Athletics: wrestling
The AAO dismissed the appeal because the petitioner did not meet at least three of the ten evidentiary criteria, although it found that he met the judging criterion and withdrew SCOPS' finding on published material.
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Summary
An athlete appealed the denial of his EB-1A petition, having claimed five of the ten criteria before SCOPS, which had accepted only the published-material criterion. On review the AAO reversed that single favorable finding but disagreed with SCOPS on the judging criterion, which it found satisfied. It judged the awards, membership and original-contributions criteria unmet. With only one criterion established, the initial evidence requirement was not satisfied, no final merits analysis followed, and the appeal was dismissed.
Findings
| Criterion / prong | AAO finding | From the decision |
|---|---|---|
| (i) Lesser nationally or internationally recognized awards | Not met | established that the awards and prizes he received are nationally or internationally recognized |
| (ii) Membership requiring outstanding achievement | Not met | Accordingly, we cannot conclude that the Petitioner has met this criterion. |
| (iii) Published material about the person | Not met | therefore disagree with SCOPS and conclude that the Petitioner has not satisfied this criterion |
| (iv) Judging the work of others | Met | withdraw SCOPS' contrary determination and conclude that the Petitioner meets |
| (v) Original contributions of major significance | Not met | made an original contribution of significance in the field |
Why the AAO decided this way
- The AAO found that the petitioner had not shown his competition prizes to be nationally or internationally recognized, noting untranslated medal inscriptions and a federation letter that did not supply objective evidence of recognition.
- On membership, the record was inconsistent about which body he belonged to, and a letter that repeated the regulatory wording did not identify benchmarks or explain how experts decide admission to a national team.
- The AAO withdrew SCOPS' favorable finding on published material because articles that merely reported competition results were not about him, some lacked authors, and the record did not show the outlets to be major media.
- It also withdrew SCOPS' contrary finding on judging and concluded that letters, diplomas and event rules corroborated that he judged the work of other wrestlers, so that criterion was met.
- The letters offered for original contributions praised his skill but did not identify an original contribution of major significance, so only one criterion was met and no final merits determination was needed.
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)
- Visinscaia v. Beers, 4 F. Supp. 3d 126 (D.D.C. 2013)
- Rijal v. USCIS, 772 F. Supp. 2d 1339 (W.D. Wash. 2011)
- Krasniqi v. Dibbins, 558 F. Supp. 3d 168 (D.N.J. 2021)
- Fedin Bros. Co. v. Sava, 724 F. Supp. 1103 (E.D.N.Y. 1989)
- Mussarova v. Garland, 562 F. Supp. 3d 837 (C.D. Cal. 2022)
- Matter of Price, 20 I&N Dec. 953 (Assoc. Comm'r 1994)
- 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)
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