What Is the Standard for EB-1A Cases?

What Is the Standard for EB-1A Cases? What Is the Kazarian Standard?

To qualify for an Eb-1a green card, you must demonstrate that you have sustained national or international acclaim, your achievements have been recognized in the field of expertise, and that you are one of the small percentage of people who have risen to the very top of your field.

When adjudicating Eb-1a petitions, USCIS will apply a two-part test as explained in Kazarian v. USCIS decision.

USCIS will first look at whether you have either won a major internationally recognized award, or whether you meet at least 3 of the Eb-1a mentioned criteria.  However, simply meeting the Eb-1a criteria will not be sufficient to establish that you qualify for the Eb-1a green card.

In the second step of the analysis, USCIS will consider the quality of the evidence in totality in making the final determination whether you are among the very small percentage of people in your field who have risen to the very top.

USCIS officers will look at the evidence and make a determination whether or not, the petition has by a preponderance of the evidence demonstrated that you belong to the small percentage in the field and qualify for the Eb-1a green card.

If you published articles in professional publications, that can mean that you meet the “Evidence of your authorship of scholarly articles in professional or major trade publications or other major media” and you would meet the Step 1 analysis (assuming you also meet 2 other Eb-1a criteria).

In the Step 2 of the analysis, the USCIS officer would focus on things such as:

• How prestigious is the magazine the article was published in?
• Is it easy to get published in the particular media or do only people who are in the very top of their filed publish there?
• Did other people in your filed cite to your article?

You are a wedding photographer and you were invited to judge the 2021 Best Wedding Photos competition. The fact that you participated as a judge at the competition could mean that you meet the Step 1 analysis (assuming you also meet 2 other Eb-1a criteria), but in Step 2 analysis, USCIS officed will focus on things such as:

• How many other wedding photographers were invited to judge the competition and are all of them considered to be in the top of the field?
• Who organized the competition? Was it the top association/organization in the field?
• Who were the participants of the competitions (professional/amateur photographs)?
• What were the organization’s standards in selecting the judges? Were they only selecting the photographers that are in the top small percentage in the field?

As indicated above, in Step 2 of the analysis, USCIS will focus on the quality of the evidence you submitted. Eb-1a petitions are very document intensive petitions and they usually have several hundreds of pages just to demonstrate that the applicant meets the Step 1 & Step 2 criteria and qualifies for the green card.

Please click here to see the Eb-1a criteria.

Please click here to see how to meet the Eb-1a requirement that your work will prospectively benefit the U.S. economy.

Please click here to see the differences between the Eb-1a green card & O-1 visa.