[ DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________ No. 13

- 13 015 Non

- Argument Calendar

________________________ D.C. Docket No. 2:12

- cv - 00127

- RWS

VIRAJ, LLC, RAMESH BABU NUKATHOTI, Plaintiffs

- Appellants,

versus U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS, (Ali) Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, SALLY QUILLIAN YATES, U.S. Attorney United States Attorney’ s Office Northern District of Georgia, Defendants

- Appellees.

________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia

________________________ (August 25, 2014) Case: 13-13015 Date Filed: 08/25/2014 Page: 1 of 92 Before ED CARNES , Chief Judge, TJOFLAT and FAY , Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM: Viraj , LLC appeals from the district court’s grant of summary judgment on its Administrative Procedure Act and Equal Protection claims following the denial of the alien worker visa petition that Viraj had filed on behalf of Ramesh Nukathoti. That petition was denied on the grounds that Nukathoti did not have the required advanced degree and Viraj failed to establish that it could pay the proffered wage. Viraj contend s the determination that Nukathoti lacks an “advanced degree” was arbitrary and capricious. I t argues that because Nukathoti had completed five
years of college in India to receive his master’s degree, which was more than the four yea rs typically required in the United States for a bachelor’s degree, he has an advanced degree and the visa should h ave been granted. Viraj also contends that it is able to pay the proffered wage and that it was unduly burdened by a request for evidence that would establish its ability to pay . Finally, Viraj contends that the district court erred in denying its equal protection claim.
I. Viraj is a software development and IT consulting company. In 2007 it filed

an “ Application for Permanent Employment Certification ” with the Department of Labor for a software engineer position . That application listed Indian citizen

Case: 13-13015 Date Filed: 08/25/2014 Page: 2 of 93 Ramesh Nukathoti as the person who would fill that position if Viraj’s certification

were approved and a visa granted. After certification was approved , Viraj filed with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) an I

- 140 Immigration Petition for Alien Worker , seeking a visa for Nukathoti

. The alien worker visa petition listed the proposed employment as a software engineer position at an annual salary of $50,000. In support of its petition, Viraj submitted copies of Nukathoti’s three

- year bachelor of science and two

- year master’s degrees from a university in India. USCIS denied the petition, finding that Nukathoti did

not meet the educational requirements. Viraj appealed that decision to t he Administrative Appeals Office (AAO), which agreed that Nukathoti had failed to meet the educational requirements . The AAO also found that Viraj had failed to establish that it could affor d to pay the proffered salary because it had not provided the evidence that had been requested

. Furthermore, it had filed 70 alien worker petitions and hundreds of nonimmigrant petitions and yet its current petition claimed that it had only “35+ ” employees. T he AAO stated that “[t]he competing obligations stemming from simultaneously pending immigrant, and nonimmigrant petitions, are relevant to whether the job offer to [Nukathoti] is even bona fide .” Viraj filed a lawsuit under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. Case: 13-13015 Date Filed: 08/25/2014 Page: 3 of 94 § 702, against the Director of USCIS, the United States Attorney General, and the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia (collectively, the government), chal lenging the denial of its alien worker visa petition. Viraj also raised a n Equal Protection claim. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the government , and this is Viraj’ s appeal.
II. We review de novo the district court’s grant of summary judgment, applying the same legal standards that bound the district court. Shuford v. Fid. Nat’l Prop.
& Cas. Ins. Co. , 508 F.3d 1337, 1341 (11th Cir. 2007). Summary judgment is appropriate “if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). Under the A dministrative P rocedure A ct , agency actions, findings, and conclusions can be set aside if only they are “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law” or “unsupported by substantial evidence.” 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A), (E). That standard i s “ex ceedingly deferential, ” Fund for Animals, Inc. v. Rice , 85 F .3d 535, 541 (11th Cir. 1996), and when applying it , this Court has “ very limited discretion to reverse an agency decision. ” Leal v. Sec’ y, U.S. Dep ’t of Health and Human Servs. , 620 F.3d 1280, 1 282 ( 11th Cir. 2010)

. Case: 13-13015 Date Filed: 08/25/2014 Page: 4 of 95 II I

. An alien may eligible for a visa based on employment in the United States as an advanced degree professional if certain requirements are met

. See 8 U.S.C. § 1153(b)(2)(A)

. First, t he employer who intends to hire the alien must file an alien labor certification application with the D epartment of Labor, which Viraj did

. 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(5); 20 C.F.R. § 656 .17(a)(1). After the Department of Labor certifies the application, the employer must
file with USCIS an I

- 140 visa pet ition , which Viraj did on Nukathoti’s behalf. 8
U.S.C. § 1154(a)(1)(F); 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(c) & (k)(1). The alien named in the visa petition must be “a professi onal holding an advanced degree,” 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(k)(3) , which is defined as “any United States academic or professional degree or a foreign equivalent degre e above that of a baccalaureate,” id. § 204.5(k)(2). USCIS interprets that regulation to mean that an alien who does not have “ at least a U.S. bachelor’s degree or a foreign equivalent degree ” does not meet the advanced degree requirement for an alien worker visa. See U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Servs., Dep’t of Homeland Sec., Adjudicator’s Field
Manual § 22.2(j)(1)(B).

