi in addition to English .. . . My expertise and 
research contributions have applications in many areas including building machine 
translation technologies , and developing cybersecurity software for automatic 
detection of phishing emails and websites. I have unique qualifications and important 
contributions in several areas of natural language processing including compiling 
digital dictionaries for language learning, text data mining and electronic archiving of 
language documentations. The following are evidence of my achievements in the 
area of natural language processing: 
• A published paper on the automatic part-of-speech tagging of Pashto (the 
language of Afghanistan) . ... 
• A published thesis on the automatic sentence alignment of English and 
Southeast Asian languages .... 
• Monolingual and bilingual dictionaries for Thai, Burmese , Khmer, Lao 
and Vietnamese at the 
• at the 
to document data about endangered languages and to preserve those 
languages. 
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• The software to automatically index important linguistic papers, which are 
essential to help scholars study and understand Southeast Asia's history, 
culture and political economy. 
All of my contributions are internationally recognized among linguists and 
computational linguists, and applicable to machine translation technologies, data 
mining, text analysis, and language docwnentation .... 
In addition to all the academic research activities, I am investing in a text 
analysis software company in Michigan, with my colleagues who are 
working in text mining and natural language processing. . . . As an Information 
Technology (IT) expert with specialized knowledge and expertise in computational 
processing of many languages , I am approached for consultation and advisement in 
the development of text data with linguistic information. 
The record contains no evidence regarding 
company in subsequent submissions. 
and the petitioner has not mentioned the 
The petitioner submitted copies of two published papers and excerpts from his master's thesis, and a 
partial copy of another student's doctoral thesis, showing a citation to the petitioner's master's 
thesis. The petitioner identified no citations to his published work, and no citations that appeared in 
peer-reviewed journals. 
The petitioner submitted several letters from third parties. is the executive director of 
the _ where the petitioner worked from 2005 to 
2009. He stated that the petitioner "has exactly the skill set that has been in critical demand in the 
United States for the past decade or more," and that the petitioner "would be one of a handful of 
experts with desperately needed skills" in the event of "natural disaster, local insurgence, [or] 
conflict at any point along the long southern China border." The scarcity of the petitioner 's 
specialized skills is not grounds for approving the waiver. The labor certification process exists to 
test the local labor market and verify claims ofworker shortages. See NYSDOT , 22 I&N Dec. at 218. 
Also, USCIS does not designate blanket 
waivers for particular occupations or skill sets. !d. at 217. 
Khmer language lecturer at the 
coordinator at the . stated: _______ __, 
and Khmer language 
[The petitioner] is one of the rarest scholars with unique academic training and 
exceptional research experience in natural language processing and computational 
processing of many languages .... 
[The petitioner] has unique expertise and important contributions in several areas of 
natural language processing including compiling digital dictionaries for language 
learning and electronic language documentation .... 
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Dr. 
NON-PRECEDENT DECISION 
All of [the petitioner's] contributions are internationally recognized among Southeast 
Asian linguists and computational linguists .... 
While at the I worked 
with [the petitioner] building the . . . [which is] 
widely used by the scholars who are studying those languages. In his work on this 
project, [the petitioner] developed software and other tools for computer-assisted 
language learning for complex script languages such as Thai, Khmer, Lao and 
Burmese .... 
In addition to the [the petitioner] also developed -
computational tools for the online archive of 
papers .... The software and indexing of the materials in the archive are 
important tools to help scholars study and understand Southeast Asia 's history, 
culture and political economy. 
a fellow at the -
, stated that the petitioner "has assisted [him] in various projects" "for the past eight 
years," and that the products of much of this work a :pears on "sites maintained by the 
_ " Dr. letter is similar to letter, even 
including some of the same wording, such as the assertion that "All of [the petitioner's] 
contributions are internationally recognized among Southeast Asian linguists and computational 
linguists" 
Dr. assistant professor at the _; stated that the petitioner 's 
"computing skills are coupled with a rare awareness and sensitivity for linguistic details, combined 
fortunately with a respect for the need to build electronic resources for languages which are 
important ... but which ... have been left behind in the process of digitization. " Regarding the 
petitioner's work at Dr. stated that the petitioner 's "contribution to project 
and project are important because they visualize how languages are 
related to each other and document endangered languages of the world to preserve humanity." 
