Is it possible to meet just 1-2 of the EB-1A criteria but be 1-2 years away from filing a strong case?

Here’s a post by immigration lawyer Amber Davis on whether it’s possible to meet just 1-2 of the EB-1A criteria but be 1-2 years away from filing a strong case:

With EB-1A, showing extraordinary ability through work experience and involvement in your field is what’s going to form the foundation of a strong case.

It’s not about meeting as many criteria as possible - this approach will not change the fact that you might still be a junior level employee in your field with not enough work experience or proof of expertise in your field to distinguish you as a top professional in your field (which is what you need to show to prove extraordinary ability). Very few junior employees will be able to meet this standard simply because you’ll be compared to very senior professionals in your field, some of whom will have 10-20 years of experience and proven involvement in activities in the field that sets them apart from others in the field.

But once you can show extraordinary ability, that’s when you’re probably one, at most two years away from filing a strong case. Perhaps you’re a top expert in your field and work at a top company in your field - automatically, you’ll probably meet high salary and leading and critical role, but may still need to do additional profile-building to meet, for example, memberships, authorship, or judge role. Meeting one or two additional criteria should just be a matter of putting in the time and the effort, a lot of which should be focused on contacting the right people who can put you in touch with relevant opportunities, e.g. joining organizations reserved for the top professionals in your field, working on scholarly articles about the latest developments in your field, etc.

Once you can show extraordinary ability, the rest is just time and effort to strengthen your profile. For some, this process will take 1-2 years, for others 6 months.

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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.

Interested in profile-building for EB-2 NIW and maximizing your chances of approval? Check out Amber’s course, NIW Ready, which helps those of you who want to build a strong NIW profile in 2-3 months. You’ll also be considered for Amber’s refundable case package, which guarantees a refund of only attorney fees if your case does not get approved. At the end of the course, assuming you do the work, you’ll be ready to file.