dismissed EB-2 NIW Case: Nursing

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
Non-Precedent Decision of the
Administrative Appeals Office 
Date: JUN. 28, 2024 In Re: 31491980 
Appeal of Texas Service Center Decision 
Form 1-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Workers (National Interest Waiver) 
The Petitioner, a nurse, seeks employment-based second preference (EB-2) immigrant classification 
as a member of the professions holding an advanced degree or as an individual of exceptional ability, 
as well as a national interest waiver of the job offer requirement attached to this classification. See 
Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act) section 203(b)(2), 8 U.S.C. § 1153(b)(2). 
The Director of the Texas Service Center denied the petition, concluding the Petitioner did not 
demonstrate that he merited a national interest waiver, as a matter of discretion, under the three-prong 
framework outlined in Matter ofDhanasar, 26 I&N Dec. 884 (AAO 2016). The matter is now before 
us on appeal. 8 C.F.R. § 103.3. 
The Petitioner bears the burden of proof to demonstrate eligibility by a preponderance of the evidence. 
Matter ofChawathe, 25 I&N Dec. 369, 375-76 (AAO 2010). We review the questions in this matter 
de novo. Matter of Christa's, Inc., 26 I&N Dec. 537,537 n.2 (AAO 2015). Upon de novo review, 
we will dismiss the appeal. 
I. LAW 
To establish eligibility for a 
national interest waiver, a petitioner must first demonstrate qualification 
for the underlying EB-2 visa classification, as either an advanced degree professional or an individual 
of exceptional ability in the sciences, arts, or business. Section 203(b )(2)(B)(i) of the Act. 
If a petitioner demonstrates eligibility for the underlying EB-2 classification, they must then establish 
that they merit a discretionary waiver of the job offer requirement "in the national interest." 
Section 203(b )(2)(B)(i) of the Act. While neither the statute nor the pertinent regulations define the 
term "national interest," Matter of Dhanasar, 26 l&N Dec. 884, 889 (AAO 2016), provides the 
framework for adjudicating national interest waiver petitions. Dhanasar states that U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration Services (USCIS) may, as matter of discretion, 1 grant a national interest waiver if 
the petitioner demonstrates that: 
1 See Flores v. Garland, 72 F.4th 85, 88 (5th Cir. 2023) (joining the Ninth, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuit Courts (and Third 
in an unpublished decision) in concluding that USCIS' decision to grant or deny a national interest waiver is discretionary 
in nature). 
• The proposed endeavor has both substantial merit and national importance; 
• The individual is well-positioned to advance their proposed endeavor; and 
• On balance, waiving the job offer requirement would benefit the United States. 
See Dhanasar, 26 I&N Dec. at 888-91, for elaboration on these three prongs. 
II. ANALYSIS 
The Director concluded that the Petitioner qualified as an advanced degree professional. The 
remaining issue to be determined on appeal is whether the Petitioner established that a waiver of the 
requirement of a job offer, and thus a labor certification, would have national importance. 
The Petitioner described his proposed endeavor in response to a request for evidence as follows: 
Through his undertakings, [the Petitioner] will perform beyond the work of ordinary 
Nurses, as his endeavor will innovate the field of Nursing through a comprehensive 
and cross-functional approach to patient care, alongside improving the application of 
technical solutions and medical research to impact positively patient recovery and 
outcomes, besides reducing hospitalization costs and the bed occupancy rates, 
improving efficiency and operational management within companies. 
With the approval of his petition, [ the Petitioner] will utilize his in-depth expertise in 
Intensive Care, Emergency Care, Home Care, and People Management to create 
treatment plans rooted in scientific reasoning, care standards, and professional 
guidelines. The Petitioner will focus on delivering intensive care and vigilant 
monitoring of patients. This care will persist until these patients reach total health and 
development, ready to return home. 
His expertise in patient care, infection control, and therapeutic communication will 
enable him to help patients recover faster, prevent complications, and improve their 
quality of life. He will also educate and train healthcare professionals from various 
countries, creating a more skilled and internationally collaborative healthcare 
workforce. 
The Petitioner will provide hands-on patient care, coordinating with physicians and 
other healthcare professionals to ensure that patients receive the highest quality of care 
possible. 
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In addition to his direct patient care responsibilities, the Petitioner will also contribute 
to healthcare research and policy development, helping to shape the future of healthcare 
in the United States. 
The Director concluded that, while the Petitioner's proposed endeavor had substantial merit, he did 
not demonstrate his proposed endeavor would have national importance. On appeal, the Petitioner 
asserts that the Director's decision "contains numerous erroneous conclusions of both law and fact." 
