AAO EB1A Decisions 2024–2025: Patterns for Attorneys

AAO non-precedent decisions are the closest real-time signal practitioners have for understanding what USCIS is actually approving and denying. Unlike the USCIS Policy Manual, which sets out what adjudicators are supposed to do, published decisions show what adjudicators are actually doing — which criteria are being challenged, what evidence is found sufficient, and where petitions are failing at Step 2.

This article organizes 2024–2025 adjudication patterns by criterion and by the Kazarian two-step framework. Patterns reflect commonly reported adjudication tendencies from the immigration bar's practice experience with recent USCIS adjudications.

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How to Use AAO Non-Precedent Decisions

Non-precedent AAO decisions are published at aao.uscis.gov with identifying information removed. They are searchable by form type (I-140), employment classification (EB1A), and date range. Decisions are published in PDF format and updated on a rolling basis.

What non-precedent decisions can tell you:

1. What evidence framing the AAO found sufficient. Approval decisions in 2024–2025 consistently show the same structural features: criterion-by-criterion argument sections with explicit regulatory language, independent expert letters from practitioners outside the employer, and a dedicated Final Merits section with comparative field framing.

2. What evidence framing the AAO found insufficient. Denial decisions cluster around identifiable failure patterns — the same gaps appear repeatedly across different petitioners and fields.

3. How the AAO applies the Kazarian v. USCIS, 596 F.3d 1115 two-step. Published decisions show how Step 1 and Step 2 reasoning are applied in practice, including where adjudicators conflate the two steps (an argument ground for MTR or appeal).

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2024–2025 Approval Patterns: What Evidence Is Working

Pattern 1: Field-specific expert letters from independent institutions.

Approval patterns reflect that expert letters from practitioners at independent institutions — not the petitioner's employer, not prior co-authors — who specifically address the petitioner's contribution to the field continue to be the most consistently cited evidence in approved C5 cases. Letters that identify the petitioner by name, describe a specific contribution, and explain why that contribution is significant to the field (not to the company) are what the AAO finds sufficient.

Pattern 2: Documented external adoption for C5.

C5 cases that succeed show documented adoption by named organizations outside the petitioner's employer. GitHub forks by named third parties, download metrics from named external users, published citations from practitioners at other institutions, and implementations of the petitioner's technique in independently-developed software all appear in approval records. The adoption documentation is specific — named organizations and specific adoption instances, not general claims of influence.

Pattern 3: Objective evidence of organizational distinction for C8.

C8 approvals show organizations established as distinguished through objective evidence: named media coverage in publications that report on the organization as a recognized entity in its field, industry ranking appearances, regulatory recognition, or named investor/partner relationships. Approval decisions do not rely solely on the petitioner's characterization of the employer.

Pattern 4: Explicit Step 2 totality sections.

Approved petitions in 2024–2025 consistently include a standalone Final Merits Determination section — not as a conclusion to criteria arguments, but as a separate analytical section that defines the field, describes the competitive landscape, and positions the petitioner within the upper tier.

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2024–2025 Denial Patterns: What Evidence Is Failing

Pattern 1: C5 evidence limited to employer impact.

The most consistent denial pattern in 2024–2025 across technology and research fields is C5 evidence that establishes impact within the petitioner's organization but not in the field broadly. Evidence of the type "reduced model training time by 40% at Company X" fails the "major significance in the field" standard at 8 CFR 204.5(h)(3)(v) consistently. The AAO distinguishes employer-level impact (which many good employees achieve) from field-level significance (which requires external recognition or adoption).

Pattern 2: C8 distinguished reputation not established for the organization.

C8 denials cluster around organizations that are not publicly recognized outside their immediate industry or customer base. A company significant to its clients but unknown beyond its direct commercial relationships fails the "distinguished reputation" standard. Denial decisions consistently note that the organization's reputation must be established independently of the petitioner's role within it.

Pattern 3: Step 2 denials on "small percentage" grounds.

Denial decisions at Step 2 frequently show: Step 1 criteria are found technically met, but the AAO denies on the ground that the totality does not establish that the petitioner is "among that small percentage who have risen to the very top of the field." These denials typically note the absence of a comparative analysis.

Pattern 4: Generic expert letters.

Denial decisions consistently discuss expert letters that are generic rather than specific. Letters that describe the petitioner in general praise language — "highly accomplished," "one of the best in the field," "widely recognized" — without addressing a specific original contribution and its significance are found insufficient.

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Criterion 5 Specific Patterns (2024–2025)

C5 (original contributions of major significance) is the most litigated criterion in 2024–2025 AAO decisions.

The employer-specific trap in 2024–2025 decisions:

The AAO has continued to maintain the distinction established in prior years between employer-level contributions and field-level contributions. Under 8 CFR 204.5(h)(3)(v), the contribution must be of "major significance in the field" — not in the company. Decisions from 2024–2025 consistently deny C5 claims supported only by employer attestation of internal impact, regardless of how impressive the internal metrics are.

