The U.S. EB-2 National Interest Waiver used to be a good way for skilled professionals to get a green card because of what they have achieved. For a time the U.S. EB-2 National Interest Waiver was one of the best ways to do this. In the year 2022 the U.S. EB-2 National Interest Waiver petitions that were decided were approved 95.7 percent of the time.. By the year 2025 the U.S. EB-2 National Interest Waiver was only approved about 55.2 percent of the time.. In the last part of that year the U.S. EB-2 National Interest Waiver approval rate dropped to about 35.7 percent. This was the time that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services or USCIS said no to more U.S. EB-2 National Interest Waiver petitions than they said yes to.
The U.S. EB-1A category is also having some problems. This category is for people, with ability. The U.S. EB-1A category had an approval rate of 70.5 percent in the year 2023. By the year 2024 the U.S. EB-1A category approval rate had dropped to about 60.6 percent. Then in the year 2025 the U.S. EB-1A category approval rate went up a bit to about 66.9 percent.
If you’ve heard that skilled immigration is “closing,” these numbers seem to confirm it. But that’s the wrong lesson. The doors aren’t closing – the bar moved!! And this shift reaches far beyond academia: research scientists, engineers, product and technology leaders, designers, founders, and specialists across industry are all judged by the same new standard. The professionals getting caught out are often the accomplished ones (in the lab and on the job alike) who are still documenting their careers the way it was done a decade ago.
Why the approval rates fell
The decline is mostly a story of supply and demand. As word spread about self-petition routes like the NIW, filings surged. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services received sixty three thousand five hundred and forty nine Employment Based Second Preference National Interest Waiver petitions in the year twenty twenty four. This is a jump from the twenty two thousand and forty nine petitions they got in the fiscal year twenty twenty two. That is roughly a one hundred and ninety percent increase in two years. By the end of the year twenty twenty five the pending National Interest Waiver backlog had gone up to around seventy four thousand cases.
The good thing is that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services did not stop approving Employment Based Second Preference National Interest Waiver petitions. They approved than twelve thousand Employment Based First Preference petitions in the fiscal year twenty twenty five alone. Employment Based First Preference petitions with evidence continued to be approved at high rates. What changed was the percentage of approved Employment Based Second Preference National Interest Waiver petitions because a lot of the Employment Based Second Preference National Interest Waiver petitions were not strong enough. Also the people who make decisions, on these petitions started to look closely at the evidence because they had to deal with a lot more Employment Based Second Preference National Interest Waiver petitions.
Two paths, one test
The two most common talent routes ask different questions, and it helps to know which one you’re aiming for. The EB-1A is for those at the very top of their field: it calls for sustained national or international acclaim, shown through evidence meeting at least three of ten benchmarks – from original contributions of major significance and leading roles to high remuneration and recognition by peers. The EB-2 National Interest Waiver asks something narrower and more practical not whether you rank among the best in the world, but whether your work is important enough to the country – and you are well positioned enough to carry it forward – that the government should waive the usual job-offer requirement. Under the standard USCIS applies, that means showing your work has substantial merit and national importance, that your record proves you can advance it, and that, on balance, waiving the normal process serves the national interest.
The questions differ, but in 2026 they converge on the same demand: independent, verifiable proof. Whether you’re establishing top-of-field acclaim for an EB-1A or the national importance of your work and your ability to deliver it for an NIW, adjudicators want evidence they can check against sources outside your own résumé and your employer’s letterhead.
The real shift: from paperwork to proof
The most important change isn’t a new rule. It’s what adjudicators now trust. For a time people could make a strong case using papers that they or their employer could make. This could be a list of work experience really nice letters from people who like them and papers that show where they work. These things are still important. They do not work as well as they used to. A long résumé nice reference letters and employment verifications are still needed,. They are not enough, on their own now.. The reason is simple – they’re assertions, and an officer has no independent way to verify them.
What carries weight now is evidence a third party can check. For researchers and academics, that means peer-reviewed publications and their citation records, the ranking or impact of the journals involved, patents and registered trademarks, memberships in genuinely selective associations, roles judging or peer-reviewing others’ work, competition results, and credible, substantive media coverage. USCIS guidance even directs officers to consider objective measures like a journal’s impact factor when weighing a publication record.
