Finance and accounting advisory and consulting
The AAO dismissed the appeal after withdrawing the Director's favorable findings on two criteria, leaving fewer than three criteria met.
Summarized by AI. Summaries on this site are written by AI and can contain errors. Always read the full decision on uscis.gov before relying on anything here. If a summary differs from the official decision, the official decision controls.
Summary
A financial advisor and consultant appealed a Texas Service Center denial of an EB-1A petition. The AAO adopted and affirmed the Director's ultimate result while correcting several criterion findings. It first held that a single blanket translator certification left foreign-language documents without probative value, then withdrew the favorable findings on published material and judging. The membership and original-contributions criteria also remained unmet, and the appeal was dismissed.
Findings
| Criterion / prong | AAO finding | From the decision |
|---|---|---|
| (ii) Membership requiring outstanding achievement | Not met | So even in the appeal, the Petitioner has not satisfied the plain language requirements for this criterion. |
| (iii) Published material about the person | Not met | In summary, none of the evidence the Petitioner offered for the record is of adequate quality or content |
| (iv) Judging the work of others | Not met | brief: his role was reviewing presentations from undergraduate students and not judging |
| (v) Original contributions of major significance | Not met | Here, the Petitioner has not met his burden of proof to demonstrate both that his contributions were |
Why the AAO decided this way
- A single translator certification that did not identify the documents it covered did not satisfy the translation regulation, so foreign-language documents relying on it were not probative.
- The AAO withdrew the favorable finding on published material because the newspaper and online portal were not shown to be a professional publication or major media, one article was machine-translated, and another article was not about the petitioner.
- The AAO withdrew the favorable finding on judging because evaluating undergraduate and postgraduate student theses was not shown to be judging work in the same or an allied field, or to be equivalent to a doctoral dissertation committee.
- The bylaws did not show that recognized experts judged membership achievements, and the claim of original contributions rested largely on students' later success or on achievements not shown to have influence beyond his employer.
Authorities cited
- Matter of Chawathe, 25 I&N Dec. 369 (AAO 2010)
- Matter of Christo's, Inc., 26 I&N Dec. 537 (AAO 2015)
- Kazarian v. USCIS, 596 F.3d 1115 (9th Cir. 2010)
- Amin v. Mayorkas, 24 F.4th 383 (5th Cir. 2022)
- Matter of Burbano, 20 I&N Dec. 872 (BIA 1994)
- Giday v. INS, 113 F.3d 230 (D.C. Cir. 1997)
- Matter of Nevarez, 15 I&N Dec. 550 (BIA 1976)
- Matter of Caron International, 19 I&N Dec. 791 (Comm'r 1988)
- Matter of Mariscal-Hernandez, 28 I&N Dec. 666 (BIA 2022)
- Matter of Azrag, 28 I&N Dec. 784 (BIA 2024)
- Matter of Otiende, 26 I&N Dec. 127 (BIA 2013)
- Mussarova v. Garland, 562 F. Supp. 3d 837 (C.D. Cal. 2022)
- Noroozi v. Napolitano, 905 F. Supp. 2d 535 (S.D.N.Y. 2012)
- Negro-Plumpe v. Okin, No. 2:07-CV-820-ECR-RJJ, 2008 WL 10697512 (D. Nev. Sept. 9, 2008)
- Matter of Y-B-, 21 I&N Dec. 1136 (BIA 1998)
- Matter of Price, 20 I&N Dec. 953 (Assoc. Comm'r 1994)
Read the full decision on uscis.gov ↗
Please describe the error only. Do not send personal or case information. Anything you send will not be treated as confidential, and an error report does not create an attorney-client relationship.
Report an error in this summary