Dr. associate professor at was the petitioner's advisor 
during his graduate studies there. She stated: ' 
interdisciplinary area of research, which is situated between linguistics 
computer science, and cognitive science (the study of the mind)." Dr. 
petitioner 's "major assets can be characterized as follows:" 
is a truly 
(the study of language), 
asserted that the 
1) He is singularly qualified to work on problems involving critical languages 
such as Bunnese , Khmer, and Pashto. 
2) He has the ability to extend techniques to languages other than English. 
Dr. described the petitioner 's graduate work: 
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[The petitioner] has collaborated with other students at to transfer linguistic 
knowledge from Farsi to Pashto .... This is a highly challenging task because Farsi 
has languages [sic] characteristics that are different from the characteristics ofPashto. 
However , once this technology has been developed , it can be used to also analyze 
other related language pairs, if there are resources for one of the languages .. .. 
Another problem of extending techniques to languages other than English is that 
. .. we need large, manually annotated resources in order to train the machine 
learners. If we want to extend the methodology to other languages, we not only need 
to annotate these resources , but we also often need to come up with description 
schemes that describe the languages in questions [sic]. [The petitioner ' s] expertise in 
developing lexical resources for languages from Southeast Asia is of utmost 
importance , and it is extremely difficult to find people with the expertise and 
language skills to perform this kind of work. 
The above assertions amount to a variation of the claim that there is a shortage of qualified workers 
with the petitioner's specific skills, in this case relating to his fluency in certain Asian languages. 
Dr. , an assistant professor at stated that the petitioner's fluency in "four 
critical languages from various Asian countries . 
. is an enormous asset for this country." Dr. 
praised the petitioner 's technical papers and stated that the petitioner's "role as a lead 
technical architect of the seems to be a crucial role in that 
endeavor." 
The final two letters are from faculty members. Dr. project director at 
and the petitioner's immediate supervisor, stated: 
[The Qetitioner] has been the lead technical architect and a valued team member on 
the _ project . 
. . that has gathered 
unprecedented worldwide attention for the cause of endangered languages ... . Much 
of the success of this initiative can be attributed directly to fthe petitioner 's] 
competence; as the programmer and technical lead for the [the petitioner] 
worked on high-pressure deadlines to create the database and interface for the 
researchers and work through the data exchange with the teclmical and design 
teams. [The petitioner's] qualifications and significant experience in linguistics as 
well as computer science are not easily found in today's workforce, and were 
essential to the success of the technical side of the Project. His solutions to export the 
data for the website, for example, include the development of scripts that 
· have great potential in the areas of automatic processing and extraction of language 
information. 
[The petitioner's] expertise in information extraction has also contributed to the 
development of linguistic resources of use not only in the Institute's work on 
endangered languages, but of potential application in industry or government, e.g., in 
the area of multilingual lexicon development and machine translation. For example, 
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he has contributed to our project by instituting a conversion process to 
transform lexicons from Shoebox format ( ... which is no longer supported) into an 
interoperable XML format. ... 
[The petitioner] has also had a key role in the success of project 
[which] ... has become the standard reference on language relationships. As team 
leader, [the petitioner] directed the work of student interns and graduate students to 
add to the data available on language relationships in the site .... [T]here 
is a relatively small pool of persons who have this intersection of expertise in 
computer science, natural language processing, and linguistics. 
Dr. , assistant professor and associate director of _, stated that the petitioner's work 
"lays the groundwork for more advanced computational analysis of the [Pashto] language," and that 
"[h ]e is also extremely valuable in the development of language technologies for the languages of 
the Tibeto-Burman and language families, which are structurally very different from 
Indo-European languages such as English." Dr. added: "I have recommended him to the best 
PhD-programs in the country." 
The director issued a request for evidence on August 7, 20 13. The director instructed the petitioner 
to establish his influence on his field. The director noted: "there is no evidence [the petitioner's] 
publications have been independently cited by other members of the discipline." 
The petitioner's response did not include any evidence of citation of his published work. Instead, the 
petitioner submitted background documentation about his past and present work, and four new 
letters. The background evidence includes web printouts showing that the petitioner performed 
"extensive work in establishing consistent orthography for all entries and examples" in the 
and served as a "Technical Consultant/Programmer" on 
Printouts from an 
electronic slide presentation regarding identified the various participating 
institutions, and named the petitioner as one of seven then-current participants on the ' team." 
The petitioner submitted statistics showing the usage of the web site (for 
instance, 10,125 unique visitors in September 2013), but these figures concern t e site as a whole, 
which tracks thousands of languages around the world, only a fraction of which appear in southeast 
Asia. 
