dismissed EB-2 NIW Case: Geographic Information Systems

(b)(6)
DATE : JUN 18 2014 OFFICE: NEBRASKA SERVICE CENTER 
INRE: Petitioner: 
Beneficiary: 
U.S. Department of Homeland Security 
U.S. Citizenship ancl Immigr ation Services 
Administrativ e Appeals Office (AAO) 
20 Massachusetts Ave. , N.W. , MS 2090 
Washington, DC 20529-20 90 
U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
FILE: 
PETITION: Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker as a Member of the Professions 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: 
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 establi s h agency 
policy through non-precedent decisions. If 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. § 103.5 . Do not file a motion directly with the AAO. 
Thank you, 
Ron Rosenbero 
Chief , Administrative Appeals Office 
www.uscis.gov 
(b)(6) NON-PRECEDENT DECISION 
Page i. 
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 under 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. At the time 
the petitioner filed the petition, she was a 2:eographic information svstems (GIS) coordinator for the 
The petitioner asserts that 
an exemption from t e requirement of a jo otter, and t us 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 has 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 legal brief and supporting documents. A supplement to the appeal 
includes evidence regarding the petitioner' s new consulting venture. 
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, wa!ve 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. 
Neither the statute nor the pertinent regulations define the term "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 
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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 U.S . Citizenship and Immigration Services (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 of Transportation, 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. !d. at 217. Next, a petitioner must establish that the proposed benefit will be 
national in scope. !d. 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. !d. 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 
significantly above that ordinarily encountered in his or her field of expertise. 
The petitioner filed the Form I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker, on June 26, 2013 . The 
petition included a legal statement that reads, in part: 
The [the 
petitioner's] ongoing services as Geographic Information System (GIS) Coordinator 
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in its Storm Water Drainage and Infrastructure unit. [The petitioner's] non-immigrant 
worker status is scheduled to expire in September 2013, and she is not eligible for an 
extension. Since there is insufficient time to obtain a labor certification, we are 
requesting a national interest waiver for [the petitioner] on account of her critical role 
in work of public importance, recognized by the EPA as having a national 
environmental impact. As will be shown, her job literally impacts the health and 
safety of millions of people in the Ohio River basin and downstream to the Gulf of 
Mexico .... 
County is in the middle of a multi-year project, Phase II of the National 
Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit process, to create complete 
and reliable storm sewer system maps. Accurate mapping is crucial for detecting and 
reducing combined sewer overflows (CSO's), which occur when storm water exceeds 
the capacity of sewage systems. The County area is particularly vulnerable 
to NPS and CSO pollution because its pnmary waterway, the Ohio River, has been 
ranked as the most polluted in the United States .... Almost 10% of the entire 
population of the United States lives in the 
It was [the petitioner] who in 2009 created the initial GIS database for the non­
incorporated and selected incorporated areas of County. She is now 
engaged in the difficult task of integrating her database with the existing Cincinnati 
Area GIS and then collating the results with other databases .... In an interlocking 
project of this scale, it would be counterproductive to replace [the petitioner] with a 
GIS specialist, howsoever well-qualified, who had no hand in creating the relevant 
databases and who did not develop the working relationships essential to a local 
endeavor, albeit a local endeavor with regional and national implications .... 
County was issued an NPDES permit [in] 2006 and was supposed to 
complete its storm water map within five years of that date ... [but] received 
permission to complete the mapping system by 2016. . . . County engineers 
and other public officials have written detailed letters to USCIS stating that [the 
petitioner] has been a crucial asset and an innovative contributor to this ten-year 
project. ... [T]he NPDES mapping operations will be delayed if County is 
forced against its better judgment to replace [the petitioner] with a minimally 
qualified U.S. worker. Dispensing with the labor certification reauirement in this 
special instance is not too high a price to pay for keeping County on 
schedule to meet its obligations under the Clean Water Act. 
The assertion that "there is insufficient time to obtain a labor certification" because the petitioner's 
nonimmigrant status was about to expire is not, itself, a persuasive point. The statute, regulations, 
and NYSDOT do not contain any provision to grant the national interest waiver based on the 
imminent expiration of nonimmigrant status. The outcome of the waiver must rest on the merits, 
rather than the timing, of the petition. 
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The petitioner submitted various background materials, including printouts of an electronic slide 
presentation attributed to the petitioner and two engineers, "Creating Efficiencies Involving Storm 
Sewer Mapping and Monitoring." These materials provide information about what the petitioner 
does, but they do not demonstrate that it is in the national interest for the petitioner, rather than a 
qualified U.S. worker, to be the one fulfilling her particular role on the project. 
