AAO research
EB-1A judging the work of others — AAO decision JAN292020_01B2203: The AAO dismissed the appeal and did not approve the petition. (final page; see posture…
Decision summary: AAO decision JAN292020_01B2203: The AAO dismissed the appeal and did not approve the petition. (final page; see posture and outcome citations). The initial evidentiary threshold was met through judging, scholarly authorship, and leading/critical role, but totality did not show sustained acclaim/top-of-field standing. AAO withdrew the Director’s adverse continued-work finding because the proposed role relied on the beneficiary’s oncology expertise. (pp. 3-11).
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 | JAN292020_01B2203 |
|---|---|
Decision date as printed | January 29, 2020 |
Classification / field stated in source | Nonprecedent EB-1A petition by a pharmaceutical company for a beneficiary in pharmaceutical/oncology research who would take an industry role. (pp. 1-2, 11) |
Procedural posture | Appeal of Texas Service Center decision; AAO dismissed after finding three initial criteria met but final merits not satisfied. (pp. 1-3, 11-12) |
Operative disposition | The AAO dismissed the appeal and did not approve the petition. (final page; see posture and outcome citations) |
Final-merits status | Reached and not met; the three-category threshold was satisfied but the totality did not show top-field acclaim. (pp. 7-11) |
What the AAO decision addressed
The initial evidentiary threshold was met through judging, scholarly authorship, and leading/critical role, but totality did not show sustained acclaim/top-of-field standing. AAO withdrew the Director's adverse continued-work finding because the proposed role relied on the beneficiary's oncology expertise. (pp. 3-11)
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 coded — source PDF |
Membership | Not coded — source PDF |
Published material about the person | Not coded — source PDF |
Judging the work of others | met |
Original contributions of major significance | Not met — source PDF |
Scholarly authorship | met |
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
No identity/completeness hold. Nonprecedent decision; preserve distinct initial-criteria/final-merits results and note the continued-work ground was withdrawn.
How this record may be used in research
Comparison scope: Strong candidate for a cited page connecting scholarly output, peer review, industry research employment and final-merits reasoning; avoid presenting role-based facts as universal rules.
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
Judging the work of others research
Scholarly authorship research
Leading or critical role research
Medicine sector research
Threshold research
Final Merits research
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