Many NIW petitions fail Prong 1 not because the applicant’s work lacks value, but because the proposed endeavor is written in a way that sounds like a job description. USCIS is not evaluating your employment — it is evaluating a forward-looking initiative with national implications. This article explains the critical difference and shows you how to write your endeavor statement correctly.
The Core Problem
One of the most common reasons USCIS sends a Request for Evidence on Prong 1 is a finding that the petitioner’s proposed endeavor amounts to nothing more than continuing in their current occupation. USCIS calls this the “continuing employment” problem, and it is explicitly addressed in Matter of Dhanasar, the 2016 precedent decision that governs all NIW petitions today.
The Dhanasar decision is unambiguous on this point: “Continuing employment in one’s position, field, or industry is not an endeavor sufficient to evaluate under this analytical framework.” This means that simply describing your desire to keep working in your profession, even a highly skilled and valuable profession, does not satisfy the first prong. USCIS must be able to evaluate something more — a specific, defined initiative with prospective national impact.
This is a conceptual mistake that is easy to make. When people think about what they plan to do in the United States, they naturally think about their job. They describe their daily responsibilities, their skills, their professional background. All of that is useful for Prong 2. For Prong 1, however, USCIS is asking a different question: what specific work do you propose to undertake, and why does that work matter to the United States as a whole?
What Dhanasar Tells Us About a Good Endeavor
The Dhanasar petitioner himself provides the clearest model for how to define a proposed endeavor correctly. He did not write: “I intend to continue my career in aerospace engineering.” Instead, he described something precise and forward-looking: he proposed to continue research into the design and development of propulsion systems for potential use in military and civilian technologies, including specific applications in nano-satellites, rocket-propelled ballistic missiles, and single-stage-to-orbit vehicles.
Notice what that statement does. It names a specific field of inquiry. It identifies concrete technological goals. It hints at the end-users of the technology — military and civilian programs. And it frames the work as research with prospective outcomes rather than as ongoing employment with existing outcomes. The AAO found this sufficient because it provided “specific insight as to what he intended to do” in his field.
Your endeavor statement needs to do the same thing. It needs to describe not just what you do, but what you intend to accomplish, for whom, and with what broader implications. A cybersecurity professional is not just testing software — they are building frameworks to protect critical infrastructure from evolving threats. A healthcare data analyst is not just running reports — they are developing methodologies that improve clinical decision accuracy in underserved hospital systems. The underlying work may be similar, but the framing is completely different.
How to Identify and Fix the Problem in Your Own Statement
Read your proposed endeavor statement and ask yourself a simple question: could this sentence appear on a job posting? If the answer is yes, you have a problem. Job postings describe roles and responsibilities. Proposed endeavors describe initiatives and impacts.
Another useful test is the “so what” test. After reading your endeavor statement, ask whether the reader can answer the question: so what does this mean for the United States? If the statement leaves that question unanswered, it is too vague or too employment-focused.
For example, compare these two statements. The first: “My proposed endeavor is to work as a software quality assurance engineer for U.S.-based companies, applying my expertise in test design and execution.” The second: “My proposed endeavor is to develop and deploy integrated software quality assurance frameworks that embed cybersecurity validation into the testing lifecycle for software systems used by critical American industries including healthcare, financial services, and government infrastructure, reducing systemic vulnerabilities and data integrity failures at scale.” The first is a job description. The second is an endeavor.
The difference is not about inflating your language. It is about being honest and specific about the larger project your daily work is part of. Every professional’s work contributes to something larger. The NIW requires you to identify what that larger thing is and articulate its national significance.
The Role of Future Plans
One reason petitioners fall into the continuing employment trap is that they focus entirely on what they have already done. Past work is crucial for Prong 2, which asks whether you are well positioned. Prong 1, however, is explicitly forward-looking. The USCIS Policy Manual states that the national importance analysis “focuses on what the beneficiary will be doing rather than the specific job title or occupational classification.”
This means your proposed endeavor must describe future activities. It must look ahead. It should explain what you intend to build, research, implement, or develop in the United States and why that future work matters. Your personal statement is one of the most important places to do this. USCIS looks favorably on petitioners who can describe, in concrete terms, what they plan to do over the next several years and how those plans serve a documented national interest.
If your current statement is mostly backward-looking — full of things you have accomplished — take time to rewrite it as a forward projection. Where are you going? What problems are you trying to solve? Who benefits? How does your planned work connect to federal priorities or documented national challenges? Answering these questions turns a job history into a proposed endeavor.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Several patterns appear repeatedly in petitions that receive continuing employment RFEs. The first is opening the endeavor statement with a job title: “As a civil engineer, my proposed endeavor is to…” The job title immediately signals to the adjudicator that what follows will be a professional description rather than a national initiative.
The second is limiting the scope of impact to a single employer or client: “I plan to continue improving software systems for my employer.” USCIS has specifically noted that benefits to a specific employer, even one with a national footprint, do not establish national importance. The impact must extend beyond any single organization.
The third is using vague language about economic contribution: “My work will benefit the U.S. economy.” This kind of general claim, unsupported by specifics, carries very little weight. USCIS wants to understand exactly how and why your specific work contributes, not a general assertion that skilled workers benefit the economy.
Avoiding these mistakes requires rewriting your endeavor statement from scratch rather than editing an existing job description. Start with the national problem or need your work addresses, then describe how your proposed work responds to that need, then explain the scope and potential impact. Build from the national level down to your specific role, rather than from your job title up to vague national claims.
References and Further Reading
INA Section 203(b)(2)(B) — National Interest Waiver Authority — https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title8-section1153&num=0&edition=prelim
Matter of Dhanasar, 26 I&N Dec. 884 (AAO 2016)
https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/err/
USCIS Policy Manual, Volume 6, Part F, Chapter 5 — Advanced Degree or Exceptional Ability — https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-6-part-f-chapter-5
USCIS — National Interest Waiver Overview — https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/permanent-workers/employment-based-immigration-second-preference-eb-2
