AAO research

AAO EB-1A decision JAN232025_01B2203: Membership

EB-1A membership — AAO decision JAN232025_01B2203: dismissed. Review source status, procedural posture and the official USCIS PDF.

Decision summary: AAO decision JAN232025_01B2203: dismissed. Director had accepted judging as one criterion. On appeal, membership, original contributions and critical role failed; high-salary argument was reserved. Threshold remained unmet; final merits not reached.

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: Source is an AAO EB-1A extraordinary-ability appellate decision.. This is a source-review label, not a legal conclusion.

Decision snapshot

Decision ID	JAN232025_01B2203
Decision date as printed	Jan. 23, 2025
Classification / field stated in source	EB-1A appellate decision, In Re 35873778
Procedural posture	Appeal of Nebraska Service Center denial; dismissed.
Operative disposition	dismissed
Final-merits status	Threshold failed; AAO explicitly reserved high-salary consideration and did not reach final merits.

What the AAO decision addressed

Director had accepted judging as one criterion. On appeal, membership, original contributions and critical role failed; high-salary argument was reserved. Threshold remained unmet; final merits not reached.

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 coded — source PDF
Membership	Not met — p. 3
Published material about the person	Not coded — source PDF
Judging the work of others	met — p. 2
Original contributions of major significance	Not met — p. 4, p. 5
Scholarly authorship	Not coded — source PDF
Artistic display or showcases	Not coded — source PDF
Leading or critical role	Not met — p. 5, p. 6
High salary or remuneration	Not considered — p. 6
Commercial success in the performing arts	Not coded — source PDF

Source-cited findings recorded in review

claim: Director found one initial criterion, judging; AAO did not disturb that accepted finding.; pages: 1; 2
claim: NDT society’s top certification was not shown to be membership requiring outstanding achievements judged by recognized experts.; pages: 3
claim: Contractor letters described useful work and financial benefits, but lacked detailed independent evidence of original innovations, broader adoption, or field-level impact.; pages: 4; 5
claim: Critical-role evidence did not show significant importance to contractor outcomes or detailed proof of organization-wide impact; high salary was expressly reserved after other claims failed.; pages: 5; 6
claim: The AAO affirmed denial because minimum three criteria were not met; no final merits.; pages: 6

How this record may be used in research

Comparison scope: Eligible for individual case discussion

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
Membership research
Judging the work of others research
Original contributions of major significance research
Leading or critical role research
High salary or remuneration research
Computing sector research
Threshold research
Final Merits research

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

Primary source

Official USCIS AAO decision PDF for JAN232025_01B2203