AAO research
EB-1A awards — AAO decision MAR272009_02B2203: Appeal dismissed. Review source status, procedural posture and the official USCIS PDF.
Decision summary: AAO decision MAR272009_02B2203: Appeal dismissed. AAO found the petitioner did not establish qualifying awards, membership, judging, contributions, or display in athletics or coaching; record also lacked proof of national/international coaching. (pp. 8–13).
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 | MAR272009_02B2203 |
|---|---|
Decision date as printed | March 27, 2009 |
Classification / field stated in source | AAO EB-1A athletics appeal involving a Wushu competitor seeking to continue as a coach; decision separately analyzes competitor and coach status. (pp. 2–4) |
Procedural posture | Appeal of Texas Service Center denial; AAO dismissed. (pp. 2, 13) |
Operative disposition | Appeal dismissed. |
Final-merits status | No distinct Kazarian final-merits section; AAO concluded that the record did not show sustained acclaim/top-of-field status either as competitor or coach. (p. 13) |
What the AAO decision addressed
AAO found the petitioner did not establish qualifying awards, membership, judging, contributions, or display in athletics or coaching; record also lacked proof of national/international coaching. (pp. 8–13)
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 met |
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 | Not coded — source PDF |
High salary or remuneration | Not coded — source PDF |
Commercial success in the performing arts | Not coded — source PDF |
Source holds and limits
No source identity or completeness hold. OCR contains substantial corruption; verify page images before quoting. Keep athlete and coach findings separate.
How this record may be used in research
Comparison scope: If editorially cleared, prepare a source-linked decision summary that names the procedural posture, distinguishes criterion-stage findings from final merits, and cites the PDF pages. Narrow comparison for martial-arts petitions on athlete-versus-coach classification, qualifying awards, proof of judging, and the limits of treating competition as artistic display.
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
Judging the work of others research
Athletics sector research
Final Merits research
Browse the AAO decision index · Read EB-1A evidence guides · Review source and correction methodology.