But publications are not a requirement – and this is where many strong candidates sell themselves short. A professional who has never written a paper can still build a winning case on the strength of their impact in industry: leading or playing a critical role on major projects; methods, tools, or systems they developed being adopted by others; measurable results their work delivered for an organization or field; and compensation well above the norm for their role, which immigration authorities treat as direct evidence that the market values them near the top of their field. The evidence looks different from an academic’s, but the test is identical – can someone outside the applicant’s own company verify it?
That is the real dividing line in 2026: not research versus industry, or paper versus no paper, but whether an achievement can be independently confirmed. In short, the system increasingly rewards a verifiable public record of impact over a well-written file – in whatever form that impact takes.
The trap: “fast-track” profiles that get you denied – or banned
The surge in applicants created a second problem: a market of shortcut services promising to manufacture a qualifying profile in months. The tactics are recognizable once you know them – articles placed in predatory, pay-to-publish journals; citation counts inflated through coordinated co-authorship; awards that can simply be bought; paid “judging” roles; press coverage ghostwritten with nothing concrete behind it; and memberships purchased rather than earned.
None of this works the way it’s sold. USCIS’s Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate and trained officers now cross-check awards, publications, and letters against publicly available sources, flag templated or near-identical evidence, and have issued a wave of Requests for Evidence, Notices of Intent to Deny, and even Notices of Intent to Revoke against petitions that were already approved. Because the burden of proof rests entirely with the applicant, even someone who didn’t know their consultant fabricated evidence can be denied – and where willful misrepresentation is found, the consequence can be a permanent bar from the United States. A purchased credential isn’t a shortcut. It’s a liability that can sink an otherwise strong case.
What to build instead – starting now
The encouraging news is that everything adjudicators now reward is something a genuinely talented professional can build authentically, given a realistic runway. If you’re considering a talent-based route – whether the U.S. EB-1A or EB-2 NIW, the UK’s Global Talent visa, or Australia’s talent pathways, which lean on strikingly similar evidence – these are the assets worth developing, whether your impact lives in the lab or on the job. No one needs all of them, and the mix depends on your path: an EB-1A leans on acclaim and being at the top of your field, while an NIW leans on the importance of your work and your ability to deliver it. Most strong cases rest on three or four of the following:
1. A leading or critical role on significant projects or organizations: Being the person a major project, product, or team depended on – documented by those in a position to know.
2. Original work that others adopt: Methods, tools, systems, designs, or standards you created that have been used or built on beyond your own company.
3. Measurable impact: Concrete results your work produced ‘revenue, efficiency, scale, safety, adoption’ that can be pointed to and verified.
4. Work that matters beyond your employer: Contributions that address a recognized need in your field or your country – the kind of broader importance that sits at the heart of a National Interest Waiver.
5. Compensation that reflects your standing: A salary or package well above the norm for your role, which immigration authorities treat as direct market evidence that you’re valued at the top of your field.
6. Published or public work that gets referenced: Peer-reviewed papers where relevant, but also patents, registered trademarks, technical write-ups, or industry contributions others cite.
7. Selective recognition: Memberships that require demonstrated achievement to join, judging or peer-review roles, and results in credible competitions or industry awards.
8. Substantive media and professional coverage: Genuine reporting on your work in the trade press or wider media – not planted filler.
9. A documented record of your original contributions and their impact: assembled as verifiable evidence rather than assertion.
10. Each of these takes time: which is exactly why the professionals who start early – while their case is still years away – are the ones who end up on the right side of those approval statistics.
The bar didn’t get unfair. It got harder to fake. For serious, skilled people, that’s actually good news: the categories still reward real excellence – you just have to make that excellence visible, and verifiable, before you file.
About the author
Immignis LLC a New York Based Firm through its platform Advance My Profile, is an ethical, genuine, and highly experienced profile-building platform that helps skilled professionals develop real, verifiable records of achievement to support talent-based immigration cases such as the EB-1A, EB-2 NIW, the UK Global Talent visa, and Australia’s talent visas. To date, Immignis has helped more than 1,000 professionals build their profiles and pursue their immigration cases. Learn more at advancemyprofile.com and immignis.us
