AAO research

AAO EB-1A decision FEB132023_02B2203: Awards

EB-1A awards — AAO decision FEB132023_02B2203: Appeal dismissed (pp. 2, 7). Review source status, procedural posture and the official USCIS PDF.

Decision summary: AAO decision FEB132023_02B2203: Appeal dismissed (pp. 2, 7). One-time achievement claim failed; awards, membership, published material and judging claims failed or were waived because evidence related to competing rather than coaching and did not establish actual relevant judging. Contributions and leading/critical role were reserved. AAO also compared the appeal brief word-for-word with a prior appeal and criticized the duplicate filing (pp. 2–7).

Source reviewed: This page summarizes the specific AAO source and posture recorded in the completed source-review tracker. It does not turn a nonprecedent decision into a general rule.

Scope classification from review: in_scope_EB1A_source_reviewed. This is a source-review label, not a legal conclusion.

Decision snapshot

Decision ID	FEB132023_02B2203
Decision date as printed	February 13, 2023
Classification / field stated in source	EB-1A petition by a judo/sambo athlete seeking classification as a coach/instructor.
Procedural posture	Appeal of Nebraska Service Center denial; de novo review; decision also addresses duplicative appellate submissions.
Operative disposition	Appeal dismissed (pp. 2, 7).
Final-merits status	No formal final-merits determination; initial threshold was not met, though AAO gave adverse aggregate discussion (p. 6).

What the AAO decision addressed

One-time achievement claim failed; awards, membership, published material and judging claims failed or were waived because evidence related to competing rather than coaching and did not establish actual relevant judging. Contributions and leading/critical role were reserved. AAO also compared the appeal brief word-for-word with a prior appeal and criticized the duplicate filing (pp. 2–7).

Criterion-by-criterion status in this source

These labels reproduce the source-review record. “Not considered,” “not reached,” and “not coded” do not mean the criterion failed. A Director finding recited as background is not an AAO holding unless the decision says so.

Criterion	Source-review status
Awards	not met Competitor awards generally did not establish extraordinary ability as a coach; petitioner did not rebut this basis on appeal (p. 3). — source PDF
Membership	waived Appeal did not address the Director’s competitor-versus-coach rationale; claims were treated as abandoned/waived (p. 4). — source PDF
Published material about the person	waived Appeal did not address the Director’s competitor-versus-coach basis; claims were treated as abandoned/waived (p. 4). — source PDF
Judging the work of others	not met Evidence did not resolve conflicting accounts about dates of judging service; actual relevant judging was not established (pp. 4–5). — source PDF
Original contributions of major significance	not reached Reserved after the threshold failure (p. 5).
Scholarly authorship	Not coded — source PDF
Artistic display or showcases	Not coded — source PDF
Leading or critical role	not reached Reserved after the threshold failure (p. 5).
High salary or remuneration	Not coded — source PDF
Commercial success in the performing arts	Not coded — source PDF

Source-cited findings recorded in review

pp. 2–7

How this record may be used in research

Comparison scope: Useful narrow comparison for field alignment between athlete and coach, resolving contradictory service histories, and the procedural risk of reusing a prior brief without addressing the decision under appeal. Clearly attribute any duplicate-filing criticism to AAO. Individual source-linked summary; appropriate for carefully caveated field-alignment/procedure comparison.

Editorial use note: Individual source-linked summary; appropriate for carefully caveated field-alignment/procedure comparison.

Page-level source trail

Use the official PDF and the cited physical page numbers to check each statement.

How to use this record

This is a historical, nonprecedent AAO decision about its own administrative record. It is not a prediction, success rate, or current filing instruction. Compare the issue and procedural stage before drawing an analogy. The current framework is in the USCIS Policy Manual, Volume 6, Part F, Chapter 2.

Related corpus research

Full-corpus research index
Awards research
Membership research
Published material about the person research
Judging the work of others research
Original contributions of major significance research
Leading or critical role research
Athletics sector research
Teaching sector research
Waiv research

Browse the AAO decision index · Read EB-1A evidence guides · Review source and correction methodology.

Primary source

Official USCIS AAO decision PDF for FEB132023_02B2203