GeoffM

One of, yes. For EB1A (don't know about B or C) you need to satisfy at least 3 of the 10 categories. One of those is receipt of a major award such as a Nobel award. In other words, other awards could be acceptable if deemed notable enough (or not even attempt that category). Obviously it's down to the petitioner to prove this but the whole thing is rather subjective.

bewildering

Yes. I thought the same for quite some time. It is a popular notion that EB1 is only for the absolute top people. But it is not true.

Back in 2007 I attended a presentation by the university immigration lawyer at my UC campus. He claimed that it was almost impossible for a post doc to obtain a green card through EB1. I took him at his word, but it turns out he was wrong. I have met quite a few successful people, and although there might be selection bias, it does not seem too difficult to get the EB1.

Read the descriptions of successful candidates on pages like this one:
Success Stories EB1-A/EB1-EA | Chen Immigration Blog

And why not contact them and ask, what have you got to lose? They claim a 95% success rate...

Springy6

My husband has recently had an eb1a petition approved. When we were researching it, found that most of the case studies on the internet were academics and very few business people. As Geoff said, you need to meet 3 of 10 categories and have reams of evidence to back up each category.

S Folinsky

I've mentioned this before. A long time ago I had a client who I evaluated as having a strong EB-2 NIW and a fairly marginal EB-1 extraordinary ability.

There being no backlog in either EB-1 or EB-2 at the time, we filed a combined processing of an I-485 and two concurrent I-140's. Much to my surprise, the EB-1 was approved almost immediately. Great. In due course, received an RFE for the EB-2 NIW. Inasmuch as the application was "moot," we did not respond. Big mistake. Upon denial of EB-2, the I-485 was denied because the underlying visa petition was denied.

I immediately filed a motion to reconsider and forked over the filing fee from my own account. Motion granted and green card granted.

Moral of story: the future cannot be predicted with particularity.

GeoffM

I'm always skeptical of claims like that - not that the figure is wrong but that it is skewed. They more than likely only take on cases that actually have a good chance of being approved, so of course the approval rate is going to be high. Note this is a general comment, not directed towards the referenced company.

Yes, I noticed people that were worried about only have XX citations when they "absolutely must have XXX citations otherwise it'll never be approved". Depending on how you count them I had maybe 2-3. So they probably were academics mostly. I mentioned this on whatever forum it was and was laughed at and then banned because they didn't believe I'd been approved. Guess who got the last laugh while they pored over their citations while I basked in the Californian sun.

But a good lawyer certainly is a must. I would never have thought of the stuff he did, or would have prepared the petition in the way he did. That's his job. Just had a crap bedside manner!

fathermike

I self petitioned without any attorney assistance back in 2002. I was holding an R1 visa at the time. No RFE on the I-360 petition, which was granted in about 18 months. The AOS took almost two years though.

Mike.

sherbert

Thanks for this, I'll take a look. And yes the person I spoke to said that the lawyer only works with people who have a very good chance of getting approved.

Steve_

Just a tip, but this is because if you file the I-140 yourself, you show immigrant intent at that point. If an employer files it, you technically have no control over that, so immigrant intent is only shown when you file for AOS or an immigrant visa.

Something that comes up on here quite often with I-130s as well, the filing of the petition by the petitioner does not show immigrant intent unless the beneficiary is the petitioner.

The problem being of course that if you show immigrant intent, you can't claim to have non-immigrant intent when you visit, plus some non-immigrant categories are not dual-intent.

Steve_

Well it depends on what your definition of "top people" is.

The whole thing makes no sense to me. For example I knew a water skier who got it. Also, a former athlete who was well past it. Then, I knew a psychologist who had written books, won awards, etc. and he didn't get it.

The impression I get is that if you can produce a glossy magazine with your picture on the front you stand much more chance of getting it. I know for a fact that the former athlete did that.