What the AAO finds sufficient for C5:

In 2024–2025 approval decisions, C5 claims are supported by some combination of:

• Independent expert letters from practitioners at organizations with no employment relationship with the petitioner, where those experts specifically describe why they or their field adopted the contribution
• Documented adoption at named third-party organizations (not general adoption metrics)
• Downstream citation patterns showing subsequent publications build on the petitioner's specific technique or finding
• Industry reports or working group documentation identifying the contribution as a field development

The "building upon" standard in 2024–2025:

The USCIS Policy Manual, Volume 6, Part F, Chapter 2 instructs adjudicators to consider whether others have "built upon" the contribution. In 2024–2025 approval decisions, this standard appears as specific evidence: named organizations or individuals who extended the petitioner's technique, GitHub repositories that built directly on the petitioner's open-source work, or published papers that apply the petitioner's methodology to new problems.

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Criterion 8 Specific Patterns (2024–2025)

The two-part C8 structure in 2024–2025 decisions:

C8 (critical or leading role for distinguished organizations) requires two distinct findings: (1) the alien's role is critical or essential, and (2) the organization has a distinguished reputation. Denial decisions frequently find the first part met while denying on the second. A VP of Engineering at an early-stage startup can have a clearly critical role and still fail C8 if the organization's distinction is not established.

Startup-specific patterns:

For startups, 2024–2025 decisions show that organizations with notable venture funding from named institutional investors (with documented coverage of the funding round) are more likely to be found distinguished than organizations with comparable revenue but no publicly documented recognition. Funding announcement coverage in publications that cover the startup ecosystem (TechCrunch, Bloomberg, financial press) appears in approval records as evidence of distinction.

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Step 2 Denial Patterns (2024–2025)

Step 2 denials — where criteria are found met at Step 1 but the totality is found insufficient — represent a significant share of 2024–2025 AAO denial decisions. The Kazarian v. USCIS, 596 F.3d 1115 (9th Cir. 2010) two-step framework requires a genuine totality analysis at Step 2, not merely a restatement of Step 1 findings.

The "so what" denial:

The most common Step 2 denial pattern in 2024–2025 is what practitioners call the "so what" denial: the AAO acknowledges that criteria evidence was submitted and some criteria were met, then denies on the ground that the petition did not establish the petitioner's position in the field distribution. The decision notes that meeting three criteria does not automatically establish extraordinary ability — the Kazarian framework requires a totality assessment, and the petition failed to provide one.

The missing comparative framework:

Step 2 denials consistently note the absence of a comparative analysis:

• The petition did not define the field at the relevant level of specificity
• The petition did not characterize the competitive landscape
• The petition did not establish how the petitioner's record compares to other practitioners at the same career stage in the same field

Without this framing, USCIS cannot evaluate whether the petitioner is in the "small percentage" — and the denial follows.

Conflation with Step 1:

A subset of 2024–2025 denial decisions show Step 2 analysis that is actually continued Step 1 analysis: the officer discusses individual evidence items and finds them insufficient rather than evaluating the cumulative record. This conflation of Step 1 and Step 2 is a recognized error under the Kazarian framework and is an argument ground for MTR or AAO appeal. See Kazarian Step 2: Writing the Final Merits Argument for how to draft a Step 2 section that compels a genuine totality analysis.

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Emerging Adjudication Trends

Emerging-tech field definitions.

Petitions for AI, ML, and distributed systems professionals face a recurring pattern: adjudicators with limited familiarity with the field have difficulty applying the "small percentage" standard without guidance from the petition itself. Petitions that define the field precisely ("distributed training optimization for transformer models"), describe the field's competitive structure, and explain what expertise markers distinguish top-tier from competent practitioners succeed at significantly higher rates than petitions that describe the field broadly as "AI" or "machine learning."

Increased scrutiny of publication criteria for technology professionals.

C6 (scholarly articles) claims for technology professionals are receiving closer scrutiny in 2024–2025. The AAO has found in multiple decisions that technical blog posts and documentation do not satisfy the "scholarly articles in the field" standard under 8 CFR 204.5(h)(3)(vi) unless published in venues with editorial review comparable to professional publications. Conference papers with published proceedings at peer-reviewed venues continue to qualify; informal blog posts and personal websites do not.

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Implications for Current Filings

1. Build C5 around external adoption before filing. If your client's C5 evidence is limited to employer impact, do not file. The employer-specific trap is not recoverable at the RFE stage without fundamentally different evidence. See EB1A RFE Prevention Playbook for how to build the external adoption record preemptively.

2. Document organizational distinction for C8 independently of the petitioner's role. Do not rely on the petitioner's own description of the employer's importance. Gather external documentation — media coverage, rankings, named partnerships — before filing.

3. Write a dedicated Step 2 section. The pattern of "so what" Step 2 denials in 2024–2025 is directly attributable to petitions that lack a genuine totality argument. Every petition filed in 2025 should include a standalone Final Merits section with field definition, competitive landscape description, and position-in-distribution argument.

4. Teach the adjudicator the field for emerging tech. Emerging-tech petitions must include field education in both the expert letters and the Step 2 section. Do not assume the adjudicator knows what a DeFi protocol architect or a distributed systems ML engineer does — explain it, then position the client within it.

5. Evaluate C6 evidence carefully for technology professionals. The increased scrutiny on publication claims for tech petitioners in 2024–2025 means C6 arguments should be limited to peer-reviewed conference papers and journal articles. If C6 is weak, strengthen the petition through C4 (judging) or C5 instead.

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