My EB-1A Journey:
Disclosure: In addition to sharing my experience with EB1-A, I’m also including a link at the end of this article to sign-up for my cohort-based course on demystifying EB1-A. If nothing else, I hope this plants a seed and inspires you to take action.
About Me:
Growing up in a small town in central-eastern India (Dongargarh), Coming to the United States was beyond my dream. I came to the United States in 2007 for a temporary onsite assignment, and it was not until 2011 that I started considering permanent residency options in the USA. I followed a traditional path of filling an Employment-Based Green Card and soon realized that it could take decades to get permanent resident status.
I had an extremely long and tiring journey to permanent residency which started from Aug 2011. I had multiple setbacks but worst of them was H1B extension denial in 2018. By 2019, I started to get anxious about my family’s future in the United States due to a long EB2 backlog and absolutely no movement in EB2 queue.
In 2020, I stumbled upon a coworker who self-sponsored and received a green card in the EB1-A category. All these years, I was under the impression that an EB1-A recipient has to be a CEO, Nobel prize winner, or a Ph.D. scholar scientist. I was pleasantly surprised to see an “Engineer next door” qualifying and getting a green card in the EB1-A category. I saw light at the end of the tunnel, I decided to pursue this route and own my destiny.
Before you read any further, please keep in mind:
I am not an attorney, and I am not affiliated with any law firm. Any information written here should not be considered legal advice. This is meant for a casual read and the intention is to seed enough information so you can make an informed decision and be aware of options.
Why was I desperate:
H1B denial was a critical life event for me. I had to sell my prized investment property in distress. My daughter (14 at the time) was at the risk of aging out as there was no line of sight to GC at the time. I wanted to have the flexibility of going to India without visa constraints. “What if” scenarios (Layoff, Recession, slow economy…) would stress me out. I turned down lucrative job offers because prospective employers would not start the GC process at the start of employment. To put things in perspective, the house I sold in distress could have produced $280K more in rent and appreciation.
Let’s get back to my research:
I looked into multiple visa category options and decided to pursue the EB1-A and EB2-NIW (National interest waiver) routes. Both the categories offered the flexibility of self-sponsoring without having to rely on the employer.
My EB1-A journey:
USCIS has published the EB1-A eligibility criteria. I pursued Judging the work of others, a critical role in an esteemed organization, a High salary, and original business-related contributions. While I fulfilled the 3 eligibility criteria, I received NOID (Notice of intent to deny) for Final Merits Determination (FMD). I focussed again on fulfilling FMD by providing additional evidences and writing a detailed response.
How I did it:
Working for esteemed organizations like Capital One and Amazon definitely helped fulfill salary and the esteemed organization criteria. I didn’t have a patent at the time, so I filled a patent within 3 months of starting my journey. I didn’t do anything beyond filling patent which wasn’t a big help either. I didn’t know much about scholarly articles and citation count so didn’t pursue it. The key differentiator was an active engagement in STEM and D&I-related initiatives in the past several years. Overall my profile was already strong. I documented every single professional achievement I could think of. Be it a technology advancement, Technology award, complex delivery, community engagement, or empowerment. I turned every rock.
While working on the case, I wish I had a mentor or guide to channel my energy in the right direction.
My learning:
There are several myths and a general lack of awareness about EB1-A options. Here are the myths busted during my journey
1. You need to be CEO, Nobel prize, or Miss universe type of caliber
2. If I start a new EB1 petition, it could jeopardize my existing employment-based petition
3. I need X number of publications with Y number of citations
4. I need patents to file the petition
5. Cost might be too high
6. If this was easy, why doesn’t everyone has it
I regret not diving deep into the EB1 options and living under the myths for these many years. In a hindsight, I should have started working towards Eb1-A 6–7 years ago, life would have been different. I have spent last year educating friends, coworkers and community members about this process. Friends who learnt from my mistakes submitted a stronger case which resulted into successful adjudication.
The key to success is documenting the professional and relevant achievements strategically which helps attorneys write cover letter and make a stronger case. I’d say spending a few hours every week for 2–3 months documenting achievement should be a good start.
Trust me, life after green-card is good.
ख़ुदी को कर बुलंद इतना कि हर तक़दीर से पहले, ख़ुदा बंदे से ख़ुद पूछे बता तेरी रज़ा क्या है
Join my cohort-based course on EB1-A
If you found this useful and are interesting in learning more, consider joining my next cohort for EB1-A for STEM professionals. You’d be a good fit, if you’re in an engineering or product role — SDE, PM, MLE, or SDM. I believe that there is a general lack of awareness on EB1-A and this space is fairly misunderstood. So, I put hours into preparing this course, distilling my learnings and hopefully making this less intimidating. I hope you find this useful. Learn more and sign up
www.nicheprofile.io
