You don’t win the balancing test — you earn it.
Prong 3 almost never fails on its own; win Prongs 1 and 2 and the third follows.
Dhanasar’s three prongs are not three independent battles. Prong 3 — whether it would benefit the U.S. to waive the labor-certification requirement — almost never fails on its own. When Prongs 1 and 2 are met, Prong 3 follows; when they are not, the case is already over before Prong 3 is reached.
Among appeals that survived Prongs 1 and 2, independent Prong-3 failure is vanishingly rare, and the AAO disposes of it in one line: “further discussion of the balancing factors under the third prong would serve no meaningful purpose.” Most dismissals never analyze Prong 3 at all, because the case died at Prong 1.
Spend effort where cases are decided — the specific endeavor and the positioning to advance it — not on elaborate Prong-3 balancing prose. A strong Prong 3 cannot rescue a weak Prong 1.
Treating the three prongs as a checklist of equal weight and writing a long third-prong argument as insurance. The record shows Prong 3 is derivative; the insurance is a stronger Prong 1.
I am preparing an EB-2 NIW (National Interest Waiver) petition and want you to review a draft against a finding from the public record of NIW decisions. THE FINDING: You don’t win the balancing test — you earn it. Prong 3 almost never fails on its own; win Prongs 1 and 2 and the third follows. YOUR TASK: Tell me how much of my draft argues the Prong-3 balancing test. If it is more than a small share, propose how to reallocate that space to the specific endeavor and my positioning. RULES: Work only from what I paste — do not invent facts about me. Do not predict outcomes or estimate chances. Point to specific sentences and propose concrete rewrites. --- MY DRAFT --- [Paste your draft here]