dismissed EB-2 NIW Case: Health Statistics

iden- data deleted to 
prevent clearly unwarranted 
invasion of pemd @VW 
U.S. Department of Homeland Security 
20 Mass. Ave., N.W., Rm. A3042 
Washington, DC 20529 
U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
FILE: Office: VERMONT SERVICE CENTER Date: 0 6 
EAC 03 224 53021 
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. 3 1153(b)(2) 
ON BEHALF OF PETITIONER: 
INSTRUCTIONS: 
This is the decision of the Administrative Appeals Office in your case. All documents have been returned to 
the office that originally decided your case. Any further inquiry must be made to that office. 
w 6 Robert P. Wiemann. Director 
Administrative Appeals Office 
Page 2 
DISCUSSION: The employment-based immigrant visa petition was denied by the Director, Vermont Service 
Center, and is now before the Administrative Appeals Office on appeal. The appeal will be dismissed. 
The petitioner seeks classification pursuant to section 203(b)(2) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act), 
8 U.S.C. 5 1153(b)(2), as a member of the professions holding an advanced degree. 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. 
Section 203(b) of the Act states in pertinent part that: 
(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) Subject to clause (ii), 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 petitioner holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Policy and Resource Economics from Mississippi State University 
(2001). The director found 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 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 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 (IMMACT), published at 
56 Fed. Reg. 60897,60900 (November 29, 1991), states: 
The Service 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 
Page 3 
"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. 
Matter of New York State Dept. of Transportation, 22 I&N Dec. 215 (Comm. 1998), has set forth several factors 
which must be considered when evaluating a request for a national interest waiver. First, it must be shown that the 
alien seeks employment in an area of substantial intrinsic merit. Next, it must be shown that the proposed benefit 
will be national in scope. 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. 
It must be noted that, while the national interest waiver hinges on prospective national benefit, it clearly must be 
established that the alien's past record justifies projections of future benefit to the national interest. The 
petitioner's subjective assurance that he will, in the future, serve the national interest cannot suffice to establish 
prospective national benefit. The inclusion of the term "prospective" is used 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. 
Eligibility for the waiver must rest with the alien's own qualifications rather than with the position sought. In 
other words, we generally do not accept the argument that a given project is so important that any alien 
qualified to work on this project must also qualify for a national interest waiver. At issue is whether this 
petitioner's contributions in the field are of such unusual significance that he merits the special benefit of a 
national interest waiver, over and above the visa classification sought. By seeking an extra benefit, the 
petitioner assumes an extra burden of proof. A petitioner must demonstrate a past history of achievement 
with some degree of influence on the field as a whole. Id. at 219, n. 6. 
The intrinsic merit and national scope of the petitioner's work are immediately apparent. It remains to be 
shown that this particular individual, to a greater extent than others performing similar work, qualifies for a 
special exemption from the job offerllabor certification requirement which, by law, normally attaches to the 
visa classification that he has chosen to seek. 
The petitioner submitted several letters of support from current and former colleagues. 
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Associate Chief of Pulmonary 
and Critical Care Medicine at Veterans Administration (VA) Medical Center in Boston, and scientist at the 
Channing Laboratory, Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, states: 
I hired [the petitioner] to work with me starting in June 2000 at the VA Medical Center in Boston. He 
was hired to be a Health Statistician for two research projects following his completion of a Masters 
Degree in statistics (in addition to his Ph.D.). He was responsible for the data analysis for a NM-funded 
project examining the risk of lung cancer in a cohort of 54,000 U.S. railroad workers, and a VA-funded 
project examining respiratory illness and pulmonary function decline in a cohort of 450 subjects with 
spinal cord injury. [The petitioner] has substantially and uniquely contributed to both research projects. 
He currently works at the Channing Laboratory, Brigham and Women's Hospital where he has 
continued this work with me, as well as works on other projects that have included the assessment of 
environmental lead toxicity and the association of inhaled particles with death from cardiac diseases. 
Page 4 
[The petitioner] is part of a study that has been collecting pulmonary data on 450 subjects at the 
Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Boston with spinal cord injury on a yearly basis so 
that the natural history of lung function and the development of respiratory illness can be assessed. He 
has served as data manager and analyst. He has validated data by frequency analysis, distribution 
review, missing data and records searching, database comparing, and chart review. He conducted cross- 
sectional and longitudinal analysis using categorical data analysis and mixed models with AR(1) error 
structure to assess pulmonary function in spinal cord injury which was presented at the annual meeting 
of the American Paraplegia Society in 2001. Respiratory illnesses are the most common cause of death 
in chronic spinal cord injury, yet risk factors for chest illnesses following injury are poorly described. 
He is the first to use negative binomial distribution with general estimating equation (GEE) 
methodology to analyze chest illness. His research findings were presented at the 99' American 
Thoracic Society (ATS) International Conference in 2003 and a manuscript is in preparation. 
[The petitioner] is an extremely qualified programmer and statistician with sufficient expertise in 
statistics such that he can substantially contribute to the approach taken towards data analysis in 
addition to programming in a specialized statistical language called SAS. . . . He possesses high-level 
knowledge of SAS, especially in Marco Language, Structured Query Language (SQL), Statistical 
Procedures (STAT), and data null techniques (BASE). [The petitioner's] solid training in SAS Macro, 
proficiency with SAS Macro and analytical skills make him especially qualified to cany our research. 
Among the specific skills he possesses are SAS, S-PLUS, STATA, Unix, ORACLE, ACCESS, 
EXCEL, Geographic Information Systems (GIs), and other computer languages such as FORTRAN, C, 
and BASIC. 
We note here that any objective qualifications that are necessary for the performance of a health statistician 
position can be articulated in an application for alien labor certification. It cannot suffice to state that the 
petitioner possesses useful skills or a unique background as a programmer and statistician. Special or unusual 
knowledge or training does not inherently meet the national interest threshold. The issue of whether 
similarly-trained workers are available in the U.S. is an issue under the jurisdiction of the Department of 
Labor. See Matter of New York State Dept. of Transportation at 221. We accept that the petitioner has 
contributed to projects undertaken at the VA Medical Center and the Brigham and Women's Hospital in 
Boston, but his ability to impact the greater field beyond these projects has not been adequately demonstrated. 
Co-Director, Channing Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's 
Hospital, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, states: 
I have known [the petitioner] three years during which time he has worked mostly for - 
but also has done some work directly for me that involved managing an extremely complex 
heart rate variability in relation to air pollution exposure. 
Althou h we have other Ph.D. statisticians working in our group, at the time he was hired by Dr. 
- we were looking for a candidate who could provide not only expertise in statistics but also 
had the capability to function independently in carrying out both the computer processing as well as 
statistical analysis of comvlex data sets. In addition, because of [the wtitioner'sl understanding of the -. " 
environmental policy issues, he was uniquely qualified to work with on his studies of 
diesel exhaust exposure and risk of lung cancer. . . . In fact, it was extremely difficult to find an 
individual other than [the petitioner] who had sufficient strengths and expertise in the field to join the 
group. 
A shortage of qualified workers in a given field, regardless of the nature of the occupation, does not constitute 
grounds for a national interest waiver. Given that the labor certification process was designed to address the issue 
of worker shortages, a shortage of qualified workers is an argument for obtaining rather than waiving a labor 
certification. See Matter of New York State Dept. of Transportation at 220-221. 
is a Professor of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the Harvard School of Public 
Health. He is also an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a physician-scientist at 
the Channing Laboratory, Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. - 
[The petitioner] plays a key role in the NAS [Normative Aging Study] project involving 
multidisciplinary scientists. He has developed a computational macro to automatically merge and 
update cognitive test performances including the Neurobehavioral Evaluation System 2 (NES2), 
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) test, the Consortium to Establish a Registry for 
Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD) test, and the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE). This macro has enabled 
us to efficiently examine the relationship of bone and blood lead to cognitive function in healthy 
community-dwelling men, to assess whether accumulated lead in bone was a better biomarker for 
cognitive performance impairment than was lead in blood, and to test the hypothesis that higher lead 
levels are associated with a decline in cognitive test performance. 
[The petitioner's] interdisciplinary knowledge and experience have enabled him to make significant 
contributions in this field. Besides the NAS data management and data updating, he has created various 
research datasets for his colleagues from complex NAS databases. Among those datasets are the bone 
and blood lead and cognitive function dataset, the anomymized dataset, the hypertension genetics 
dataset, the bone and blood lead and urinary NTX dataset, the bone and blood lead and environmental 
exposure dataset, and the bone and blood lead, gene, and mini-mental exam score dataset. He has 
conducted statistical analysis to examine whether the C282Y or H63D hemochromatosis gene variants 
independently or combined are associated with body lead burden using GLM, ANOVA, TTEST, and 
Hardy-Weinberg proportions test. 
