r/eb1a

Hi , I have applied for EB-1A this month and premium
Processing form received date is on April 15th, 2026

Apr 15th- I-907 Received date
Apr 17th- case still processing

I have claimed for 5 criteria and anxious about result . Today is Day 15. I don’t have an update on my case yet.

Heard from several posts that people usually get an email first and then the case update.

Can you please let me know the status update email time recently for the case update??

Looking forward to some positivity and recent experiences with case status update email timing

I filed my case in oct 31 2024 and its been almost 570 days.. anyone in the same boat?
IOE09284

I filed an EB-1A I-140 and recently received a NOID. My USCIS case history shows:

• Apr 20: I-140 received and receipt notice sent
• Apr 22: Case actively reviewed; records showed nothing outstanding
• Apr 30: USCIS cancelled a request for additional evidence
• After that, I received a NOID at home

The unusual part is that the NOID repeatedly states “no evidence was provided” across multiple criteria, including some criteria that we did not even claim. My attorney said this is unusual and one possibility is that USCIS may not have reviewed the full evidence packet, or some evidence may not have been properly scanned/linked/received.

Has anyone experienced something similar where USCIS said “no evidence provided” even though the original petition included evidence? Did you respond by resubmitting the full petition/evidence package? What happened after the NOID response — approval, denial, RFE, or refile?

I am trying to understand real experiences and best practices before finalizing the NOID response with my attorney.

Thank you.

FIRST - I want to thank GOD, my Gurus, my parents (including my in-laws), and my wife for their unwavering support and blessings. Then I want to thank this community for always being there throughout this roller coaster. I've been an active visitor here, and I truly appreciate the support. I meant to write this article last night, but I was returning from a local conference and was too tired, so doing it now!

Just like 99% of the others, I, too, was checking my status online 24x7 for any updates. But it seems like USCIS emails you FIRST and then updates this page. So check emails, not this page.

Here are some details about my journey:

• Petition: I-140 PP at TSC.
• Date received: 4/10/2026;
• Date approved: 4/30/2026 (1:30 PM on the 15th day!).
• Nationality: Indian.
• Profile: Infrastructure master planning and engineering
• Criteria claimed (in order): Critical role, awards, OCMS, judging, authorship.
• Experience: About 20 years, across multiple nations besides the US.
• Attorney: Hannu Huikuri, California
• I got 7 expert letters - 3 from clients (cities, state water boards), one from my current manager, 2 from seniors (40 plus years of experience and very popular figures in the field) in my industry who could attest to my career, and one from a professor who independently verified my contributions.
• My priority date is July 2024.

I learned about this visa category about a year ago and decided to dive deeper. I followed this page first and became part of this community. I realized I already met more than three criteria, all backed by strong evidence dating back to 2016. My biggest challenge was documenting all the evidence (emails, scanned copies, drawings, website article PDFs, etc.) together and keeping track of everything 😃. It sounds simple to hear, and it's very frustrating to do it yourself. To simplify things, I created a spreadsheet with worksheets for each criterion, started documenting my evidence there, and attached a hyperlink to the file in the cloud. I have heard people use their office SharePoint folders, but I used Google Drive and this spreadsheet.

I contacted several attorneys before signing with Hannu via Ashoori. Chen and Ellis Porter had rejected my case. So I interviewed a few more. I first came across Hannu's talk on this visa via an YouTube video. Working with him has been a great experience. My initial concern was slow communication, but he explained he needed time to review my evidence dump. His first draft captured the nuances I wanted to highlight, though I made a few edits, adding summaries, bolding key points, and providing additional context. The process was meticulous, but ultimately rewarding. He did not use or cite all the evidence I shared. I found it strange, but I decided to trust his instinct. Overall - I would rate Hannu a strong 4.75/5.00. He is just too natural at it. He is calm, grounded, and does not make fake expressions (no extra thank yous and congratulations) - only facts. I like that thing - I am not like that, though 😃 I am either super stressed or super excited 😃😃😃 Ashoori Law was great, too. They periodically checked in on me to see if I had any issues. TBH, it's only between you and your attorney to work on the petition and file.

In all my honesty, I was expecting an RFE because I've only been seeing people post about RFE/NOID lately, and because I had to wait until the 15th day. It took a while for the USCIS website to reflect what was in the email. This has been nothing short of a roller coaster ride.

I won a very rare infrastructure utility award (I will not name it because it would reveal my identity), as well as additional company-internal awards. These internal awards had very specific selection criteria and required individuals to make significant contributions and advancement to the profession or field. These were not annual awards that are given to someone or the other every year. Again, solid evidence dating back to 2017 and 2020.

I authored a state-level management guidance document for communities and cities - this is my most consequential authorship. I have been sporadically authoring articles (a total of 17 with myself as the lead author in most) and papers in high-impact ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) journals, but I do not have a substantial number of citations or references to present. I had less than 50. I did not want to claim it, but I claimed it anyway (better than not showing). The professor who reviewed my evidence and articles said they were good and told me not to focus on citations, even though it would have been better to have hundreds. I had solid evidence from 2016 to 2026 of collaboration with coauthors, data, and related materials. I have also been invited to serve as a peer reviewer at many of these journals, and so I claimed the judging criteria. One of my clients had told me that they had used my framework from one of my papers - "as-is", and so I requested them to talk more about that implementation in a letter.

My petition outline:

1. Cover letter
2. Background
3. Standard of review
4. