If you are filing a National Interest Waiver, your petition will be judged under a standard Kristin Whitaker helped write.

At the USCIS Administrative Appeals Office, Kristin was part of the team that crafted and implemented Matter of Dhanasar, the decision that replaced the prior NIW framework and governs every national interest waiver filed today. She knows what the three prongs were meant to capture, what the drafters were trying to fix, and how the standard is applied when it reaches an officer's desk.

Her work at the AAO went well beyond that decision. She adjudicated appeals in EB-1A extraordinary ability, EB-1C multinational manager and executive, and National Interest Waiver cases, which meant reviewing service center denials and deciding which ones held up. Reading a denial for error is the work she did for the government, case after case.

Kristin then joined the USCIS Office of Chief Counsel at the Texas Service Center, where she handled immigrant visa issues, policy development, and federal litigation. That role placed her at the intersection of how the agency writes its rules and how it defends its decisions when they are challenged in court.

She came to government service already established in the field. Kristin has practiced business immigration since 2002, beginning in large national law firm practice, where she spent nearly a decade finding workable solutions for investors, highly skilled workers, and entrepreneurs across the country. She understood the petitioner's side of these cases before she ever saw the government's.

That sequence is what clients get. A petition Kristin builds is built to the standard as it was written and as it is actually applied. A denial she reviews is read the way she once read them on appeal, against the record the officer was working from.

Kristin's practice covers the full range of first-preference and high-skill categories: EB-1A extraordinary ability, EB-1B outstanding professors and researchers, EB-1C multinational managers and executives, EB-2 National Interest Waiver, and O-1A and O-1B petitions. She represents investors, entrepreneurs, researchers, academics, and highly skilled professionals. When an agency decision cannot be reconciled with the record before it, she pursues relief in federal court, including actions under the Administrative Procedure Act and mandamus actions challenging unreasonable delay.

Kristin is licensed in Virginia and Ohio and authorized to practice immigration law throughout the United States. She is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the State Bar of Virginia.