[The petitioner] has solid [sic] theoretical background and special skills in longitudinal data analysis 
and statistical modeling that have placed him uniquely in my research group. He possesses high-level 
knowledge of SAS, especially in SAS macro language, advanced data manipulation techniques, 
structured query language, and statistical procedures. He has excellent SAS skills with the ability to 
debug, troubleshoot, and provide quality review of complex SAS programs. Along with his singular 
knowledge of SAS, he has solid training and mastery in other analytical techniques such as S-PLUS and 
STATA, database management skills such as Unix, Oracle, and Access, and high-level computer 
language such as Fortran, C, and Visual Basic. Therefore, [the petitioner's] abilities are too unique to be 
duplicated or matched by another with similar education and experience. 
In the same manner as - Associate Professor at the Institute of Atmospheric 
Science of South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, also focuses on the petitioner's "unique skill" in 
developing "various complex SAS macros."' As noted previously, it cannot suffice to state that the petitioner 
possesses solid training or unique skills. Regardless of the alien's particular experience or skills, even 
assuming they are unique, the benefit the alien's skills or background will provide to the United States must 
also considerably outweigh the inherent national interest in protecting U.S. workers through the labor 
certification process. See Matter of New York State Dept. of Transportation at 221. 
Research Associate Professor, Boston University School of Public Health, and a consulting 
scientist at the Channing Laboratory at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, states: 
I first started working with [the petitioner] in the summer of 2002 on an analysis project involving 
environmental lead toxicity, involving cognitive functioning, at the Channing Laboratory, Brigham and 
Women's Hospital. This is part of the prospective Normative Aging Study (NAS) . . . . Given the 
complicacy of data sources and irregular time intervals, designing the data structures and manipulating 
the databases require not only extraordinary computer skills and statistical modeling skills, but also 
require knowledge of the subject field under investigation. [The petitioner's] education and working 
experience made him uniquely qualified for this task. He has developed a computational macro to 
automatically merge and update cognitive tests that include continuous performance, pattern 
comparison, pattern memory, digit span backward, vocabulary, word list memory, constructional 
praxis, Boston naming test, verbal fluency, and MMSE test scores. This macro has served as a major 
source to be able to efficiently analyze the prospective relationship between bonelblood lead levels and 
cognitive function for healthy community-dwelling men, and to test the hypothesis that higher lead 
levels are associated with a decline in cognitive test performance. 
We are currently working on a sentinel publication that describes our most recent analyses of the role of 
cumulative lead exposure and cognitive functioning in an older population. [The petitioner's] 
considerable expertise in programming and integrating several different database structures has been 
crucial to complete this project. 
The expectation that results from the petitioner's work will be published at some unknown future date is not 
adequate to demonstrate that his work has had a significant impact as of the petition's filing date. See Matter 
of Katigbak, 14 I&N Dec. 45 (Comm. 1971). The petitioner must demonstrate that his work has already 
significantly influenced the greater field. 
, Professor of Forest Economics and Management. Mississippi State University, states: 
states that he has known the petitioner "for more than 20 years as a college classmate, a colleague, and a 
friend." 
Page 7 
I have known [the petitioner] since 1997, initially as major professor and director of his dissertation 
committee, then as a colleague and friend. I also had [the petitioner] in a course I instructed. [The 
petitioner] has an excellent educational background and extensive experience in environmental and 
natural resource economics and statistics. 
[The petitioner's] Ph.D. research focused on the inter-regional impacts on the forest products industry 
of environmental regulations pertaining to protection of the spotted owl. [The petitioner] developed a 
regression model to analyze the trends in new capital expenditures for the logging, lumber and wood 
products, and paper and allied products industries in the Pacific Northwest and South. The model was 
designed to determine the long-run trend in new capital expenditures and the deviations from that trend 
after 1988, the year harvesting restrictions to protect the northern spotted owl were imposed. His 
research demonstrated that the forest products industry was shifting its new capital investment from the 
Pacific Northwest to the South. [The petitioner] . . . published his findings in the Journal of Forestry, 
the national forestry journal. 
We acknowledge that the petitioner has co-written at least one paper with his former Ph.D. supervisor, Dr. 
but the evidence presented is not adequate to show that his published findings have had an unusual 
level of impact on the greater field. We do not find that publication of one's work is presumptive evidence of 
eligibility for a national interest waiver. When judging the influence and impact that the petitioner's work has 
had, the very act of publication is not as reliable a gauge as is the citation history of the published works. 
