NIW Bearings
remandedFEB122026_01B52032026-02-12 · appeal · SCOPS Service Center

This is an AAO appeal decision — a case denied once and appealed. It shows how the framework is applied; it is not the filing population.

The Petitioner, a climate change policy analyst, sought an EB-2 national interest waiver to work in the United States in the field of climate change policy.

Field: climate change policy · Read the decision (uscis.gov)

How the evidence was treated

  • other · discounted
    the evidence was insufficient to establish that the representative's signatures on the initially submitted documentation met the requirements for original signatures
    AAO decision text

This record is one of thousands, each coded for the reasons it turned. A placement shows where your profile sits in that record, not what it predicts. See where your profile sits — 90 seconds

Notable

The AAO remanded without reaching any NIW merits. SCOPS denied the petition solely on the ground that the attorney/representative's signatures on Form I-140, Form I-907, and Form G-28 lacked 'readily observable variations' suggesting they were copied-and-pasted rather than original wet-ink signatures. The AAO found SCOPS erred by denying the petition outright rather than processing it as if no notice of representation had been submitted, as required by 8 C.F.R. § 103.2(a)(3). No substantive NIW analysis was conducted.

What this case teaches

Analyst reading of the decision text.

Decisive factor

SCOPS denied solely because the representative's G-28/I-140 signatures were not original; AAO held SCOPS should have processed the petition as if no representative notice was filed, so it remanded.

Transferable lesson

A defective representative signature should make USCIS process the petition as if unrepresented, not deny it outright; a denial on that basis alone is remandable.

Endeavor framing

vague

Evidence targeting

mixed

Cases in adjacent profiles