AAO research
EB-1A awards — AAO decision JAN232015_01B2203: Appeal dismissed. Review source status, procedural posture and the official USCIS PDF.
Decision summary: AAO decision JAN232015_01B2203: Appeal dismissed. AAO found one criterion—leading/critical role—established, but fewer than three criteria overall; it therefore did not make a formal final-merits determination. (pp. 9–11).
Source limitation: The review record contains a source hold or limitation. Read the limitation below before relying on any case detail; unresolved facts are not treated as findings.
Scope classification from review: in_scope_EB1A_source_reviewed. This is a source-review label, not a legal conclusion.
Decision snapshot
Decision ID | JAN232015_01B2203 |
|---|---|
Decision date as printed | January 23, 2015 |
Classification / field stated in source | Artist in the arts; record concerns visual/artistic work and roles in virtual-tour and marketing projects. |
Procedural posture | AAO appeal of Nebraska Service Center denial; petitioner submitted additional documentation and challenged the criteria findings. (pp. 1–3) |
Operative disposition | Appeal dismissed. |
Final-merits status | No formal final-merits determination; AAO concluded the three-criterion threshold was not met despite one accepted role criterion. (pp. 10–11) |
What the AAO decision addressed
AAO found one criterion—leading/critical role—established, but fewer than three criteria overall; it therefore did not make a formal final-merits determination. (pp. 9–11)
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 |
Membership | Not coded — source PDF |
Published material about the person | Not coded — source PDF |
Judging the work of others | not met |
Original contributions of major significance | Not met — source PDF |
Scholarly authorship | Not coded — source PDF |
Artistic display or showcases | Not coded — source PDF |
Leading or critical role | met |
High salary or remuneration | Not coded — source PDF |
Commercial success in the performing arts | Not coded — source PDF |
Source holds and limits
One criterion (leading/critical role) was accepted; awards were not. Do not repeat the Director’s withdrawn award finding as the AAO outcome. (pp. 3–4, 10); The precise artistic discipline should remain broad unless another source page states it more specifically; this source is an individual non-precedent decision. (pp. 2–3)
How this record may be used in research
Comparison scope: Cited case note showing that evidence of critical project roles may satisfy one criterion while the overall petition still fails the initial threshold.
Page-level source trail
Use the official PDF and the cited physical page numbers to check each statement.
Open the official USCIS decision PDF. Page-specific citations were not available in the normalized row.
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
Judging the work of others research
Leading or critical role research
Entrepreneurship sector research
Performance sector research
Threshold research
Browse the AAO decision index · Read EB-1A evidence guides · Review source and correction methodology.