The Dhanasar Three-Prong Framework in Practice

Why Dhanasar replaced NYSDOT, and what actually changed

NYSDOT's framework asked petitioners to establish that their work had "substantial intrinsic merit," was "national in scope," and that the national interest would be adversely affected by the standard labor certification process. The third prong was the persistent problem: it required petitioners to essentially prove a negative about the U.S. labor market, using evidence (like showing the labor certification process itself would be against the national interest) that had almost nothing to do with the petitioner's own individual merit. The AAO's decision in Dhanasar explicitly identified this as unworkable and replaced it with prong three's current, much more direct question — does it benefit the United States, on balance, to excuse this specific petitioner from the labor certification process — evaluated using the petitioner's own qualifications and the endeavor's own characteristics, not indirect labor-market economics.

The practical effect for petitioners: Dhanasar is a more evidence-friendly framework than NYSDOT was, in the specific sense that every one of its three prongs asks about something the petitioner can affirmatively document (the endeavor's merit and importance, the petitioner's own qualifications, and a balancing test the petitioner can argue directly) rather than requiring proof about the broader labor market's macroeconomics. This doesn't make NIW easy, but it does make it more predictable — a well-prepared petitioner can anticipate what an officer will actually be testing, prong by prong.

Prong one, in full: substantial merit AND national importance — two separate questions

Prong one is frequently misread as one question when it's actually two, both of which must independently succeed. "Substantial merit" asks whether the endeavor itself has real value — which can be demonstrated in business, entrepreneurial, scientific, technological, cultural, health, or educational fields, among others, per the USCIS Policy Manual's own non-exhaustive list. This is usually the easier half to establish: most genuine professional endeavors clear a substantial-merit bar without much difficulty, since it doesn't require the endeavor to be groundbreaking, only genuinely meritorious.

"National importance" is the harder half, and it's where most prong-one denials actually originate. The Policy Manual is explicit that national importance is not established merely by the fact that the endeavor takes place in the United States, or that it's in a field the government considers generally important (STEM, healthcare, etc.) — those facts alone are necessary context, not sufficient evidence. What actually establishes national importance is evidence that the endeavor has national or even broader implications within its field, or that it stands to broadly enhance societal welfare or cultural or artistic enrichment, extending substantially beyond the petitioner's own individual clients, employer, or local community. A locally excellent physical therapy practice with satisfied patients has substantial merit; it needs something more — a novel treatment methodology being adopted by other practices nationally, published outcomes data influencing the field, or a documented broader impact — to also clear national importance.

The Dhanasar decision's own guidance on national importance: three recognized paths

Dhanasar itself, and the Policy Manual's elaboration of it, point to several recurring ways petitioners successfully establish national importance, without treating any one as the only path. First: broad potential impact — an endeavor with significant potential to employ U.S. workers, or with other substantial positive economic effects, particularly in an economically depressed area. Second: national or field-wide implications — research, a technology, or a business model that stands to influence practice or outcomes in the field beyond the petitioner's own immediate work, evidenced by adoption, citation, licensing, or documented influence on others' practice. Third: a matter of national concern — endeavors related to a matter the U.S. government or a substantial cross-section of the field has already identified as important (public health, national security-adjacent technology, critical infrastructure resilience), where the petitioner's own contribution to that recognized concern can be documented.

None of these three paths is mandatory and a strong petition often draws on more than one, but a petitioner should be able to articulate, specifically, which of these (or another documented basis) their own endeavor's national importance rests on — a petition that gestures vaguely at "this work is important" without identifying a specific mechanism by which it reaches beyond the petitioner's own immediate sphere is the single most common prong-one weakness.

Prong two: well positioned — the individual-qualifications test

Prong two shifts entirely from the endeavor to the petitioner: is this specific person actually positioned to advance the proposed endeavor? The Policy Manual lists several non-exhaustive factors officers weigh together: the petitioner's education, skills, knowledge, and record of success in related or similar efforts; a model or plan for future activities; any progress already made toward the endeavor; and the interest of potential customers, users, investors, or other relevant entities or individuals in the proposed endeavor, where applicable.

This prong is where a petitioner's credentials, track record, and concrete evidence of momentum actually do the work — advanced degrees, patents, publications, a demonstrated history of successfully executing similar projects, letters from established figures in the field who can speak to the petitioner's specific capability (not just general praise), and, where relevant, external validation like investor interest, pilot customers, or grant funding. Prong two does NOT require the extraordinary-ability-caliber record EB-1A demands — it requires the petitioner to be plausibly capable of advancing THIS SPECIFIC endeavor, a lower and more targeted bar, but one that still needs real, individualized evidence rather than credentials alone.

A frequent prong-two mistake: credentials without a plan

A genuinely strong CV is necessary but not sufficient for prong two — the Policy Manual explicitly calls for "a model or plan for future activities," meaning the petition needs to articulate WHAT the petitioner actually intends to do to advance the endeavor, not just document that they're qualified in the abstract. A petitioner with an impressive research record but a petition that never states a concrete plan (what specifically will be built, studied, launched, or scaled, on what rough timeline, using what resources) leaves prong two's plan-and-progress factors unaddressed even if the qualifications factor is strong. The strongest prong-two sections read like a credible, specific plan supported by a credentialed person, not a resume with "and I am well qualified" appended.

Prong three: the balancing test, and what it's actually weighing

Prong three asks whether, on balance, it would benefit the United States to waive the job offer and labor certification requirements — a genuinely different question from prongs one and two, since it's not asking about the endeavor's merit or the petitioner's qualifications directly, but about the cost/benefit of skipping the standard process built around both.