However, he does not address specific conclusions reached by the Director in denying the petition, 
nor does he articulate any erroneous conclusion of law or statement of fact. This alone is grounds for 
summary dismissal. 8 C.F.R. § 103.3(a)(l)(v). 
The Petitioner does submit new evidence on appeal. However, since the Petitioner was put on notice 
and given a reasonable opportunity to provide this evidence previously, we are not obligated to 
consider it for the first time on appeal. See 8 C.F .R. § 103 .2(b )(11) (requiring all requested evidence 
be submitted together at one time); Matter ofSoriano, 19 I&N Dec. 764, 766 (BIA 1988) (declining 
to consider new evidence submitted on appeal because "the petitioner was put on notice of the required 
evidence and given a reasonable opportunity to provide it for the record before the denial"). 
Nevertheless, upon review of the entirety of the record, we conclude that the Petitioner has not 
sufficiently demonstrated the national importance of his endeavor to establish his eligibility under the 
first prong of the Dhanasar analytical framework. 
The first prong, substantial merit and national importance, focuses on the specific endeavor that the 
individual proposes to undertake. The endeavor's merit may be demonstrated in a range of areas such 
as business, entrepreneurialism, science, technology, culture, health, or education. In determining 
whether the proposed endeavor has national importance, we consider its potential prospective impact. 
Dhanasar, 26 I&N Dec. at 889. 
In determining national importance, the relevant question is not the importance of the industry or 
profession in which the individual will work; instead, we focus on the "the specific endeavor that the 
foreign national proposes to undertake." See Dhanasar, 26 I&N Dec. at 889. In Dhanasar, we further 
noted that "we look for broader implications" of the proposed endeavor and that "[a ]n undertaking 
may have national importance for example, because it has national or even global implications within 
a particular field." Id. We also stated that "[a]n endeavor that has significant potential to employ U.S. 
workers or has other substantial positive economic effects, particularly in an economically depressed 
area, for instance, may well be understood to have national importance." Id. at 890. Further, to 
evaluate whether the Petitioner's proposed endeavor satisfies the national importance requirement, we 
look to evidence documenting the "potential prospective impact" of his work. 
On appeal, the Petitioner asserts that his previously submitted professional plan explains the potential 
prospective impact of his proposed endeavor to work as a nurse. He implies that he will pivot the 
focus of his proposed endeavor, stating, "I will use a different strategy, adding the proposal of a 
Researcher and Nurse Educator to raise the level of classification to national importance." The 
Petitioner emphasizes initiatives he undertook at the hospital where he worked in Brazil, such as 
recommending the placement of a "Do Not Disturb Zone" sign where nurses prepared medications to 
aid their focus and reduce errors. He discusses research papers he claims to have assisted writing, 
such as a study related to oral hygiene and pneumonia, as well as a paper outlining an outpatient 
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protocol for an oral anticoagulant that lists his name as one of dozens of contributors. The Petitioner 
points to these activities and letters of recommendation as evidence of the national importance of his 
endeavor, stating the following: 
[I]t is clear that I am a professional who always seeks to apply all the knowledge I have 
acquired within my work routine, and when this is validated, it ends up becoming a 
reality of national importance . . . . I have experience as a Nurse Educator, and the 
necessary qualities to develop work that can be recognized in my field of activity and 
[sic] nationally important. 
The Petitioner describes how nurse educators "primarily teach prospective nursing professionals 
clinical skills, patient care methods, and best collaboration practices." The Petitioner explains his 
newly intended proposed endeavor as follows: 
I intend to work beyond the forms mentioned in the Professional Plan, also as a Nurse 
Educator, in hospital institutions, mainly in a campus hospital, because that [sic] 
provide and encourage researches [sic] and have educational development programs 
for the nursing team. 
As a Nurse Educator, I will remain up-to-date on the best nursing practices and 
methods, but I will also promote a continuous learning mindset among the nursing 
team. I will encourage nurses to perpetually improve in their field. It is expected 
that I will be prepared for the future of nursing, which will face the growing need 
for non-hospital healthcare, this being the main basis of healthcare in Brazil, focusing 
on disease prevention, thus demonstrating once again a quality that differentiates 
me within the field of nursing, an increasing development of new software to improve 
the healthcare experience, and the drain on effective collaboration in an increasingly 
digital workplace. I will support practicing RNs through experiential learning 
opportunities to promote staff development. [Emphasis in the original.] 
The Petitioner initially described his proposed endeavor as that of a nurse performing a wide array of 
duties in a hospital and in patient homes. On appeal, he broadly describes his endeavor as that of a 
"Nurse Educator and Researcher" in a hospital, providing instruction to students, "[ d]esigning and 
evaluating program curricula," and "[r]esearching related topics." In describing his "different 
strategy," he indicates that he will forgo the original portion of his endeavor involving hands-on patient 
care and focus on elements related to instruction and research, which were briefly referenced in his 
professional plan, thereby elevating his endeavor to the level of national importance. 
