What are the main challenges when responding to an RFE about national interest evidence?

Responding to an RFE (Request for Evidence) about national interest in an EB-2 NIW case is often challenging because the officer wants to see, clearly, that your work benefits the United States as a whole, not just a single project or an isolated region.

The most common challenges are:

• Gathering evidence that directly links your work to concrete benefits, such as publications, expert letters, media coverage, and recognition reports.
• Showing that your reach extends beyond the local or regional level, with broad impact potential.
• Building a cohesive narrative that connects your experience to tangible outcomes of national interest.
• Sustaining, through that argument, why the waiver of the job offer requirement is justified.

The central difficulty is moving past a list of achievements and demonstrating why they matter to the country. Strong evidence helps, but what often turns the tide is the coherence between what you did, the effect it produced, and the national interest.

Because each RFE is specific, it is worth following exactly what the document requests and, in complex cases, reviewing the response with a specialist before submitting it to USCIS.

About the author

Victoria Harper

Editor-in-Chief

Meet the author

As a journalist and lead editor at Visto n’ Visa, Victoria helps ensure that immigration topics are covered in a clear, trustworthy, and easy-to-understand way. Her focus is on delivering useful, human, and relevant content for people exploring new paths abroad.