dismissed EB-2 NIW Case: Systems Analysis

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
Non-Precedent Decision of the
Administrative Appeals Office 
Date: JUL. 30, 2024 In Re: 32384131 
Appeal of Texas Service Center Decision 
Form 1-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Workers (National Interest Waiver) 
The Petitioner, a systems analyst, seeks employment-based second preference (EB-2) immigrant 
classification as a member of the professions holding an advanced degree, as well as a national interest 
waiver of the job offer requirement attached to this 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 that the record did not 
establish that the Petitioner was eligible for EB-2 classification or that he qualified for a national 
interest waiver. The matter is now before us on appeal pursuant to 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 Christo 's, Inc. , 26 I&N Dec. 537, 537 n.2 (AAO 2015). Upon de novo review, 
we will dismiss the appeal. 
I. LAW 
To qualify for the underlying EB-2 visa classification
, a petitioner must establish they are an advanced 
degree professional or an individual of exceptional ability in the sciences, arts, or business. Section 
203(b)(2)(A) of the Act. 
An advanced degree is any U.S. academic or professional degree or a foreign equivalent degree above 
that of a bachelor's degree. A U.S. bachelor 's degree or foreign equivalent degree followed by five 
years of progressive experience in the specialty is the equivalent of a master's degree. 
8 C.F.R. § 204.5(k)(2). 
If a petitioner establishes eligibility for the underlying EB-2 classification, they must then demonstrate 
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 I&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: 
• 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. 
Id. 
II. ANALYSIS 
The 
Petitioner is a systems analyst. He intends to advance his career in this field and proposes to offer 
IT solutions and services to private and public enterprises. The Director denied the Petition, finding 
that the Petitioner had not shown a sufficient single-course length of study in Brazil to demonstrate 
receipt of an advanced degree, as the provided transcript showed only five semesters of coursework. 
The Director acknowledged the Petitioner's significant non-university education, but indicated that 
additional coursework or practical experience could not be substituted for a degree equivalent to at 
least a bachelor's degree. 
On appeal, the Petitioner argues that he satisfies the advanced degree requirement. 2 He contends that 
he has a bachelor's degree in information systems, that he has accrued 18 years of work experience, 
and that he has completed a substantial amount of additional coursework beyond his bachelor's degree. 
As a result, he asserts that he obtained a degree equivalent to a U.S. bachelor's degree and five years 
of progressive experience in his speciality, as required for EB-2 classification. We disagree; the 
Petitioner has not established eligibility for EB-2 classification based on the completion of an 
advanced degree. 
A. The Petitioner Has Not Demonstrated that He Obtained an Advanced Degree 
The Petitioner argues that he has a qualifying degree, as he obtained a bacharel diploma from an 
accredited university. He contends that his university transcript shows four years of coursework 
equaling 3588 hours. He notes that the coursework began in 2009 and was completed in 2012, and he 
argues that this equals four calendar years of coursework, running from January to December of each 
year. He asserts that the Director erred in treating the coursework as five semesters of work and, 
therefore, finding it not equivalent to a four-year degree. The Petitioner also relies on two opinions 
from an accreditation evaluation agency that he has obtained at least a bachelor's degree. 
The evidence on record does not establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the Petitioner 
obtained the equivalent of a U.S. bachelor's degree in a single course of study. The Petitioner has 
demonstrated that he obtained a bacharel. According to the American Association of Collegiate 
Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) Electronic Database for Global Education (EDGE): 
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). 
2 The record does not reflect the Petitioner sought to qualify as an individual of exceptional ability, and this has not been 
argued on appeal. We therefore limit our analysis to his qualification as an advanced degree professional. 
2 
The 3-year Titulo de Bacharel/Grau de Bacharel represents attainment of a level of 
education comparable to 3 years of university study in the United States. Credit may 
be awarded on a course-by-course basis. The 4- or 5-year Titulo de Bacharel/Grau de 
Bacharel represents attainment of a level of education comparable to a bachelor's 
degree in the United States. 
AACRAO, Titulo de Bacharel/Grau de Bacharel (Title of Bachelor), 
https ://www.aacrao.org/ edge/ country/ credentials/ credential/brazil/t%C3 %ADtulo-de-bacharel-grau­
de-bachare l-( title-of-bachelor) (incorporated into the record). 3 
The Petitioner's diploma does not specify a length of study. The Petitioner asserts that his degree is 
equivalent to four years as the transcript covers calendar years, rather than semesters, of study. 