The petitioner submitted several letters to support the petition, all from witnesses who have worked 
with the petitioner in some capacity. project engineering manager 
for Storm Water and Infrastructure, stated: 
[The petitioner] has made several significant contributions to the GIS field, as it 
relates to storm water mapping in County .... 
In 2010, when County initiated the storm water system mapping, [the 
petitioner] designed a new database to store the new captured 
infrastructure data. 
However, since 1998 our office had been maintaining an existing database for the 
unincorporated areas of the County .... [The petitioner] created an innovative 
methodology to migrate the existing data into the recently created database .... 
Another successful story that I would want to mention is [the petitioner's] work effort 
towards the creation of desktop tools for the editors' team. Due to the extensive 
amount of data collected in the field, processing this data in the office was very time 
consumin!! and cumbersome at times. rThe oetitioner], in conjunction with 
worked to increase the speed of 
data processing while maintaining the accuracy of the storm network generated .... 
These custom tools improved the office team's performance by 50% and, therefore, 
the cost for the communities had been reduced considerably .... 
I am deeply concerned that, if [the petitioner] is forced to leave the United States as a 
result of her inability to extend her lawful status, County will experience a 
significant setback in the implementation of its NPDES program . . . , and in its 
efforts to create a cleaner watershed. 
program director of the __ ..... County Storm Water District (HCSWD), stated: 
County ... was required to obtain permit coverage for the discharge of 
storm water. One resulting requirement of this permit coverage is the necessity to 
produce a storm water infrastructure map of the municipal separate storm sewer area. 
This mapping effort is an important function which assists the infrastructure owner in 
determining the source of any illicit discharges to the storm sewer system .... 
[The petitioner] has made several significant contributions to the field of GIS as it 
relates to storm water mapping in County. As an example, by the end of 
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2009 the HCSWD began working towards the creation of the County storm sewer 
system map .... [The petitioner] proposed a new database design that not only 
incorporated industry standards for infrastructure information but also allows for the 
incorporation of the requirements of the NPDES permit. 
. . 
. The innovative solution was designed to be simple enough to facilitate data 
transfer and interoperability but extensive enough to accommodate information 
storage requirements. This database is currently used as a template by several other 
agencies including the County Public Health District and the 
County Park District. 
Another example of how [the petitioner's] expertise has advanced the County GIS 
field stems from the development of an application for field collection of the 
necessary storm sewer infrastructure information .... [The petitioner] diligently 
worked with and the County Engineer's Office to produce a unique 
field asset collection application that integrated seamlessly with the existing office 
application .... It has been four years since the application was developed, and it 
continues to be used daily, leading to my confidence that it is the proven solution 
developed at the lowest cost adding value to the citizens of our County. 
, now a GIS specialist for County, stated: 
I was the GIS Coordinator for County, Indiana, in 2006, when I had the 
privilege of working with [the petitioner] .... 
Within the space of three months in County, [the petitioner] was able to 
complete a zoning map and an update of the property data for the City of 
The city was unable to afford the expertise of a GIS professional so she stepped up to 
the plate to bring them to the digital world .... 
She was also active in the County Historic Structures Database update by 
design data collection protocol using professional grade GPS points. She used the 
methodology to create a Geodatabase of all the historic structures in Indiana .... 
Recently I approached [the petitioner] with some questions on how to design a 
stormwater database for Great Parks. Not surprisingly [the petitioner] had already 
designed and had implemented a detailed data model that she promptly shared with 
Great Parks. 
Other witnesses described the petitioner's various projects in less detail. Of the witnesses oroviding 
shorter letters, senior computer programmer analyst for CAGIS, and 
GIS manager at CAGIS, each signed separate copies of the same letter, stating that the petitioner 
"has shown dedication and willingness to take on complex projects such as the storm water mapping 
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part of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System." former 
database administrator for signed a letter that varied only slightly from this same template. 
The director issued a request for evidence on August 30, 2013, instructing the petitioner to "submit 
documentary evidence to establish . 
. . a past record of specific prior achievement that justifies 
projections of future benefit to the national interest" and the petitioner 's influence on her field as a 
whole. The director also requested evidence to show that the benefit from the petitioner's work 
would be national in scope. 
In response, the petitioner submitted documentation showing that the federal government has an 
interest in "geospatial data-management," and that local governments have contributed to national 
collections of GIS data. The petitioner highlighted the following passage from "A Local 
Government Perspective of Spatial Data Management" by GIS Coordinator in 
County, Alabama : 
Although the authoritative geospatial data at the local level exists to serve the local 
governments, as GIS managers, we should be conscious of a bigger picture. We 
maintain a piece of a puzzle defined by the Federal Geographic Data Committee 
(FGDC) as the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). The NSDI initiative is 
promoted at the national level, but support from local government has to exist for it to 
be as effective as possible. 
