EB-2: Second Preference Employment Category

These are Workers who are members of professions holding advanced degrees, or who have exceptional ability in the sciences, arts, and business.

Within this preference there are two subcategories:

  • Workers who are members of professions holding advanced degrees or their equivalent.
  • Workers who will substantially benefit the national economy, or the cultural or educational interests of the United States, due to their exceptional ability in the sciences, arts, or business. This classification also includes athletics.

Requirements for Eligibility:

  • Any US petitioner may file a petition in this category when the job requires an advanced or specific degree and the alien possesses that degree.
  • The requirements include many professions and may include any occupation for which a baccalaureate or foreign degree equivalent is the minimum requirement for entry into the occupation.

Workers of Exceptional Ability

To receive this classification, an individual must be able to show that they are a worker of extraordinary ability, in addition to having a degree of expertise above the ordinary, by submitting certain documentation.

National Interest Waiver

EB-2 petitioners can seek an exemption from the requirement of a job offer and a labor certification by showing that their admission into the country is of national interest. There are seven factors that must be considered in applying the national interest test. They consist of:

  1. Improving the US economy
  2. Improve wage and working conditions of US workers
  3. Improving education and training programs for US children and under-qualified workers
  4. Improving health care
  5. Providing more affordable housing for young and/or older, poorer US residents
  6. Improving the US environment and making more productive use of natural resources
  7. A request from an interested US government Agency

They must also pass a three-prong test as decided in the recent precedent In the Matter of the New York State Department of Transportation (AAU, 1998). This decision states that:

  • The beneficiary must be seeking to work in an area of "substantial intrinsic merit"
  • the beneficiary's prospective employment must have a benefit that "will be national in scope"
  • The beneficiary will "serve the national interest to a substantially greater degree than would be an available US workers having the same minimum requirements"