Dr. former professor at and former director of the described the 
cultural importance of preserving endangered languages, and asserted "it is critical that we have the 
services of the most qualified people" for the project. She stated: 
[The petitioner] makes an outstanding contribution to the 
at the 
His contribution to the project is unique because of his background in 
computer science and his previous research experience with resource-poor languages 
from Southeast Asia. His previous research on Thai and other Southeast Asian 
languages, as well as his dual degrees in Linguistics and Computer Science, make 
him invaluable as a developer on the research projects here at the Institute of 
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In fact, I would go so far as to say that he is 
irreplaceable: certainly , I have never met another computational linguist with his 
extensive experience in the documentation of endangered languages. 
. . . [H]is knowledge of computational issues involving endangered languages is 
extremely valuable for the success of the project. We will not be able to easily 
replace him because a researcher with both a strong background in computer science 
and expertise in endangered and resource-stricken languages is extremely rare in the 
u.s. 
~------------~ 
stated: 
I am an attorney licensed in New York State and a Ph.D. candidate at the 
Department of Political Science. I conduct research on judicial politics 
in Southeast Asia using statistical models and natural language processing to analyze 
judicial behavior. 
I have invited [the petitioner] to co-author a chapter in a book titled 
... I was working on the chapter using latent topic 
models on Burmese Supreme Court decisions when I encountered some difficulties 
adapting natural language processing tools to texts. I consulted an expert on 
computational linguistics in the . _ of Information , Dr. 
_ who recommended I contact [the petitioner] as one of the few 
linguists who work on applying computerized language analysis to Burmese. . . . 
[W]e agreed to co-author the chapter together because of his unique expertise with 
computer processing of Southeast Asian languages, particularly Burmese. We are 
preparing to submit our paper to the book editors and have already submitted the 
paper to the 
[The petitioner's] expertise in the computer processing of Southeast Asian languages 
has been essential in the completion of this book chapter. . .. After this project, [the 
petitioner] and I could adopt the technology to other types of Burmese texts . ... 
The fact that renowned com utational linguists , political scientists , lawyers, and 
officials have all expressed an 
interest in [the petitioner's] work suggests that [the petitioner] has already become 
well-known as an - if not the - expert in natural language processing for Southeast 
Asian languages in the United States. 
The record contains no direct evidence to support the assertion that officials have . .. 
expressed an interest in [the petitioner ' s] work." Going on record without supporting documentary 
evidence is not sufficient for purposes of meeting the burden of proof in these proceedings. Matter 
of Sofjici, 22 I&N Dec. 158, 165 (Comm 'r 1998) (citing Matter of Treasure Craft of California, 
14 I&N Dec. 190 (Reg'l Comm 'r 1972)). 
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Professor chair of the Political Science Department at the 
stated: 
Even though I do not know [the petitioner] personally , I am familiar with his work on 
the computer processing and documentation of Southeast Asian languages. 
Researchers with a background in Southeast Asian natural language processing (NLP) 
are extremely rare in the US. [The petitioner] is one of the outstanding researchers 
and has a unique understanding of issues involved in Southeast Asian NLP ... . His 
research on parallel text aligmnent and word segmentation serves as a foundation for 
analyzing political texts as more and more documents are available in electronic form 
online and offline .... 
[The petitioner 's 1 previous work on language resources for Southeast Asian 
languages at is essential for understanding the 
history and culture of mainland Southeast Asia .. .. [M]ost of [the petitioner's] 
contributions are in the development of information technologies that have immediate 
utility, so we do not expect notable publications from his efforts nor extensive citation 
to his work. Nonetheless, his outstanding scholarship and research ... are important 
as groundwork to process Southeast Asian political texts for automatic analysis. 
Colleagues in my field have high respect for [the petitioner] when it comes to 
language technology expertise and resources for Southeast Asian languages. 
research associate and teaching fellow (and retired lecturer) at the 
stated that he does not know the petitioner personally , but is aware of his work from 
"communication with some of the well-known figures in the field" and from his own use of the 
database. He stated: 
[The petitioner's] contribution to the Southeast Asian Languages Archive at the 
_ is outstanding. The 
projects at the Centre, funded by the in the US, 
are essential for scholars around the world pursuing to understand social, linguistic, 
and cultural issues of the region. Particularly, the online availability of a 
comprehensive collection of dictionaries and text corpora for many mainland 
Southeast Asian languages benefits other scholars in the field. [The petitioner's] 
contribution to language resources from Burma such as Burmese, Mon, Karen, and 
Shan are extremely valuable because electronic resources for those languages are not 
readily available on the Internet due to expensive and scarce Internet resources in 
Burma. [The petitioner's] contribution towards computer encoding issues of those 
languages is also unique and serves as a foundation for automatic processing of the 
languages. 
. . . His research work on language technology tools and resources helped 
tremendously as a reference source for scholars in Southeast Asian studies. 
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The director denied the petition on November 26, 2013, stating that the petitioner "cannot qualify for 
a waiver just by demonstrating a degree of expertise significantly above that ordinarily encountered 
in his or her field of expertise." The director stated that the petitioner meets the first two prongs of 
the NYSDOT national interest test, pertaining to intrinsic merit and national scope , but that the 
petitioner had not established his influence on the field as a whole. To support this conclusion, the 
director noted the minimal citation history of the petitioner's research, and stated that "the 
petitioner's only conference presentation was over a decade ago." The director acknowledged the 
third-party letters in the record, but stated that the letters "do not indicate that the beneficiary 's 
contributions have enjoyed widespread implementation in the field." The director found that the 
petitioner's other evidence establishes his participation in various projects, but does not show the 
nature or extent of the petitioner's contributions . 
On appeal, the petitioner states that "the adjudicator erroneously relied on the broad assumption that 
publishing record and citation history is crucial in gauging the influence of the petitioner 's work 
when in fact, the petitioner's individual contribution is emphasized on the computational side of 
developing digitalized database resources." The petitioner asserts that he has established his 
contribution to projects that are "widely used by Asian Study scholars around the world." 
The petitioner provides additional details about his participation in various projects, including the 
book chapter discussed by The petitioner also claims to have helped to develop 
Burmese character fonts that conformed to the Unicode text encoding standard. He states that, when 
he began working at 
there was not a mature Unicode standard to represent Burmese text on the Internet. 
. .. As a result, the dictionary data were typed in non-standard fonts incompatible 
with the Unicode standard. 
Without my work on the project, the Burmese dictionary would not have been 
available on the Internet and [the] Burmese Unicode standardization process would 
[have] take[n] longer than it did. I wrote software to convert dictionary data to the 
partially-defined Unicode standard because I was the only one capable and the only 
Burmese working on the project. ... Our dictionary data were used by 
developers from for testing their Padauk font. It was 
the first Unicode font that renders Burmese characters correctly. 
The petitioner claims to have made what may have been a valuable contribution to the project 
described above, but he did not submit any evidence to support this claim. The petitioner 's own 
assertions do not meet his burden of proof. See Matter ofSojjici, 22 I&N Dec. at 165. 
The petitioner submits a 20-page printout from the web site, identifying various updates 
to the Unicode system. Page 5 states: "Unicode 3.0 was released September It was a big 
update and encoded 49,259 characters." The description of the "New Blocks" in the update included 
the assertion (highlighted in yellow on the petitioner's printout) that "Myanmar, containing 78 
characters for the Burmese script, was added." Other additions included "71 characters used for 
writing in Syriac script," "214 radicals from the Kangxi dictionary," and "81 characters for the 
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Page 12 
Ge1manic runes." The printout does not identify the petitioner, specify the nature or extent of his 
contribution, or establish that the "78 characters for the Burmese script" represented a more 
important contribution, or a substantively different technical challenge, than the thousands of other 
new characters introduced in Unicode 3.0. 
In addition to a copy of Mr. earlier letter, the petitioner submits a letter from Dr. 
associate professor and associate director of Dr. stated: 
[The petitioner's] contribution to the project has benefited ... documentary 
linguists, members of indigenous communities and speakers of endangered 
languages, educators, and humanity in general by making it possible to access data 
about endangered languages throughout the world, disseminating information on 
these languages, and . . . allow[ing] users to share information, data and materials on 
endangered languages with the world through this site. The database that [the 
petitioner] designed, the methods and techniques he created for the project data 
collection, input and interface have been essential for the smooth operation of the site, 
are essential to the continuation of the projects, but what is even more, will be useful 
for our future projects and for the documentary linguists around the world. 
