Do you have a strong EB-1A case if you only meet three or four EB-1A criteria?

Here’s a post by immigration lawyer Amber Davis on whether you have a strong EB-1A case if you only meet three or four EB-1A criteria:

A lot of people I talk to meet three and sometimes even four criteria (usually high salary, critical or leading role, and original contributions or judge of the work of others), but think they do not have a strong EB-1A case.

They think they need to have publications, media about them or awards to have a strong case but the reality is that if you meet three EB-1A criteria, specifically high salary, leading or critical role and one other criterion, you are at least minimally qualified for EB-1A.

That being said, you may not have a strong case until you meet a fourth criterion, which is possible with three to four months of profile-building, especially if you already meet leading or critical role (for a lot of popular fields, it’s possible to quickly get opportunities to judge the work of others or even work on publications if you’re in a leading or critical role).

With four criteria, you should have a strong case and be ready to apply, but it is still possible to encounter a USCIS officer who thinks that to qualify for EB-1A, you need to have received media recognition or have at least a few publications in your field (the wrong standard to apply, but some USCIS officers follow their own interpretation of the EB-1A standards and is why EB-1A adjudications can be arbitrary).

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Interested in EB-1A, EB-2 NIW or O-1? Feel free to reach out to Amber at info@waypointimmigration.org or via LinkedIn messages.