Case: 13-13015 Date Filed: 08/25/2014 Page: 5 of 96 In the present case USCIS’ s denial of Viraj’s alien worker visa petition on the ground that Nukathoti did not possess an advanced degree was not arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion. Because Congress did not define “advanced degree,” see 8 U.S .C. § 1153(b)(2)(A) , USCIS had the authority to interpret the statutory language and develop regulations to fill the gap. See Wright v. Everson , 543 F.3d 649, 654 ( 11th Cir. 2008)

. USCIS’ s regulation defining “advanced degree” as “any United States academic or professional degree or a foreign equivalent degre e above that of a baccalaureate,” 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(k)(2), is not contrary to the plain language of the statute

. See id. In interpreting that regulation , it is reasonable and within USCIS’ s authority to conclude that Nukathoti’s three

- year bachelor of science degree was not equivalent to a United States bachelor’s degree and that his two

- year master of science degree was not equivalent to a United States master’s degree. See Matter of Shah , 17 I. & N. Dec. 244, 245 ( BIA 1977) (determining that a three

- year Indian bachelor’s degree was no t the equivalent of a United S tates bachelor’s degree, which usually requires four years of study)

. Viraj argues that “above . . . a baccalaureate ” degree, 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(k)(2), means any master’s degree t hat is achieved after more than four years of study . Although that is one way to reasonably interpret the regulatio n, it fails to establish that USCIS’ s interpretatio n is plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation. See Sierra Club v.

Case: 13-13015 Date Filed: 08/25/2014 Page: 6 of 97 Johnson , 436 F.3d 1269, 1274 ( 11th Cir. 2006) (“An agency’ s interpreta tion of its own regulations is controlling unless plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation. ”) (quotation marks omitted). Nor did the agency’s decision to rely on the Electronic Database for Global Educa tion ( EDGE ) and to discount the letters from professors and academic credential evaluations that Viraj submitted make the denial of the visa pet ition arbitrary or capricious. 1 Deciding which materials to rely on was within the agency’s discretion, and it was entitled to give the letters and evaluations less weight in light of the fact that they differed from the information provided in EDGE, whic h is a respected source of information. See Matter of Caron Int’l, Inc. , 19 I. & N. Dec. 791, 795 ( BIA 1988) (“[S] ince the [agency] is responsible for making the final determ ination regarding a beneficiary’ s eligibility for the benefit sought, where an opinion is not in accord with other information or is in any way questionable, the [agency] is not required to accept or may give less weight to that evidence. ”)

.

1 The district court described EDGE as “a web

- based resource for the evaluation of foreign education credentials created by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.” It noted USCIS ’s observation that, “unlike other foreign credential evaluators, ‘[a]uthors for EDGE are not merely expressing their personal opinions. Rather, they must work with a publication consultant and a Council Liaison with AACRAO’s National Council on the Evaluation of Foreign Educational Credentials.’” The district court pointed out that EDGE had determined that a m aster of s cience degree from India is compara ble to a United States bachelor’ s degree.

Case: 13-13015 Date Filed: 08/25/2014 Page: 7 of 98 B ecause it was not arbitrary or capricious for USCIS to deny Viraj’s alien worker visa petition on the ground that Nukathoti lacked the necessary educational qualifications, we need not address the issues raised regarding Viraj’s ability to pay the proffered wage

. See 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(g)(2) & (k)(3) (providing that i n order for an I

- 140 alien worker visa petition to be granted, the employer must establish
both that the alien it seeks to employ is an advanced degre e professional and that it has the ability to pay the proffered wage)

. 2
IV

. We review de novo constitutional challenges to agency orders. Toro v. Sec’y, U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec. , 707 F.3d 1224, 1230 (11th Cir. 2013). Under rational basis review, an agency’s interpretation of its own regulation violates the Eq ual Protection Clause only if the interpretation is not rationally related to any legitimate governmental objective. See Cook v. Wiley , 208 F.3d 1314, 1323 ( 11th Cir. 2000); see also Resendiz

- Alcaraz v. U.S. Att’y Gen. , 383 F.3d 1262, 1271 (11th Cir. 2004) (“[F] ederal c lassifications that distinguish among groups of aliens are subject only to rational basis review .”). To have a rational basis , a classification distinguishing among groups of aliens “must be reasonable, not arbitrary, and must rest upon some ground of difference having a fair and

2 Viraj also argues that the denial of its visa petition was arbitrary or capricious because it was inconsistent with prior unpublished USCIS decisions, but tho se decisions have no precedential value and are not a proper basis for denying USCIS the deference it is due. See , e.g. , De la Rosa v. U.S. Att’y Gen. , 579 F.3d 1327, 1336 (11th Cir. 2009) ; Chan v. Reno , 113 F.3d 1068, 1073 (9th Cir. 1997)

.

Case: 13-13015 Date Filed: 08/25/2014 Page: 8 of 99 substantial relation to the object of the legislation, so that all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike.” Fernandez

- Bernal v. U.S. Att’y Gen. , 257 F.3d 1304, 1312 (11th Cir. 2001) (quoting Stanton v. Stanton , 421 U.S. 7, 14, 95
S.Ct. 1373 , 1377 (1975)). Viraj contends that its visa petition was denied because of “ cultural
discrimination , ” and it asserts that USCIS probably would not reject a two

- yea r master’s degree issued by a United S tates university if that degree were preceded by the same three

- year Indian b achelor’s degree that Nukathoti had. That contention is un availing

. Viraj presented evidence of four Indian students who have United S tates master’s degrees preceded by three

- year Indian bachelor’s degrees . Nukathoti does not have those credentials. Viraj has provided no evidence that visa petitions for aliens with Indian master’s de grees were denied
based on race or national origin or on any basis other than the legitimate determination that the fo reign degree was not equivalent to an advanced degree, a s required by the regulation. “[M]ere conclusions and unsupported factual allegations are legally insufficient to defeat a summary judgment motion.” Ellis v. England , 432 F.3d 1321, 1326 (11th Cir. 2005). The district court properly granted summary judgment to the government on Viraj’s equal protection claim.
AFFIRMED . Case: 13-13015 Date Filed: 08/25/2014 Page: 9 of 9