The quoted passage indicates that GIS data collectively supports the NSDI, but the work of 
individual GIS workers "exists to serve the local governments." 
The petitioner's response to the request for evidence included this assertion: 
The Administrative Appeals Office has granted national interest waivers in cases 
analogous to [the petitioner's]. For instance, a research associate investigating non­
point source pollution mitigation from urban runoff, was granted a national interest 
waiver. In sustaining the appeal and granting the waiver, the AAU
1 
noted, "The 
petitioner has established that her work has had a significant and measurable effect on 
water pollution ... and this research is broadly applicable rather than limited to the 
region in which the research was conducted." ... In another case, the development of 
innovative mapping techniques to predict the impact of hurricanes on coastal regions 
was deemed sufficient to merit a national interest waiver. 
The petitioner referred to these appellate decisions as "relevant legal precedent." Neither of the cited 
decisions, however, are published precedent decisions that are binding on USCIS employees under 
8C.F.R. § 103.3(c). The first cited appellate decision dates from April 1998, before the publication 
of NYSDOT as a precedent decision. The current record of proceeding does not contain the evidence 
1 
At the time of the cited decision, our office was called the Administrative Appeals Unit. 
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from the two cited cases, and therefore we cannot determine that the cited cases are similar enough 
to the present proceeding to warrant similar outcomes. Even if the cited cases had precedential 
weight, at most they would establish that the particular occupations in question are amenable, in 
principle, to the national interest waiver. The cited decisions did not establish a blanket waiver for 
every alien whose work involves water pollution and mapping techniques. 
As evidence that the petitioner 's "innovative work in the GIS field has ... attracted the attention of 
GIS professionals in other regions," the petitioner submitted a printout of an electronic mail message 
from a GIS technician in Florida. The body of Mr. message reads: 
The City of is currently trying to revamp the stormwater database. The 
database was created almost 15 years ago from several engineering firms along with 
data entry by different groups resulting in a broken database. I have just recently 
come on here and have been tasked with building the database from the ground up. I 
would like to inquire on how you decided the attributes for the different structures. If 
you had a small write up on this and could forward it to me that would be 
appreciated! 
Mr. message shows that the petitioner's efforts somehow came to Mr. attention (the 
record does not show how). It does not establish adoption of the petitioner's work outside of 
County. Mr. message dates from February 2012, more than 16 months before the 
petition's filing date in June 2013. The record does not contain any follow-up information to show 
how uch information the petitioner provided to Mr. and how much of that information Mr. 
implemented in Lakeland. 
Other evidence submitted in response to the request for evidence establishes the petitioner 's 
advanced training in GIS, and her past leadership positions on the 
Committee. These materials help to establish the petitioner's expertise in GIS, but expertise alone 
does not establish eligibility for the waiver. The statutory job offer requirement applies to aliens of 
exceptional ability. 
The director denied the petition on December 11, 2013, stating: "the work of a GIS Coordinator in 
one geographic area would be so attenuated at the national level to be negligible. The evidence does 
not demo[n]strate that the primary focus would be national in scope." The director also stated that 
the nature and degree of the petitioner's training do not warrant a waiver, and that the petitioner had 
not "shown why the labor certification process would be inappropriate in this case." 
The petitioner appealed the decision, stating that the December 2013 decision "was insufficient as a 
matter of law" and "was not based on substantial evidence in the record ." The petitioner indicated 
that an appellate brief would follow within 30 days. 
The director issued a superseding decision dated January 8, 2014, which appears to have crossed the 
appeal in the mail. The second decision is a revision of the first version rather than an entirely new 
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decision. In both versions of the decision, the director acknowledged the submission of "letters, 
primarily written by the petitioner's acquaintances and colleagues," but found that the petitioner had 
not established that the benefit of her work would be national in scope or that her work had 
influenced the field as a whole. The petitioner's subsequent appellate brief addresses both versions 
of the denial notice. 
In the appellate brief, the petitioner contests the director's conclusion that "[t]he evidence does not 
demo[n ]strate that the primary focus [of the petitioner's work] would be national in scope." The 
petitioner contended that the director based this conclusion on the petitioner's employment "with a 
local government 
entity." The petitioner also asserted: "USCIS did not engage in any analysis of the 
claims of county representatives to the effect that [the petitioner's] work has significant implications 
for the success of national environmental and geospatial data gathering policies. " The petitioner 
claimed that the director did not "address the evidence tending to show that [the petitioner's] 
innovative design of a computer application for stormwater mapping had been copied by other local 
governmental entities and was thus not confined to the locality o County." 
