Hi everyone,
I recently received an EB1A denial and I’m looking for some honest advice from people who’ve dealt with final merits or MTR decisions. One thing that stood out immediately is a clear factual error in the denial: USCIS states that I “intend to work as a system design engineer for Apple,” which is completely incorrect. I have never worked for Apple, never mentioned Apple anywhere in my petition, and system design engineer is not even my role. This makes me wonder whether my case was thoroughly reviewed or if this is just considered a harmless template mistake that doesn’t impact the outcome.
For context, USCIS accepted three criteria in my case—judging, authorship, and critical role—but denied original contributions and ultimately failed me on final merits. Their reasoning was that I did not demonstrate sustained national or international acclaim, that there was no recognition beyond my employer, and that there was no evidence others in the field were influenced by my work. What’s confusing is that I submitted multiple independent expert letters from engineers at large tech companies. In one strong example, my framework was described as being integrated into a production fraud detection pipeline, with measurable impact such as reduced latency and improved detection accuracy. Despite this, USCIS still concluded that there was no field-level influence.
I’m trying to understand whether this is something worth challenging or if it’s better to move forward with a stronger refile. Specifically, does a factual error like the incorrect Apple reference and wrong job title help in an MTR by supporting an argument that the case wasn’t properly reviewed? If USCIS misinterpreted or undervalued evidence of real-world implementation, is an MTR realistically viable, or do they usually just reaffirm their original decision? Has anyone here successfully overturned a final merits denial through an MTR? Given this situation, would you recommend filing an MTR, refiling with clearer and stronger implementation evidence, or doing both in parallel?
At a high level, I’m trying to figure out whether this is more of a review quality issue that’s worth challenging, or a presentation/evidence gap that needs to be fixed through a refile. I’d really appreciate any real experiences or honest feedback, even if it’s just “don’t waste time on MTR.”
Thanks in advance.