However, we have not been provided with information from the educational institution to support this 
contention. Furthermore, the provided transcript is in line with the Director's reading that it breaks 
courses down by semester. The transcript includes a column for "Letive Periods" and another for 
"Semesters." Each "Letive Period" contains a date and is listed as corresponding to a particular 
semester. The coursework taken between 2009 and 2011 is listed as "2009/1," "2010/1," and "2011 /1" 
and corresponds to semesters one through three. By contrast, there are two separate designations for 
2012: "2012/1," which is listed as semester four, and "2012/2," listed as semester five. Therefore, 
the dates listed appear to correlate with semesters rather than one ongoing, year-long course of study 
as the Petitioner contends. As the transcript shows 5 semesters, the course of study does not equate to 
four years. 
We have reviewed the accreditation evaluators' opinions that the Petitioner's course of study to obtain 
the bacharel equates to either a U.S. bachelor's or master's degree. The first letter prepared by GEO 
Credential Services stated that the Petitioner had completed four years of coursework without 
providing a breakdown of how the years of study were calculated. Although this report indicated that 
the length of study for a bacharel can vary, it did not indicate how the length of the Petitioner's specific 
program was analyzed. A follow-up analysis from GEO Credential Services noted that "EDGE 
specifically lists the Bachelor degree from Brazil to represent attainment of a level of education 
comparable to a Bachelor's degree in the United States." This report appears to conclude that any 
bacharel degree would be equivalent to a U.S. bachelor's degree. This analysis is incomplete, as it 
does not consider the existence of three-year bacharel degrees or specify that only four- or five-year 
degrees are equivalent to a U.S. bachelor's degree. Because of these limitations, the evaluation letters 
are of limited assistance in evaluating the Petitioner's educational credentials and we afford them 
limited weight. 
The Petitioner's reliance on his completion of 3588 credit hours is also insufficient to establish 
completion of a four-year degree based on the current record. Counsel for the Petitioner asserts that 
this credit total equates to a four-year degree, but unsubstantiated assertions of counsel are not 
evidence. See, e.g., Matter ofS-M-, 22 I&N Dec. 49, 51 (BIA 1998) ("statements in a brief, motion 
3 EDGE was created by ACCRAO, a non-profit, voluntary association of more than 11,000 professionals in more than 40 
countries. See AACRAO, Who We Are, https://www.aacrao.org/who-we-are; see also Viraj, LLC, v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 578 
Fed. Appx. 907, 910 (11th Cir. 2014) (describing EDGE as "a respected source of information"). 
3 
or Notice of Appeal are not evidence and thus are not entitled to any evidentiary weight"). The 
Petitioner has not provided us with information from his university or another source within the 
Brazilian higher education system equating a particular number of credit hours with a determined 
length of study. 
The remaining evidence of education is not sufficient to meet the advanced degree requirement for 
EB-2 classification. While the Petitioner has taken a significant number of additional courses, he has 
not claimed that these were related to his university degree. In addition, the Petitioner noted that he 
was pursuing a master's degree, but the record does not reflect that this degree was complete at the 
time this petition was filed. As the Petitioner's university coursework is not equivalent to a U.S. 
bachelor's degree, he is unable to establish Eligibility for EB-2 classification. 
B. The Petitioner Has Not Shown Five Years of Progressive Experience 
Even if the Petitioner were to demonstrate the completion of a qualifying advanced degree, the record 
does not show five years of progressive work experience in the specialty following receipt of the 
degree. See 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(k)(2). On appeal, the Petitioner has argued that the requisite experience 
was obtained between late 2012 and 2016, while he worked forl I He then 
worked for I I from 2018 to 2020. He has submitted letters from these employers 
confirming that he worked for them full time as a "support analyst." However, these letters do not 
provide details of the Petitioner's duties and responsibilities, and we are unable to conclude that this 
employment meets the regulatory requirements. 4 
Because the documentation in the record does not establish the Petitioner's eligibility for EB-2 
classification, we reserve opinion on whether the Petitioner could demonstrate eligibility for a national 
interest waiver under the Dhanasar precedent decision. 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 the applicant did not otherwise meet 
their burden of proof). 
III. CONCLUSION 
The Petitioner has not shown that he is an advanced degree professional and, therefore, has not 
established his initial eligibility for EB-2 classification. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed. 
4 The record contains letters of support from various individuals that outline some of the Petitioner's projects. However, 
many of these letters do not clearly outline either the timeframe of this work or for which companies the work was 
completed. In addition, they appear to be authored by former coworkers rather than company representatives or supervisors 
who can attest to the Petitioner's work assignments. The letters that come from former employers appear to describe 
freelance work completed by the Petitioner on a sporadic basis rather than proof of five years progressive experience. 
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