Numerous independent citations would provide firm evidence that others have been influenced by the 
petitioner's work. Their citation of the petitioner's work demonstrates their familiarity with it. If, on the other 
hand, there are few or no citations of an alien's work, suggesting that that work has gone largely unnoticed by 
the greater field, then it is reasonable to question how widely that alien's work is viewed as being noteworthy. 
It is also reasonable to question how much impact - and national benefit - an individual's work would have 
if his findings did not influence the direction of future studies. The petitioner, however, has submitted no 
evidence of cites to his published work. 
We note that the petitioner's initial witnesses were limited to individuals affiliated with institutions where he 
has studied or worked. With regard to letters of support from one's colleagues, the source of the 
recommendations is a highly relevant consideration. These letters are not frrst-hand evidence that the 
petitioner's work is attracting attention on its own merits, as we might expect with findings or methodologies 
that are unusually significant. While letters from the petitioner's research supervisors and collaborators are 
important in providing details about his role in various research projects, such letters fall short of establishing 
the petitioner's impact on the field beyond the walls of the institutions where he has worked. In this case, the 
witnesses' statements are not supported by direct evidence (such as numerous independent citations) showing 
that the petitioner's work has been especially important or even recognized in his field of endeavor. 
The petitioner also submitted evidence of his membership in the American Statistical Association and four 
award certificates presented to him by the Ministry of Forestry of the People's Republic of China. The record 
includes no evidence of the selection criteria for these awards from the early 1990's. Nevertheless, we find 
that recognition for achievement in one's field and professional memberships relate to the criteria for 
classification as an alien of exceptional ability, a classification that normally requires an approved labor 
Page 8 
certification. We cannot conclude that meeting one, two, or even the requisite three criteria for classification 
as an alien of exceptional ability warrants a waiver of the labor certification requirement in the national 
interest. 
The director denied the petition, stating that the petitioner failed to establish that a waiver of the requirement 
of an approved labor certification would be in the national interest of the United States. Noting a lack of cites 
to the petitioner's published articles and a lack of independent witnesses attesting to the significance of the 
petitioner's work, the director concluded that the evidence of record did not establish that the petitioner "has 
had a substantial impact in his field of endeavor." 
On appeal, the petitioner submits three additional letters of support. 
Professor, Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Calgary, states: 
I have been a visiting Scholar at the Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University from 
September 2003 - August 2004. I was on sabbatical with Professor Howard Hu who was my sponsor 
for the duration of this period of study. During that time, I became acquainted with [the petitioner] and 
worked with him on a project related to the impact of lead on the sex ratio of Women in Mexico City. 
In my recent study on lead and sex ratio analyses of Mexico women, I have used [the petitioner's] 
RANK macro and his data structure design methods to my research. . . . We employed [the 
petitioner's] macro and methods to perform quintile and quartile analyses of maternal patella lead, 
maternal tibia lead, and cord blood lead, and extract analytical data from cohort 1 and cohort 2. 
Without [the petitioner's] methods, I could take a long time to finish my manuscript entitled "The 
impact of material lead exposure on the second sex ratio" (in press). 
We do not find a former collaborator's use of the petitioner's analytical methodologies to be indicative of 
substantial national impact. Further, it is apparent that employed the petitioner's methods in the 
lead and sex ratio study subsequent to the petition's filing date. See Matter of Katigbak at 45. 
now a Professor of Biostatistics and Medicine at the University of Rochester. previously held 
an adjunct faculty position at the Harvard School of Public Health from 2000 to 2203. - 
Approximately 450,000 people live with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) in the US. There are about 10,000 
new SCI's every year. Respiratory illnesses are the most common cause of death in chronic SCI. Chest 
illness risk has been ascribed to related respiratory muscle dysfunction, but has not been studied 
carefully. [The petitioner] is the first to use negative binomial distribution with general estimating 
equation (GEE) methodology accounting for repeated measures to assess longitudinal predictors of 
chest illness for the patients with chronic SCI. His research findings were presented at the 99'h 
American Thoracic Society (ATS) International Conference in 2003. He also conducted experimental 
design, cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis using mixed models with AR(1) error structure to 
assess pulmonary function and its relationships with other chronic diseases for the patients with 
different levels of SCI which was presented at the annual meeting of the American Paraplegia Society 
in 2001. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the U.S. Diesel exhaust has been 
suspected to be a lung carcinogen. Modeling the relationship between diesel exposure and lung cancer 
mortality has been limited for a long time because of lack of sufficient data, scientific design, and 
efficient methodology. Using scientific designs and computational macros developed by [the 
petitioner], he and his colleagues are the first to successfully employ Cox Proportional Hazard Models 
to assess lung cancer mortality in 54,973 U.S. railroad workers. Their most recent findings were 
presented at the 97fi American Thoracic Society (ATS) International Conference in 2001 and published 
in Environ Health Perspect 1 12: 1539-1543 (2004). The lead-exposed rat demonstrates increased 
vascular reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS are thought to contribute to degenerative changes in the 
vasculature, a manifestation of which is an increase in the pulse pressure [the difference between 
systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP)]. [The petitioner] and his colleagues 
used simple and multiple linear regression to exam bone lead measures as predictors of pulse pressure 
in humans in a sub-study of the Normative Aging Study, a longitudinal cohort of aging. They presented 
their findings in The International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE) 2004. 
