Which precedents do officers cite in an RFE or denial?

Kazarian: why three closed criteria are not enough

The Ninth Circuit's 2010 decision split the assessment into two stages. At the first the officer checks formally whether the documents match the criterion's description. The quality of the work is not discussed at that stage - the court said expressly that it must not be mixed in.

At the second stage the record is weighed as a whole: whether the documents show sustained acclaim and a place among the small percentage at the top of the field. This is where denials are issued in cases where the officer agreed three criteria were met.

In the notices this citation usually sits in the opening section, before the criteria are taken apart - it frames everything that follows.

Treasure Craft and Soffici: an assertion without a document does not count

Both citations appear at the same moment - where the record holds a claim but no corroboration. The phrasing recurs almost word for word: going on record without supporting evidence is not sufficient to meet the burden of proof.

The practical consequence, visible in the text of the notices: references to web pages must be accompanied by copies of the pages themselves. A live link is not evidence - the page can change or vanish, and the officer says so.

Soffici adds a second turn: less weight goes to an opinion that is unsupported or inconsistent with the rest of the record. That lands directly on recommendation letters with no external corroboration behind them.

Matter of E-M-: a standard of proof, not nitpicking

This decision sets the bar: the petitioner must establish eligibility by a preponderance of the evidence - that what is claimed is more likely true than not. The bar is lower than 'beyond reasonable doubt', which is worth remembering: what must be proven is probability, not absolute certainty.

The second half of the formulation explains why volume does not save you: truth is determined by the quality of the evidence, not its quantity. Three hundred pages of exhibits with no external corroboration lose to ten pages with verifiable sources.

In our set all six citations fell on the high-salary criterion - exactly where petitioners most often bring volume instead of a comparable basis.

Matter of Ho: why one inconsistency lands on the whole case

The formulation from the notices: doubt cast on any aspect of the petitioner's proof may lead to a reevaluation of the reliability and sufficiency of the remaining evidence. In other words, an inconsistency does not stay local - it spreads.

Hence a practical step to take before filing: discrepancies in dates, titles, statuses and figures between the CV, the letters, the form and the exhibits have to be cleaned up or explained in advance. Explaining it yourself is cheaper than answering a reevaluation of the whole case.

What EB-1A refusals do not contain, contrary to expectation

Matter of Dhanasar appears once in 183 EB-1A notices and never inside a criterion analysis - which is expected: it concerns the national interest and operates in EB-2 NIW, not EB-1A. If someone cites it to you in an EB-1A context, that is a reason to check which category is being discussed.

Chawathe and Izummi are a different story, and we used to describe it wrongly by counting only citations inside criterion analyses. They are indeed absent there, but across whole notices Chawathe appears in 22 of 183 - in the general sections on how the officer weighs evidence - and Izummi in 2. Prepare for both levels: the citations inside a criterion and the evidence-weighing frame around it.