The Petitioner 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).
USCIS denied the petition, concluding that the Petitioner qualified for classification as a member of the professions holding an advanced degree, but that he had not established that a waiver of the required job offer, and thus of the labor certification, would be in the national interest. The matter is now before us on appeal pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 103.3.
The Petitioner bears the burden ofproof 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.
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.
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) ofthe Act. Matter ofDhanasar, 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.
Analysis
USCIS concluded that the Petitioner qualified as a member of the professions holding an advanced degree, but that he had not satisfied the first and third prongs set forth in the Dhanasar precedent decision.2 The sole issue to be determined therefore is whether the Petitioner has established that a waiver of the requirement of a job offer, and thus a labor certification, would be in the national interest. At the time of filing, the Petitioner was pursuing his Ph.D. in Computer Science atl I and working as a research intern at I I3 He indicated that his "proposed endeavor is to build a unified state-of-the-art artificial intelligence multimodal generative model that facilitates cross-modal generation among various modalities, including video-to-audio, text-to-video, and text-to-speech, in order to empower creators and businesses to generate high-quality media more efficiently." The Petitioner further stated:
I am earning my Ph.D. in computer science froml ~ Atl .... _____......,
translate frontier multimodal artificial intelligence into building unified, secure, and scalable generative systems and publish in leading artificial intelligence venues.
The Creative Vision Team atl ~ has expressed their interest in hiring me for a research scientist position where I would be able to leverage their resources to pursue my research in building a foundational unified multimodal artificial intelligence generative model. My appointment at I I will consist of responsibilities including conducting research and publishing findings ....
As discussed below, we conclude the Petitioner has not established eligibility for a national interest waiver under the analytical framework set forth in Dhanasar.
A. Substantial Merit and National Importance of the Proposed Endeavor
The first Dhanasar prong, substantial merit and national importance, focuses on the specific endeavor that the individual proposes to undertake. Dhanasar, 26 I&N Dec. at 889. The endeavor's merit may be demonstrated in a range of areas such as business, entrepreneurialism, science, technology, culture, health, or education. Id. We agree with USCIS' determination that the Petitioner's proposed endeavor has substantial merit.
In determining whether the proposed endeavor has national importance, we consider its potential prospective impact. Id. We withdraw USCIS' conclusion that the Petitioner did not establish the national importance of his proposed endeavor under Dhanasar 's first prong. As evidence that his proposed research has substantial merit and national importance, the Petitioner presented information about the benefits of generative artificial intelligence. He also provided letters of support discussing how his undertaking helps contribute to advancements in the development of artificial intelligence powered video editing technologies. Additionally, the Petitioner submitted documentation indicating that the benefit of his proposed research offers broader implications in the field of generative artificial intelligence, as the results are disseminated to others in the field through professional conferences. As the Petitioner has demonstrated both the substantial merit and national importance of his proposed research, he has established that he meets the first prong of the Dhanasar framework.
B. Well Positioned to Advance the Proposed Endeavor
The second prong shifts the focus from the proposed endeavor to the individual. Id. at 890. To determine whether they are well positioned to advance the proposed endeavor, we consider factors including, but not limited to: their education, skills, knowledge and record of success in related or similar efforts; a model or plan for future activities; any progress towards achieving the proposed endeavor; and the interest of potential customers, users, investors, or other relevant entities or individuals.Past record does not show influence or success Id. For the reasons explained below, we withdraw USCIS' conclusion that the Petitioner meets Dhanasar 's second prong.
The record includes documentation of the Petitioner's curriculum vitae, master's degree, published and presented work, and peer review service. The Petitioner also offered evidence of articles that cited to his published work, citation metrics, and letters of support discussing his research projects. p. 4 In their letters supporting the petition, the Petitioner's references discussed his undergraduate and graduate research projects. For example, regarding the Petitioner's work involving adaptation of existing image editing technologies, Dr. A-E-, an associate professor at I Iand coauthor with the Petitioner, stated that the Petitioner "developed a specialized neural network that integrated the temporal dimension into the editing process, thus ensuring smooth transitions between frames in a video." Dr. A-E- also indicated that the Petitioner's work "significantly reduced both the time and computational cost of developing a video editing model by leveraging a pre-trained image generator" and that "[t]his enabled the model to perform complex tasks, including text-based style editing, frame interpolation, motion manipulation, and extrapolation." While Dr. A-E- further asserted that the Petitioner's "research resulted in a unified framework capable of generating and editing high-quality video and image content without the need to re-train separate models for each specific task, ultimately improving the efficiency and scalability of artificial intelligence-based video editing solution," he did not elaborate on the extent to which the Petitioner's specific framework has been utilized in the artificial intelligence field. Nor has the Petitioner otherwise demonstrated that his research findings constitute a record of success or progress rendering him well positioned to advance his proposed endeavor.
In addition, with respect to the Petitioner's work relating to synthetic audio generation, Dr. S-L-, a research scientist a~ Iasserted that the Petitioner created "a large-scale pipeline to collect 57 million audio clips from video data" and "utilized this dataset to train a state-of-the-art text-to-audio model that outperformed previous approaches by 22.7%." Dr. S-L- wrote that he has cited the Petitioner's research paper on this topic in his own work, but the Petitioner has not shown that this level of interest in his work or his record of success in research is sufficient to demonstrate he is well positioned.No interest from users, customers or investors
Furthermore, regarding the Petitioner's work involving multimodal generative models, Dr. V-O-R-, an associate professor atl land the Petitioner's Ph.D. advisor and coauthor, indicated that he and the Petitioner "designed a training-free approach enabling pre-trained generative models to produce images of diverse as ect ratios and resolutions without the need of any further training" and that the 2024 acce ted their a er on p. 5 high ranking or impact factor is reflective of the publication's overall citation rate. It does not, however, show the influence of any particular author or otherwise demonstrate how an individual's research represents a record of success in their field.
As it relates to the citation ofhis work, the Petitioner presented his Google Scholar profile from March 2025 indicatin2: that his five research articles entitled 'I t' (2024). '1
I' (2024), '1
I' <2023), 'l
' (2024), and '1 I" (2021) each received 14, 9, 2, 0, and 0 citations, respectively. The Petitioner does not specify how many citations for each of the three cited articles were self-citations by him or his coauthors.
The Petitioner also provided 2024 data from Clarivate Analytics (In Cites Essential Science Indicators) regarding baseline citation rates and percentiles by year of publication for the "Computer Science" research field. The Petitioner contends his paper that had received 14 citations as of March 2025 is among "the topc=]most cited articles published in 2024 in Computer Science." The Petitioner, however, did not indicate whether he factored in any self-citations in determining this percentile ranking. In addition, because the Petitioner has not shown that the 2024 Clarivate Analytics data is contemporaneous with the Petitioner's March 2025 Google Scholar information, he has demonstrated that the former provides a proper analysis of his citation record. 4 Furthermore, the Petitioner relies on citation information concerning the larger field of computer science and compares his citation frequency in generative artificial intelligence to that of the larger field.Citation record not persuasive While we acknowledge that generative artificial intelligence is part of the larger field of computer science, the Petitioner has not submitted sufficient evidence confirming that information extrapolated from the larger field applies equally to each subfield within computer science, including generative artificial intelligence. Thus, the Petitioner's comparison of his citation number in his field with information regarding citation in the larger field of computer science does not sufficiently establish the level of his success or impact in the field of generative artificial intelligence. Nevertheless, citation frequency which is quantitative in nature does not reveal the reasons for the citations, which involve a qualitative analysis. In other words, a high citation number might show that others in the field have noticed the Petitioner's work, but it does not confirm that his work has impacted or advanced the field of in such a way that renders him well positioned. Regarding a qualitative analysis of the citations to the Petitioner's work the record contains co ies of articles that cited to his a ers includin his a er entitled ' ______________ _. ' for example). These articles include the text of the citation, which the Petitioner asserts highlight the impact ofhis papers. While we agree with the Petitioner that these citations indicate some degree of interest in his research from his colleagues and peers in the field, this evidence is not sufficient to demonstrate a level of interest or a record of research success that renders him well positioned. The articles in the record cite to his work as an example of research done in the field or in their introduction section as part of an overview of current research, but none 4 An October 2024 webpage accompanying the Clarivate Analytics information states that its citation "data is updated six times a year" (every two months). p. 6 highlight or comment upon his research in a way that demonstrates he is well positioned to advance the proposed endeavor.
As it relates to the Petitioner's education, while his master's degree renders him eligible for the underlying EB-2 visa classification, he has not shown that his academic accomplishments by themselves are sufficient to demonstrate that he is well positioned to advance his proposed endeavor. 5 In Dhanasar, the record established that the petitioner held multiple graduate degrees including "two master of science degrees, in mechanical engineering and applied physics, as well as a Ph.D. in engineering." Id. at 891. We look to a variety of factors in determining whether a petitioner is well positioned to advance his proposed endeavor and education is merely one factor among many that may contribute to such a finding.
With respect to his peer review activit the Petitioner resented documentation indicatin that he reviewed manuscri ts for the
1------------------~~----------------------'and
He has not demonstrated, however, that his participation in the widespread peer review process represents a record of success in his field or that it is otherwise an indication that he is well positioned to advance his research endeavor. 6 The record demonstrates that the Petitioner has conducted, published, and presented research during his graduate and undergraduate studies, but he has not shown that this work renders him well positioned to advance his proposed endeavor. While we recognize that research must add information to the pool of knowledge in some way to be accepted for publication, presentation, fonding, or academic credit, not every individual who has performed original research will be found to be well positioned to advance their proposed endeavor. Rather, we examine the factors set forth in Dhanasar to determine whether, for instance, the individual's progress towards achieving the goals of the proposed research, record of success in similar efforts, or generation of interest among relevant parties supports such a finding. Id. at 890. The Petitioner, however, has not sufficiently demonstrated that his work constitutes a record of success or progress in generative artificial intelligence research rendering him well positioned to advance his proposed endeavor. As the Petitioner has not demonstrated that he is well positioned to advance his proposed research endeavor, he has not established that he satisfies the second prong of the Dhanasar framework.
C. Whether on Balance a Waiver is Beneficial to the United States
The third prong requires a petitioner to demonstrate that, on balance, it would be beneficial to the United States to waive the requirements of a job offer and thus of a labor certification. Dhanasar at 890-91. In performing this analysis, we may evaluate factors such as: whether, in light of the nature of the individual's qualifications or the proposed endeavor, it would be impractical either for them to secure a job offer or to obtain a labor certification; whether, even assuming that other qualified U.S. workers are available, the United States would still benefit from their contributions; and whether the national interest in their contributions is sufficiently urgent to warrant forgoing the labor certification process. Id. In each case, the factor(s) considered must, taken together, establish that on balance, it would be beneficial to the United States to waive the requirements of a job offer and thus of a labor certification. Id. at 891.
In denying the petition, USCIS' decision stated:Did not show the waiver outweighs labor certification
The self-petitioner has not demonstrated that he presents benefits to the United States through his proposed endeavor that outweigh those inherent in the labor certification process. The self-petitioner has not shown an urgent national interest in his own efforts, nor has he demonstrated that he offers contributions of such value that, overall, they would benefit the nation even if other qualified U.S. workers were available.No urgency shown Also, the self-petitioner has not shown that it would be impractical either for him to secure a job offer or to obtain a labor certification.Labor certification not shown to be impractical
On appeal, the Petitioner argues that "the United States would certainly benefit from [his] contributions even if there are qualified U.S. workers available. This is because he is not merely qualified, but has proven himself to be an influential leader in this extremely important area of research." He further contends that "he has been highly successful in his career conducting research in generative artificial intelligence applications ... and that documentary evidence has been previously corroborated by letters from experts in the field who speak highly of his valuable contributions and expertise." The Petitioner also asserts that he "has a record of extremely successful research in an area that furthers important U.S. interests" and that he "offers contributions of such value that, on balance, it would be beneficial to the United States to waive the requirement of a job offer and thus of a labor certification." In addition, he claims that "there is an urgent national interest for [his] continuing contributions given the growing federal emphasis on developing secure, energy-efficient, and broadly accessible foundational multimodal artificial intelligence systems."
For Dhanasar 's third prong, we assess whether the proposed endeavor and the individual being well positioned to advance that endeavor, taken together, provide benefits to the nation such that a waiver of the labor certification requirement outweighs the benefits that ordinarily flow from that requirement. 7 Here, the Petitioner has not demonstrated that he is well positioned to advance the proposed endeavor or that his generative artificial intelligence contributions supersede the benefits of protecting the domestic labor supply inherent in the labor certification process. Nor has the Petitioner explained how his current or future position withl Iprevents him from engaging in generative 7 See generally 6 USC1S Policy Manual, F.'5(D)(3), https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual. p. 8 artificial intelligence research projects or why the company is unable to file a labor certification on his behalf.
While the record includes information about the benefits of research aimed at advancing generative artificial intelligence, this documentation is insufficient to show that the national interest is better served by a waiver of the job offer and thus the labor certification requirement. The labor certification process is intended to ensure that the admission of foreign workers will not adversely affect the job opportunities, wages, and working conditions of U.S. workers. We acknowledge the Petitioner's master's degree in a STEM field (computer science), research experience, and work relating to generative artificial intelligence. The evidence in the aggregate, however, is not sufficient to demonstrate that a national interest waiver outweighs the benefits inherent to the labor certification process.
The Petitioner has not shown that he offers contributions of such value that, on balance, it would be beneficial to the United States to waive the job offer and labor certification requirements even assuming that other qualified U.S. workers are available.
Conclusion
As the Petitioner has not met the requisite second and third prongs ofthe Dhanasar analytical framework, we conclude that he has not established he is eligible for or otherwise merits a national interest waiver as a matter of discretion. The appeal will be dismissed for the above stated reasons, with each considered as an independent and alternate basis for the decision.
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed.
NOTICE: This constitutes the final decision in this matter. The filing of a motion will not postpone the effect of the decision. 8 C.F.R. § 103.5(a)(l)(iv). Aliens who are not lawfully present, or who are otherwise inadmissible or deportable, may be subject to the commencement of removal proceedings under section 240 ofthe Act through the issuance of a Form 1-862, Notice to Appear. Those proceedings may result in their removal from the United States and possible ineligibility for future visas or other immigration benefits.