The first EB-2 NIW prong contains two different questions. Substantial merit concerns the value of the proposed endeavor. National importance examines its prospective impact and broader implications. Learn why a profession’s relevance, an employer’s reach, or a worker shortage do not resolve that analysis on their own.
Substantial merit and national importance are not synonyms. Under the first EB-2 NIW prong, both must be shown in relation to the specific professional endeavor or project the person intends to develop in the United States.
Substantial merit asks whether that endeavor has meaningful value in an area such as business, science, technology, culture, health, or education. National importance looks at another dimension: the work’s prospective impact and broader implications for a field, region, the public, or U.S. interests.
An endeavor may be useful, needed, and well performed—and therefore meritorious—without the evidentiary record establishing national importance for NIW purposes. Keeping the questions separate prevents the general relevance of a profession or sector from becoming an automatic eligibility conclusion.
The precedent *Matter of Dhanasar* explains that merit may arise in different areas, including business, entrepreneurship, science, technology, culture, health, and education. The list is illustrative, not a classification of favored professions.
Merit also does not always depend on immediate or quantifiable economic return. Basic research, pure science, and the advancement of knowledge may have substantial value even where results do not quickly translate into revenue, jobs, or a commercial product.
That flexibility matters. Requiring financial projections for every scientific, cultural, educational, or health endeavor would distort the question. At the same time, saying an area is socially valuable does not complete the analysis. The proposed endeavor must be identified and its merit explained.
After merit, the analysis considers the specific endeavor’s potential future impact. USCIS PA-2025-03, which updated the Policy Manual in 2025, directs the focus to the nature of the work and what the evidence shows about its projected consequences.
That impact may take different forms. The endeavor may have national or global implications in a field, contribute to relevant technology, generate public-health benefits, expand knowledge, offer broader cultural or social effects, or show significant economic potential.
The central point is the relationship between activity and asserted effect. It is not enough to name a broad objective—“improve health,” “strengthen the economy,” or “innovate in technology”—without explaining how the proposed work can produce that result and presenting compatible evidence.
The word “national” may suggest the endeavor must cover the entire country. Dhanasar rejected that narrow reading. An initiative concentrated in one city or region may be nationally important when its implications extend beyond its immediate location.
This may occur, for example, when work develops a method with broader application, addresses a regional problem relevant to a national system, or produces knowledge, technology, or a model that can be used beyond the initial location.
The reverse is also true. Working for a company present in many states or serving clients throughout the country does not by itself establish national importance. USCIS asks what effects can be attributed to the person’s endeavor, not only the size or location of the employer.
Health, education, security, infrastructure, technology, energy, and other sectors may be relevant to the United States. That general importance provides context, but it does not prove that every activity in the sector has national importance.
PA-2025-03 provides clear examples of that limit. The importance of classroom teaching, a shortage in an occupation, or entrepreneurs’ general contribution to job creation is not sufficient alone. The petition must show how the individual endeavor will have broader implications at a level compatible with the standard.
The same caution applies to demand claims. A statistic about a shortage of professionals may show a market problem, but it does not automatically explain the specific endeavor’s impact. Occupational shortage and national importance answer different questions.
The precedent itself helps illustrate the distinction. The petitioner intended to continue propulsion-systems research and also conduct aerospace-engineering teaching activities.
For the research, the record connected the work to scientific advancement, national security, and U.S. competitiveness in the space sector. Expert letters and other documents corroborated the strategic relevance of the area and proposed activities. On that record, the decision found substantial merit and national importance.
For teaching, the decision found merit but concluded that the evidence did not demonstrate broader impact in STEM education. The result does not establish that teaching can never have national importance. It shows that, in that record, the activity’s value was not accompanied by the required demonstration of broader implications.
The contrast is useful because it keeps analysis at the right level: it is not enough to ask whether work is good or needed. It is also necessary to ask what prospective scope the evidence demonstrates.
Dhanasar notes that an endeavor with significant potential to employ U.S. workers or produce substantial positive economic effects may have national importance, particularly in an economically depressed area.
That is a possibility, not a universal requirement. A scientific project may show importance through technological implications. A health initiative may do so through broader public benefits. Cultural or educational work may have another documented form of impact.
Nor is it enough to place high projections in a plan. Numbers of jobs, expected revenue, clients, or expansion need understandable assumptions and evidence supporting those projections. Evidentiary value depends on the record’s quality and coherence, not the magnitude of a number.
An endeavor may generate real benefits for the organization employing the person or for its clients. USCIS guidance nevertheless clarifies that benefits limited to one employer, even one with a national presence, do not necessarily answer national importance.
The additional step is to show implications reaching a field, region, the public, or another broader interest. Depending on the endeavor, that may involve dissemination of a method, third-party adoption of technology, a documented public benefit, a significant impact in an economic segment, or influence on practices beyond an immediate client relationship.
There is no single way to make that showing. There is, however, a constant requirement: the conclusion must be tied to the specific endeavor and pertinent evidence.
Four questions help preserve the distinction:
What exactly does the person intend to do in the United States?
Why does that activity have substantial value in its field?
What prospective impact is asserted, and whom or what can it reach?
What evidence supports the link between the described work and that impact?
These questions do not guarantee approval. They help avoid treating merit and national importance as one generic assertion.
Evidence also need not fit a fixed list. Official reports, sector data, technical documents, third-party adoption, funding, contracts, studies, prior results, and well-grounded letters may be relevant according to the proposition they support. Their weight depends on relevance, credibility, and probative value.
Even when substantial merit and national importance are shown, the petition must still meet the second prong—being well positioned to advance the endeavor—and the third, concerning the favorable balance for waiving the job offer and labor certification.
Before that, the person must establish a valid EB-2 classification basis, such as being a professional with an advanced degree or equivalent, or a person of exceptional ability in sciences, arts, or business.
For that reason, a conclusion about the first prong should not be presented as a conclusion about the whole petition. NIW requires integrated analysis, related evidence, and USCIS’s discretionary decision.
U.S. immigration attorney with 15+ years representing international professionals, executives and investors.
In EB-2 NIW, the proposed professional endeavor or project describes what a person intends to do in the United States, how they intend to advance that work, and the impact they project. A résumé can help demonstrate capacity, but it does not replace that definition—and the concept does not require starting a business.
Ser médico não garante o EB-2 NIW. A análise precisa conectar a base EB-2, a atuação ou o projeto profissional específico nos Estados Unidos, os três critérios do NIW e evidências coerentes. Entenda também por que o NIW geral e a modalidade estatutária para certos médicos não são a mesma coisa.
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