However, it is unclear what specific endeavor the Petitioner intends to pursue. For instance, the 
Petitioner states that his proposed endeavor would "broadly enhance societal welfare" by affecting 
others' "well-being and health" as a "Critical Care Nurse, Researcher and Nurse Educator." The 
Petitioner alternately asserted that he would work in an intensive care unit, provide home healthcare, 
develop training for new nurses, prevent falls in healthcare facilities, and conduct research to generally 
lower healthcare costs and improve patient outcomes. The Petitioner described several ambitious 
undertakings, but given the wide-ranging scope of these activities, it appears unlikely that he would 
have a prospective national impact on either the field of nursing or the healthcare industry, particularly 
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since there is little objective evidence to substantiate the prospective impact of these many proposed 
endeavors. 
For example, on appeal, the Petitioner describes several studies in which he claims involvement, such 
as one to "[d]evelop technical innovations to prevent falls in a hospital environment" and another to 
"[r]educe medication errors by 35% by the end of 2025." However, the record does not include 
evidence to corroborate these studies or any role the Petitioner played within them. The burden is on 
the Petitioner to provide evidence to support his assertions with relevant, probative, and credible 
evidence. See Matter of Chawathe, 25 I&N Dec. at 376. Further, while the Petitioner implies his 
previous experience demonstrates that he would innovate nursing care in a manner that would broadly 
benefit patients and reduce healthcare costs, his assertions are vague and unsupported by objective 
evidence to clarify his endeavor and demonstrate its national importance. We also note that the 
Petitioner's emphasis on his previous experience relates not to the first prong of the Dhanasar 
framework, but to the second, 2 which discusses whether an individual is well-positioned to advance 
an endeavor. 
The Petitioner's also asserts that he has established how his proposed endeavor would have substantial 
economic effects, indicating that he intends to develop a medical device requiring the hiring of 
individuals to produce it. The Petitioner provides a case report related to his description of the device 
discussing a patient's external cranioplasty treatment, but he provides no additional documentation 
related to his plan to develop a device that, he asserts, would serve to impact the industry or field more 
broadly, rising to the level of national importance. It is not clear how the Petitioner's employment as 
either a nurse, a nursing instructor, or a researcher in the United States would have a positive economic 
impact at the level of "substantial economic effects" contemplated by Dhanasar. Id. at 890. 
Further, although the Petitioner links his proposed endeavor's national importance to an asserted 
shortage of nurses, we observe that shortages in a field are not alone sufficient to demonstrate that his 
endeavor stands to have an impact on the broader field or otherwise have implications rising to the 
level of national importance. Although the Petitioner intended to train future nurses, he does not 
sufficiently explain or document how his individual training efforts would have the national impact 
on an asserted shortage of nurses. In Dhanasar we determined that the petitioner's teaching activities 
did not rise to the level of having national importance because they would not impact his field more 
broadly. Id. at 893. Similarly, the Petitioner here has not properly detailed or documented how 
working as a nurse educator would impact his field more broadly. In addition, the importance of a 
nationwide issue does not confer national importance on the Petitioner's proposed endeavor to work 
in the field of nursing. Again, in determining national importance within the Dhanasar framework, 
the relevant question is not the importance of the field, industry, or profession in which the individual 
will work, but the specific endeavor that the individual will undertake. Id. at 889. 
The record does not establish the national importance of the proposed endeavor as required by the first 
prong of the Dhanasar precedent decision. Therefore, the Petitioner has not demonstrated eligibility 
for a national interest waiver. Because the identified reasons for dismissal are dispositive of the 
2 Because the Petitioner has not established eligibility under the first prong of the Dhanasar framework, determinations 
concerning the second and third prongs are unnecessary to the ultimate decision; therefore, they will be reserved in this 
decision. 
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Petitioner's appeal, we decline to reach and hereby reserve remaining arguments concerning eligibility 
under the Dhanasar framework. See INS v. Bagamasbad, 429 U.S. 24, 25 (1976) (stating that agencies 
are not required to make "purely advisory findings" on issues that are unnecessary to the ultimate 
decision); see also Matter of L-A-C-, 26 I&N Dec. 516, 526 n. 7 (BIA 2015) ( declining to reach 
alternative issues on appeal where an applicant is otherwise ineligible). 
III. CONCLUSION 
The Petitioner has not met the requisite first prong of the Dhanasar analytical framework. We 
conclude that the Petitioner has not established that he is eligible for or otherwise merits a national 
interest waiver. The petition will remain denied. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed. 
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