Dr. statements are consistent with Professor earlier assertion that the 
petitioner's work is not the kind that produces peer-reviewed articles, the influence of which can be 
tracked through citations. Eligibility for the waiver is not limited to scientific or academic 
researchers who produce heavily cited journal articles; section 203(b)(2) of the Act shows that the 
waiver is available to foreign workers in the sciences, the arts, business, and the professions. The 
unavailability or inapplicability of citations, however, does not change the petitioner's burden of 
proof; it only rules out one type of documentary evidence through which the petitioner can meet that 
burden. The documentary evidence that the petitioner has submitted establishes his involvement in 
various projects, but, as the director observed, it provides little information about that involvement. 
A recurring assertion in the record, from the petitioner and from other writers, is that few 
computational linguists are skilled in Southeast Asian languages, and therefore he would be difficult 
or impossible to replace. Dr. in her letter submitted on appeal, acknowledges that "it is 
not a basis to grant a waiver of labor certification just because it is difficult to find an ideal US 
worker to fill the position," but maintains that the project would suffer grave setbacks if 
were to replace the petitioner mid-project. (The record does not show how the petitioner's 
subsequent relocation to Fort Wayne has affected his employment in _) The Department of 
Labor regulation at 20 C.F.R. § 656.17(h)(2)(i) provides that the nature of some occupations (e.g. , 
translators) can justify a foreign language requirement in an application for labor certification as a 
matter of business necessity. Southeast Asian languages may be underrepresented in some linguistic 
databases, but this does not make the petitioner 's national origin (from a country in Southeast Asia) 
an affirmative factor in granting the national interest waiver. 
The asserted scarcity of the petitioner's skills would appear to be a favorable factor in granting labor 
certification, provided those skills are required for the job. Labor certification would not be 
available for temporary employment, and Dr. assertion that he has recommended the 
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Page 13 
petitioner to various doctoral programs indicates that the petitioner ' s education and training are not 
yet complete. If the petitioner's engagement with the project at is temporary as the above 
information suggests, then the question arises as to why it is in the national interest to grant him 
permanent immigration benefits for temporary employment that his H -1 B nonimmigrant status 
already authorizes him to perform . 
The director correctly observed that letters alone cannot establish eligibility for the waiver. USCIS 
may, in its discretion, use as advisory opinions statements submitted as expert testimony. See Matter of 
Caron International, 19 I&N Dec. 791, 795 (Comm 'r 1988). However, USCIS is ultimately 
responsible for making the final determination regarding an alien's eligibility for the benefit 
sought. Id The submission of letters from experts supporting the petition is not presumptive evidence 
of eligibility; users may, as above, evaluate the content of those letters as to whether they support the 
alien's eligibility. See id at 795; see also Matter of V-K-, 24 I&N Dec. 500, 502 n.2 (BIA 2008) 
(noting that expert opinion testimony does not purport to be evidence as to "fact"). 
The writers can attest to their own knowledge of the petitioner's work, within the confines of their own 
interactions and collaborations with the petitioner or familiarity with his work. They cannot, however, 
establish broader claims of fact, such as the assertion that the petitioner's work has attracted significant 
international attention, or has been the subject of inquiry from The petitioner has not relied 
exclusively on letters, but there is a gap between the information in the letters and the facts established 
by the other evidence. As a result, the record establishes the overall importance of the projects to which 
the petitioner has contributed, but not that the petitioner's work on those projects have influenced the 
field as a whole. 
The petitioner has not established a past record of achievement at a level that would justify a waiver of 
the job offer requirement. The petitioner need not demonstrate notoriety on the scale of national 
acclaim, but the national interest waiver contemplates that his influence be national in scope. NYSDOT, 
22 I&N Dec. 217, n.3. More specifically, the petitioner "must clearly present a significant benefit to the 
field of endeavor." Jd at 218. See also id at 219, n.6 (the alien must have "a past history of 
demonstrable achievement with some degree of influence on the field as a whole"). 
As is clear from the statute, it was not the intent of Congress that every person qualified to engage in a 
profession in the United States should be exempt from the requirement of a job offer based on national 
interest. Likewise, it does not appear to have been the intent of Congress to grant national interest 
waivers on the basis of the overall importance of a given profession, rather than on the merits of the 
individual alien. On the basis of the evidence submitted, the petitioner has not established that a waiver 
of the requirement of an approved labor certification will be in the national interest of the United States. 
We will dismiss the appeal for the above stated reasons. In visa petition proceedings, it is the 
petitioner's burden to establish eligibility for the immigration benefit sought. Section 291 of the Act, 
8 U.S.C. § 1361; Matter of Otiende, 26 I&N Dec. 127, 128 (BIA 2013). Here, the petitioner has not 
met that burden. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed.