EB-1 Employment-Based: EB12 Outstanding Professors & Researchers

Evidence Required Must Meet Certain Criteria

The USCIS uses a two-part evaluation to assess your I-140 petition. Part one is to review the submitted evidence to conclude if the evidence meets the regulatory requirements, and part two is to examine and review all of the evidence submitted with your petition as a whole for a final merits determination of whether you are internationally recognized as outstanding in your academic area.

Part One: Regulatory Criteria

Evidence submitted with the petition must establish that you meet at least two of the six criteria listed in the federal regulations. These criteria are as follows:

1. Evidence that you have received awards or major prizes for outstanding achievement in your academic area;
2. Your membership in associations in your academic area that necessitates their members have made outstanding achievements in the academic area;
3. Professional published material written about your work in the academic area authored by others in your field;
4. Your participation, either as a member of a panel or as an individual, judging others’ work in your academic area;
5. Contributions that you have made of scientific or scholarly research in your academic area;
6. Published Scholarly articles or books that you have written that have been circulated internationally in your academic area.

Immigration law requires that the USCIS must evaluate the caliber and quality of each piece of evidence to conclude whether or not you have established each criterion for which you have submitted evidence. It must not make a determination based on the evidence submitted as to whether or not you have attained international recognition. Rather it must limit its evaluation in part one to whether you have met two of the six criteria.

Part Two: Final Merits

Once the USCIS has made the determination that you have established at least two of the above six criteria in part one, it will then make a part two analysis to evaluate all of the submitted evidence to make a decision whether to have shown that you are recognized internationally as outstanding in your specific academic field.

If you have questions about the EB1 employment-based outstanding professors and researchers immigrant petition category, please contact our Columbus immigration attorneys or call The Law Firm of Shihab & Associates at (888) 915-5057 to consult with an attorney.