Dhanasar and the Policy Manual point to several factors relevant to this balancing: whether it would be impractical for the petitioner to secure a job offer or have their employer obtain a labor certification (because the work is unusually specialized, entrepreneurial, or self-directed in a way that doesn't map onto a conventional employer-employee labor-market test); whether the United States would benefit from the petitioner's contributions even if other qualified U.S. workers were available (because the timing, urgency, or unique nature of the contribution matters independent of general labor supply); and whether the national interest in the petitioner's contributions is sufficiently urgent to warrant forgoing the labor certification process, which by design takes significant time to complete.

Why prong three isn't a rubber stamp, even after prongs one and two succeed

A common misconception treats prong three as an afterthought that follows automatically once prongs one and two are established — the reasoning being "if the endeavor is nationally important and I'm well positioned to advance it, obviously waiving labor certification is beneficial." USCIS's own guidance resists this shortcut: prong three specifically asks about the VALUE of skipping the labor certification process, which is a different question from whether the endeavor and petitioner are individually strong. A petitioner in a role that maps cleanly onto a conventional, fillable job opening (where a standard PERM labor certification process would work reasonably well) has a weaker prong-three argument than a petitioner in a genuinely self-directed, entrepreneurial, or time-sensitive role where the standard process is a poor fit almost by definition. The strongest prong-three arguments explain, concretely, why THIS petitioner's contribution doesn't wait well for a labor-market test that can take many months, or why the work itself (founding a company, leading independent research, responding to an urgent field-specific need) doesn't have a natural "job opening" shape a PERM process is built to evaluate in the first place.

How the three prongs reinforce each other in a well-built petition

Weak NIW petitions often treat the three prongs as three separate mini-essays, each addressed once and never referenced again. Strong petitions build a single, coherent narrative where each prong's evidence reinforces the others: the SAME concrete plan that establishes prong two's "model or plan for future activities" also grounds prong three's urgency argument (the plan has a timeline that doesn't accommodate a lengthy labor certification wait); the SAME national-importance evidence from prong one (adoption by others in the field, a documented broader impact) also strengthens prong three's balancing argument (the U.S. benefits from this specific contribution regardless of general labor-market supply, precisely because of that documented broader reach).

This is the single highest-leverage structural decision in building an NIW petition: decide the endeavor's core narrative first — what it is, why it matters nationally, why this petitioner specifically can advance it, and why the timeline doesn't wait for standard process — and then build each prong's section as a different lens on that ONE story, rather than three independent arguments that happen to share a cover page.

What evidence types recur across all three prongs

• • Independent, third-party evidence of the endeavor's field-wide or national reach (adoption, citation, media coverage of the work itself rather than the petitioner, policy references) — supports prong one directly, and indirectly strengthens prong three's balancing argument.
• • A written business/research plan or roadmap with concrete near-term milestones — supports prong two's "model or plan" factor directly, and grounds prong three's urgency/impracticality argument.
• • Letters from individuals with direct, specific knowledge of the petitioner's work and its significance (not generic praise letters) — support prong two's qualifications factor and, when the letter speaks to field-wide impact, prong one's national-importance factor too.
• • Evidence of external validation — investor commitments, grant awards, pilot customers, collaboration agreements, media coverage — supports prong two's "interest of potential customers, users, investors" factor and reinforces prong one's national-importance case when the validation itself reflects the endeavor's broader reach.
• • A clear, specific explanation of why the role doesn't map onto a standard, fillable job opening — supports prong three directly and is often best written after prongs one and two are drafted, since it should reference the same plan and qualifications already established.

A worked example: how one evidence set supports all three prongs differently

Consider a petitioner developing a novel water-purification technology being piloted by three municipal water systems in different states, with a peer-reviewed publication describing the underlying method and a provisional patent filed. For prong one, the multi-state pilot adoption and peer-reviewed publication establish national importance under the "national or field-wide implications" path — the technology's reach already extends beyond the petitioner's own immediate work. For prong two, the same publication plus the patent plus a concrete 18-month plan to scale to additional municipal systems establish both the qualifications factor (demonstrated technical capability) and the plan/progress factor (already-secured pilots are concrete progress, not just aspiration). For prong three, the time-sensitive nature of expanding pilot commitments (municipal partners have their own budget cycles and won't wait indefinitely) supports the urgency/impracticality argument — a standard labor certification timeline risks losing the pilot commitments the petitioner has already secured, a genuinely different argument from either of the first two prongs even though it draws on the same underlying facts.

What Dhanasar does NOT require, that petitioners sometimes assume it does

Dhanasar does not require an advanced degree in isolation — NIW is available to petitioners who separately qualify as an EB-2 professional or person of exceptional ability (which can include an advanced degree, or a combination of a bachelor's degree plus specialized experience, or exceptional-ability criteria) and then separately clear the three Dhanasar prongs for the waiver itself; the underlying EB-2 classification and the NIW waiver are two distinct legal questions layered on top of each other, not one combined test. Dhanasar also does not require a job offer to exist and then be waived in some formal sense — most NIW petitioners never had a specific U.S. job offer to begin with; "waiving the job offer requirement" means the petitioner doesn't need to secure one at all, not that one exists and gets set aside. And Dhanasar does not require the endeavor to be entrepreneurial or self-employed — a genuinely well-qualified petitioner working for an existing employer, but whose endeavor independently clears the three prongs, is equally eligible; NIW is not exclusively an entrepreneur's pathway even though it's commonly used that way.