Occupation-Specific Benefits of Petitioning Under the National Interest Waiver (NIW) Standard

In addition to the potential benefits depending on one’s particular nationality, there are certain occupation-specific benefits as well for petitioning under the NIW standard, depending on whether one is conducting research and what one’s occupation is.

Conducting Research

In our experience, one of the best ways to satisfy the NIW criteria is for the petitioner to presently be conducting research. This is most likely to be beneficial for a NIW petition if the research is part of the official job duties of the petitioner’s occupation. Evidence that the petitioner is currently publishing, and by extension, disseminating research at large is one of the best evidentiary tools we can have to satisfy this standard.

In addition, even if the petitioner is not conducting research as part of their official job duties, it still may be sufficient if the petitioner is conducting research on the side or as a volunteer.

Helping With Product Development

Another common situation we often encounter involves clients who work for companies and perform a role where they are directly involved with the development of products or services that will be disseminated on a national scale. Although the specifics of each case are very important in these types of cases, in general, the more one can tie the petitioner to the development of products or services that will be implemented or served nationally, the better the chances of meeting the NIW standard.

In short, there are many common situations where we have developed very successful strategies for petitioning under the EB-2 NIW standard. But even for petitioners that don’t necessarily fall under these categories, we have developed a myriad of approaches for even the most unique situations.