Proposed Endeavor in EB-2 NIW: How to Craft a Strong Plan

The EB-2 National Interest Waiver petition begins with a few sentences that will determine the outcome of the entire case: the proposed endeavor. This section does not describe your profession, your job title, or your generic field of work. It articulates, in concrete terms, the specific plan you commit to executing in the United States — what problem you will address, with what tools, in what sector, and with what reach. USCIS reads this paragraph as the thesis of the case and measures all subsequent arguments against it.

Why the proposed endeavor decides the case

Since the precedent decision Matter of Dhanasar, in 2016, USCIS analyzes NIW petitions under three prongs:

• Prong 1: the proposed endeavor has substantial merit and national importance.
• Prong 2: the petitioner is well positioned to advance the proposed endeavor.
• Prong 3: on balance, it is beneficial to the United States to waive the job offer and labor certification requirements.

All three prongs revolve around the proposed endeavor. If it is vague, generic, or merely describes a profession, the subsequent arguments have no anchor. That is why USCIS officers frequently issue Requests for Evidence (RFEs) precisely at this point: the plan presented is not specific enough for the officer to evaluate its merit or national importance.

What separates a strong endeavor from a weak one

A strong proposed endeavor has three markers: it identifies a concrete problem relevant to the United States, proposes specific actions or tools to address it, and allows for measurable impact. A weak proposed endeavor describes generic professional duties without tying the work to an American problem or indicating how the results will be felt beyond the immediate employer.

Strong examples

• Developing AI-based phishing detectors to protect U.S. hospital networks against cyberattacks that compromise patient data.
• Designing a machine learning system that predicts failures in regional power grids before they occur, reducing outages during peak periods.
• Building an automated supply chain platform to accelerate the nationwide distribution of perishable goods, reducing food waste and economic losses.
• Creating water quality monitoring systems with IoT sensors in American municipalities with aging infrastructure, providing real-time contamination alerts.

Each of these examples identifies a concrete American problem (hospital security, blackouts, food waste, drinking water), points to a tool (AI, machine learning, automation, IoT sensors), defines a scope (hospitals, regional grids, national distribution, municipalities), and opens a path to measurable impact (prevented incidents, reduced outages, cut food losses, contamination alerts).

Weak examples

• Delivering backend services for cloud software platforms.
• Working as a freelance web developer specializing in SEO and marketing.
• Providing general IT support for small businesses.
• Working as a data scientist on various projects.

These examples describe common professional tasks with no critical problem identified, no defined scope, no specific tool, and no measurable benefit beyond the direct client. The USCIS officer has no basis on which to assess substantial merit or national importance from this text.

Recurring errors in RFEs

Analysis of RFEs issued by USCIS reveals clear patterns in the areas where weak proposed endeavors stall a case:

• Focus on the employer, not the country: describing how the plan benefits a specific company without showing how the impact extends to the market, the industry, or American society.
• Job description instead of a plan: listing responsibilities from a job description rather than articulating an independent project the petitioner commits to carrying out.
• Excessive jargon without grounding: using technical terminology without explaining the concrete problem the work solves.
• Timid geographic scope: defining the endeavor as local when there is a basis for arguing regional or national reach, weakening the national importance argument.
• Lack of connection to the petitioner’s background: proposing an endeavor disconnected from the petitioner’s training, experience, and prior output, making Prong 2 (well positioned) untenable.

How to build your proposed endeavor

Start from the outside in. First, identify a concrete, current American problem for which you have demonstrable expertise. Then, describe how you intend to address it — the tool, the approach, the method. Define the scope — local, multi-state, national — based on the plausible reach of the impact. Finally, connect it to your background: publications, prior projects, positions, awards, citations — everything that shows you are the qualified person to bring the plan to life.

A practical test: write your proposed endeavor in three sentences. Show it to someone unfamiliar with your field. Ask whether that person can, without any additional explanation, identify what problem you are addressing, how you are addressing it, and why it matters to the United States. If the answer is hesitant, the text is not ready yet.

The proposed endeavor as the backbone

Everything that follows — arguments for substantial merit, evidence of national importance, justifications for the labor certification waiver — is anchored to this opening paragraph. Approved petitions tend to have proposed endeavors that could, on their own, explain the case to a lay reader. Denied or challenged petitions often have proposed endeavors that could describe any professional in the same field, without distinction. The difference between the two extremes is not style: it is specificity, grounding in a concrete problem, and clarity about the intended impact.

Victoria Harper

Editor-in-Chief

Meet the author

Leading journalism and editorial content at Visto n’ Visa, Victoria helps make immigration topics clear, trustworthy, and easy to understand. Her focus is on delivering useful, human, and relevant content for people exploring new paths abroad.