AAO research

AAO EB-1A decision JUN042009_02B2203: Awards

EB-1A awards — AAO decision JUN042009_02B2203: Appeal dismissed. Review source status, procedural posture and the official USCIS PDF.

Decision summary: AAO decision JUN042009_02B2203: Appeal dismissed. The award/competition results were not shown to establish acclaim at the required level; membership, published material, judging, contributions, leading role, and salary were also not established. (pp. 4–11).

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	JUN042009_02B2203
Decision date as printed	June 4, 2009
Classification / field stated in source	AAO EB-1A appeal involving a competitive dancer and dance teacher in Dance Sport, with evidence of Bulgarian and international dance competitions and coaching at Dance Club “Daga.” (pp. 2–7, 11)
Procedural posture	AAO dismissed the appeal and found the petitioner did not establish a major internationally recognized award or at least three criteria. (pp. 2–11)
Operative disposition	Appeal dismissed.
Final-merits status	AAO considered the evidence in the aggregate and found it did not distinguish the petitioner as among the small percentage at the top; no separate Kazarian final-merits stage was identified. (p. 11)

What the AAO decision addressed

The award/competition results were not shown to establish acclaim at the required level; membership, published material, judging, contributions, leading role, and salary were also not established. (pp. 4–11)

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 Competition placements and award evidence did not establish the required recognition at the national/international field level. (pp. 4–6) — source PDF
Membership	not met The record did not show that dance association membership required outstanding achievement judged by recognized experts. (pp. 6–7) — source PDF
Published material about the person	not met Submitted material did not establish qualifying major-media coverage about the petitioner. (p. 8) — source PDF
Judging the work of others	not met The record did not establish qualifying judging of others’ work. (pp. 8–9) — source PDF
Original contributions of major significance	not met The record did not show original contributions of major significance to the dance field. (p. 9) — source PDF
Scholarly authorship	Not coded — source PDF
Artistic display or showcases	Not coded — source PDF
Leading or critical role	not met The record lacked evidence of Dance Club “Daga”’s distinguished reputation and petitioner’s leading/critical responsibility for its success/standing. (pp. 10–11) — source PDF
High salary or remuneration	not met A stated annual salary was not supported by comparative evidence showing high remuneration relative to others in Dance Sport. (p. 11) — source PDF
Commercial success in the performing arts	Not coded — source PDF

Source holds and limits

Historical, non-precedent decision; use with the separate 2013 case only as a carefully cited comparison, not as legal advice or categorical guidance.

How this record may be used in research

Comparison scope: If cleared for publication, create a decision-specific, page-cited summary that states the field and procedural posture, distinguishes criteria met/not met/not reached, links the USCIS source PDF, preserves redactions, and clearly labels the decision non-precedent. Potential comparison: Potential narrow comparison with the 2013 Dance Sport decision on competition awards, association membership and coach role evidence; maintain year-specific facts and do not imply precedent or a universal outcome.

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
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
High salary or remuneration research
Athletics sector research
Performance sector research
Teaching sector research

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Primary source

Official USCIS AAO decision PDF for JUN042009_02B2203