The petitioner does not identify a jurisdiction outside of County that has copied her 
"design of a computer application for storrnwater mapping." electronic mail 
message includes a question about the petitioner's methods, but it does not show that GIS specialists 
in have adopted the petitioner's techniques. The record does not establish that the 
petitioner's work has had any discernible impact outside 
of County. 
The petitioner states: "USCIS's conclusion employed a legal standard that is without basis in the 
law. There is no requirement that the 'primary focus' of the proposed employment be national in 
scope." Upon review, the petitioner has satisfied the "national scope" prong of the NYSDOT 
national interest test, because the waterways affected by her efforts are not a closed, local system. 
We withdraw this particular finding by the director. Nevertheless, national scope is not the same as 
national impact, and a finding that the benefit from the petitioner's occupation is national in scope 
does not imply that the petitioner's work within that occupation qualifies her for the national interest 
waiver. 
The petitioner asserts that witness letters received insufficient consideration. The director 
acknowledged and discussed the ietters, identifying several of the witnesses and summarizing the 
contents of the letters. The petitioner, on appeal, states: "USCIS takes no notice of the fact that 
several of the authors occupy positions of considerable public trust," which "militates against the 
inference that they would exercise undue partiality in [the petitioner's] favor and for her sole 
benefit." The issue is not whether the letters are credible. Rather, the letters do not facially establish 
that the petitioner's work has had a significant impact beyond the local level. 
The petitioner asserts: "What the evidence does establish is that [the petitioner] has designed 
innovative computer applications for stormwater mapping, applications that are not only helping to 
ameliorate discharge pollution in a major U.S. waterway, but also are being shared with the wider 
GIS field at state-wide Conferences ... and as far away as local government entities in 
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Florida." The record does not establish national involvement in the "state-wide 
Conferences, " and Mr. message does not establish implementation or usage of the 
petitioner's ideas beyond County; the petitioner has documented an inquiry , nothing more. 
Furthermore, Mr. inquiry was a technical question about database management. The record 
does not establish the extent, if any, to which the petitioner's work has reduced discharge pollution 
into the Ohio River or other major waterways. 
The petitioner states: 
The supporting letters have established that, due to her personal design of the 
innovative GIS applications being used by County, her prominent standing 
in the field as a whole, and her unique familiarity with an important, long-term 
stormwater mapping project, she cannot be replaced by a minimally qualified GIS 
technician, even one with nmlti-disciplinary training. 
The witnesses described the petitioner's technical expertise, and specific improvements that the 
petitioner has made to 5 computer systems to simplify data management. The record does 
n_ot establish the petitioner's "prominent standing in the field as a whole." Her familiarity with 
County's systems is an asset for that local employer, but the threshold for the waiver is the 
national interest, rather than a given local employer's desire to retain an experienced worker and, 
thus, her useful institutional knowledge. 
The petitioner submits additional exhibits on appeal, including several letters. Most of the letters are 
new, except for a copy of a letter from December 2003. The older Jetter is a recommendation letter 
from, an architect in Uruguay, written to help the petitioner get 
into graduate school at the Mr. 
'tated that the petitioner has "strong qualities to pursue a graduate degree ." 
administrator stated "it would be very difficult to find a professional with the 
skills and personal aptitudes that [the petitioner] possesses," and that the petitioner "has been 
instrumental in improving the quality of the data maintained for the region and has developed 
innovative projects critical for environmental planning." 
stated that the petitioner "possesses a skillset and well groomed project management 
d-ill~ th~t are second to none. It would be devastating for the citizens of County and the 
County Storm Water District program to lose [the petitioner] ,"whom he called "an 
unpara Ie ed asset for accomplishing the goals of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination 
Program and ultimately for improving the water quality of the streams, creeks, and rivers of our 
country ." 
In addition to the above letters, written specifically to support the petition, the petitioner submits a 
copy of a 2014 memorandum from an environmental specialist in the 
at the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. The appellate brief 
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indicates that this letter "reflect[s] the importance of [the petitioner's] work to environmental 
policy." The memorandum , "Storm Water Program Evaluation ," indicates that "mapping of the 
entire MS4 (municipal separate storm sewer system] cannot be completed until 2019 or 2020." The 
memorandum indicates that, even with the petitioner's participation , the mapping effort is still years 
behind schedule (the petitioner ' s initial submission indicated that the project was supposed to be 
complete in 2011, and County obtained an extension to 2016.) 
The petitioner has established that values her services, and that her work is part of a larger 
system that, collectively, serves the national interest. The petitioner has not, however , shown that 
her individual impact on the GIS field, or on national efforts to curb water pollution, has warr anted a 
waiver of the job offer requirement that normally applies to foreign workers in her occupation. 
The petitioner cites "a letter from the nominating [the petitioner] 
Woman of the Year for 2012." The record contains no other information about the 
or its "Woman of the Year" title. The organization's letter states that the 
petitioner is "among our women of the year for 2012," but it does not show how many other women 
received this designation or the criteria by which the organization chose them. The record does not 
establish the significance of the title or the reputation of the entity awarding it. 
The appellate brief describes "several other projects of national importance" that the petitioner has 
recently undertaken . The record does not show that the petitioner was involv ed in these projects at 
the time she filed the petition , and the petitioner did not mention them prior to the appeal. The new 
projects do not establish eligibility for the waiver, and even if they did, an applicant or petitioner 
must establish that he or she is eligible for the requested benefit at the time of filing the benefit 
request. 8 C.F.R. § 103.2(b)(1). USCIS cannot properly approve the petition at a future date after 
the petitioner or beneficiary becomes eligible under a new set of facts . See Matter of Katigbak , 
14 I&N Dec. 45, 49 (Reg ' l Comm 'r 1971). 
The brief contains the following information about one of the newly discussed projects: "[the 
petitioner] assessed and evaluated potential site locations for the location of a manufacturing plant in 
County , Indiana . She utilized the OKI Travel Mode, a nationally recognized , state-of-the­
art, computer-b ased analytic al tool used to predict future travel patterns on roads throughout the 
region." The record contains no evidence that the petitioner developed or improved the OKI Travel 
Mode. Her familiarity with existing tools, however advanced, is not grounds for a national interest 
waiver. See NYSDOT , 22 I&N Dec. at 221 n. 7. 
Apart from the project relating to the location of a manufacturin g plant, other newly described 
projects involve "the acquisition of ... flood -prone buildings in County ," the Department 
of Labor 's and the unnea ::states Geological Survey's 
creation of "America's Natural and Cultural Resources Map." The brief contains no explanation as 
to how the newly described projects relate to water pollution prevention, which was the initial basis 
for the waiver request. The evidence illustrates the versatility of the petitioner's expertise in GIS, 
but this versatility appears to be an inherent trait of GIS. The petitioner's involvement in such a 
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broad variety of projects indicates that the petitioner's work does not focus solely on storm water 
pollution, even though that issue received heavy emphasis in the initial submission. The new 
evidence suggests that County's GIS technicians work on a series of temporary projects, 
rather than being permanently assigned to issues such as storm water contamination. 
A supplement to the appeal, dated May 1, 2014, indicates that the petitioner "promptly left 
her 
public service employment with County , Ohio, upon the denial of her application for 
adjustment of status" and "has now started her own consulting company , through which she hopes to 
provide the benefits of her expertise to the federal government as well as multiple government 
entities." 
Documents submitted with the supplement show that the petitioner filed articles of organization for 
on March 13, 2014. The materials show that the petitioner registered 
with the Small Business Administration and the 
making the entity "eligible for contracts, assistance awards, and to do business with the 
federal government " according to an electronic mail message frorr The record does not show 
that has actually transacted any business with the federal government. The 
petitioner shows that prepared proposals in April 2014 in response to public 
requests for proposals from the - County Department of Information Technology and the 
County Department of Administrative Services. The petitioner also prepared an abstract 
for the 2014 Ohio GIS Conference, scheduled for September 22-24 of that year, in response to a call 
for abstracts. The abstract is marked "Proposal- 04118/2014," with no evidence that the conference 
accepted the proposal. The record, therefore , does not show that has transacted any 
business or had any impact on the GIS field. 
Furthermore, the petitioner's establishment of after filing the appeal cannot 
retroactively demonstrate that USCIS should have approved the petition at the time of filing, at a 
time when the petitioner was a government employee and her waiver application related specific ally 
to that government employment. For most of this proceeding, the petitioner based the waiver 
application specifically on County's need for her ongoing services. The new assertion that 
the petitioner will serve multiple clients as an independent consultant is a significant change in her 
intended employment. See 8 C.P.R. § 103.2(b )(1); see also Matter of Katigbak, 14 I&N Dec. at 49. 
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 her 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." !d. 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 
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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.