The record, however, includes no evidence (such as citations) showing that the journal publications and 
conference presentations discussed in letter attracted an unusual level of interest throughout the 
field. Further, we note that the article in Environ Health Perspect and the ISEE presentation occurred 
subsequent to the petition's filing date. A petitioner, however, must establish eligibility at the time of filing. 
See Matter of Katigbak at 45. 
Professor of Medicine and Director of Respiratory, Environmental and Genetic 
Epidemiology, Harvard Medical School, states: "There is a critical need for individuals with a combination 
of statistical and programming skills in the United States and it is well recognized that all national projections 
are that we are below national estimates for this job category." As noted previously, a shortage of qualified 
workers in a given field does not constitute grounds for a national interest waiver. See Matter of New York State 
Dept. of Transportation at 220-22 1. 
As previously stated in the original letters of recommendation, [the petitioner] is unique in that he has 
the appropriate statistical training as well as computer and scientific skills based on his Ph.D. training to 
understand the reasoning behind complex analytic research problems. He has been instrumental in the 
research work on the health effects of diesel exhaust exposure on lung cancer in railroad workers. There 
is no question that research in this area as well as several other areas that he is involved will suffer 
substantially if he were forced to leave the Channing Laboratory. In this regard, publication or even 
citation is not the critical issue here. The critical issue is would his leaving the lab set back our research 
effort. 
While Citizenship and Immigration Services recognizes the importance of the petitioner's research projects, 
eligibility for a national interest waiver must rest with the alien's own qualifications rather than with the 
position sought. In other words, we generally do not accept the argument that a given project is so important 
that any alien qualified to work on this project must also qualify for a national interest waiver. We do not 
dispute that the petitioner's work has been important to the Channing Laboratory, but there is no evidence 
showing that his methods and findings are of greater impact or national benefit than those of others in his 
field. The observations from various witnesses about the importance of the studies at the Channing laboratory 
establish the intrinsic merit and national scope of the petitioner's work, but their comments are not adequate to 
show that the petitioner's individual accomplishments are of such an unusual significance that he qualifies for a 
waiver of the job offer requirement. By law, advanced degree professionals and aliens of exceptional ability 
are generally required to have a job offer and a labor certification. A statute should be construed under the 
assumption that Congress intended it to have purpose and meaningful effect. Mountain States Tel. & Tel. v. 
Pueblo of Santa Ana, 472 U.S. 237,249 (1985); Sutton v. United States, 819 F.2d 1289, 1295 (5" Cir. 1987). 
Congress plainly intends the national interest waiver to be the exception rather than the rule. 
While all of the witnesses describe the importance of the petitioner's research, we note that they all have ties 
to institutions with which he is affiliated. This fact indicates that while the petitioner's work is valued by 
those close to him, others outside his immediate circle are largely unaware of his work and do not attribute the 
same level of importance to his work. 
In this case, we find that the available evidence lacks independent support for the assertion that the 
petitioner's specific contributions have outweighed those of others in his specialty. While the petitioner may 
have contributed to research projects undertaken at the Channing Laboratory and the universities he attended, 
his ability to measurably influence the field beyond those projects has not been adequately demonstrated. 
Clearly, the petitioner's current and former colleagues have a high opinion of the petitioner and his work. 
The petitioner, however, has failed to demonstrate that his work has had a nationally significant impact. In 
conclusion, we find that that the petitioner has not established that his past record of achievement is at a level 
that would justify a waiver of the job offer requirement which, by law, normally attaches to the visa 
classification sought by the petitioner. 
As is clear from a plain reading of 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 the 
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 project or area of research, 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. 
The burden of proof in these proceedings rests solely with the petitioner. Section 291 of the Act, 8 U.S.C. 
5 1361. The petitioner has not sustained that burden. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed.