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).
Service Center Operations (SCOPS) 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.
Ifa 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
SCOPS concluded that the Petitioner qualifies as a member of the professions holding an advanced degree. The record supports that conclusion. The remaining issue to be determined on appeal 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.
Although SCOPS determined that the proposed endeavor has substantial merit and that the Petitioner is well positioned to advance the endeavor, SCOPS concluded the record did not establish that the endeavor is of national importance or that, on balance, it would be beneficial to the United States to waive the job offer requirement and, thus, the labor certification.Did not show the waiver outweighs labor certification On appeal, the Petitioner reiterates arguments concerning his eligibility for a national interest waiver and cites documentation previously included in the record. The Petitioner asserts that SCOPS' decision was in error because SCOPS overlooked certain evidence in the record and misapplied the preponderance of the evidence standard. Upon review, for the reasons discussed below, we conclude that the Petitioner has not sufficiently demonstrated the national importance of his endeavor under the first prong ofthe Dhanasar analytical framework.
The Petitioner works as a computer science researcher in the field of artificial intelligence, or AI, and is currently employed with I IInc. The Petitioner's work has involved text-to-image generation and efforts to improve facial recognition technology by mitigating representation biases related to gender, race, and age. The Petitioner described his proposed endeavor as an intention to continue his research "developing fairer and more trustworthy face recognition systems through two interconnected research directions: controllable synthetic face generation and causal analysis for bias mitigation in face recognition." He stated that the problems that his work aims to address "are long-standing challenges in the face recognition community and continue to evolve with advancements in synthetic data and machine learning interpretability."
The first prong, substantial merit and national importance, focuses on the specific endeavor that the individual proposes to undertake. Matter ofDhanasar, 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.
In determining whether the proposed endeavor has national importance, we consider its potential prospective impact. Id. 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." Id. 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 p. 3 positive economic effects, particularly in an economically depressed area, for instance, may well be understood to have national importance." Id. at 890.
We agree with SCOPS that the Petitioner established his proposed endeavor has substantial merit. However, the record does not establish that the Petitioner's endeavor has national importance. On appeal, the Petitioner stresses the importance of his endeavor to use "state-of-the-art synthetic data generation and deep learning training techniques in order to facilitate a range of face recognition applications, such as security measures, airplane boarding, and biometrics." However, the Petitioner has not provided sufficient evidence to demonstrate that his individual work towards advancing facial recognition capabilities would have an impact at a level of national importance.
The Petitioner submitted letters ofrecommendation from individuals who work in the field ofAI and who have knowledge of the Petitioner's past work. The letters generally attest to the importance of the Petitioner's research in the field, referencing the use of his methods and models in various research projects.Support letters generic or unsupported For example, a letter from a researcher who has worked with him discusses a method the Petitioner developed that was utilized as a baseline for a method being developed by another research team. The letter states that the Petitioner's work was valuable because it helped the team "derive insights into the importance of controllability in three-dimensional human generation methods." The researcher who authored the letter, however, did not explain what significance the Petitioner's method has within the field or explain how the role of his method in the study demonstrates the national importance of his research.
Another letter of support from a professor, whose "knowledge of [the Petitioner's] work is solely through scholarly citation," describes a study in which the author's research team "utilized [the Petitioner's] method as one ofthe benchmark references to compare the differences between our respective approaches and their relative levels of performance." The letter further describes how a separate research team "compared their approach to previous methods, such as [the Petitioner's], thus relying on his model as a comparison baseline." The letter concludes that the use of the Petitioner's work for these projects-and the subsequent citations to his work in publications of the research-have "left a remarkable impact on the field of computer science," characterizing his work as "impressive progress in the study offair sample generation and the mitigation of generative model bias." However, this statement and similar references to his "critical" and "innovative research" and his design of"cutting-edge computer vision algorithms for facial recognition" technology-including general assertions that "his work ensures the safe application ofthis technology in real-world scenarios"-are not corroborated by documentation in the record. Again, a petitioner must support assertions with relevant, probative, and credible evidence. See Matter of Chawathe, 25 I&N Dec. at 376.
Although the record shows that the Petitioner's work has been used by others for their similar research in the field, the record does not explain how the Petitioner's "findings significantly contribute to the ethical use of AI technologies," how his research "imparts numerous benefits to the U.S.," or how he "leverages [synthetic] data to develop new advanced face recognition systems." And while one letter of recommendation states that "his work establishes essential methodologies for developing fairer AI systems," it is not clear from the evidence of record how his work as an individual researcher-one among many working in a burgeoning field of technology-demonstrates that the Petitioner's proposed endeavor to continue his research would have an impact within the field on a scale commensurate with national importance.
The Petitioner also submitted reports and articles discussing facial recognition technology implications for law enforcement and national security agencies, and letters of recommendation reference the potential applications for AI vision technology in certain fields, including security, the media, and healthcare. One letter, for example, explains that the Petitioner's work "addresses challenges with the fairness and robustness ofdeep visual models, which refer to ... artificial intelligence systems that leverage computer vision," and that these models are significant because "they are the foundation ofmodem facial recognition technologies currently utilized in business applications, consumer products, and national agencies."
While these letters provide an overview of the Petitioner's research projects and emphasize the significance of deep visual models for the application of AI in certain fields, they do not clarify how his endeavor to continue his research will specifically impact those fields at a level indicative of national importance. The Petitioner has provided documentation discussing the overall value of enhanced facial recognition technology and the ramifications of delayed progress towards improving AI capabilities to illustrate the importance of his proposed endeavor, rather than explicating the value of his own continued research, relying on the importance of an aspect of AI development to demonstrate the importance of his proposed endeavor. It is not the overall importance of the industry, field, or profession in which an individual intends to work, but the particular endeavor on which an individual intends to embark that we consider in evaluating whether it is of national importance. Matter ofDhanasar, 26 I&N Dec. at 889.
On appeal, the Petitioner again relies on the importance of the field to demonstrate the importance of his proposed endeavor.Argued the field's importance, not the endeavor's Pointing to Matter of Dhanasar and the evaluation of the proposed endeavor's national importance, he states that the petitioner was found to be eligible for a national interest waiver "because he provided evidence establishing that hypersonic propulsion is nationally important as an area of research," surmising that an individual "may indeed demonstrate the national importance of their proposed endeavor simply by providing evidence that they are working in an area of sufficient interest to the United States."
The first prong relates to substantial merit and national importance ofthe "specific endeavor." Id. When analyzing the national importance of a petitioner's proposed endeavor under the Dhanasar adjudicative framework, we focus on the prospective impact of the proposed endeavor, which should include details of work a petitioner intends to undertake and describe specific projects and goals. 2 In Dhanasar, the petitioner demonstrated that he conducted research into hypersonic propulsion systems and that he had developed a novel method for accurately calculating hypersonic airflow. Id. at 891-92. He submitted documentation demonstrating that he would continue his research designing and developing propulsion systems in nano-satellites, rocket-propelled ballistic missiles, and single-stage-to-orbit vehicles, along with substantial supporting evidence of how his continued research would assist the United States in maintaining its advantage over other nations in hypersonic flight, as well as documentation reflecting his receipt of funding from a government entity for his research. Id.
Here, the Petitioner has not provided sufficient evidence to show that his specific research is of a caliber that would warrant consideration as nationally important. While the Petitioner has shown that his research is generally important for its use in improving facial recognition as a reliable tool in various arenas, the record does not include probative evidence to show its potential prospective impact in the field. Beyond expressing interest in continuing his work towards improving facial-recognition and presenting evidence ofhis past research, the Petitioner has not provided sufficient evidence. For example, he did not explain how he would achieve specific goals or milestones or demonstrate how he would credibly carry out his proposed endeavor within a realistic timeframe to have broader implications. A petitioner must support assertions with relevant, probative, and credible evidence. See Matter ofChawathe, 25 I&N Dec. at 376. He has not done so here.
The record does not establish the national importance ofthe 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 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).
Conclusion
The Petitioner has not demonstrated that the proposed endeavor has national importance. As the Petitioner has not met the requisite first prong of the Dhanasar analytical framework, she has not established that she is eligible for or otherwise merits a national interest waiver as a matter of discretion. The petition will remain denied.
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 I-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.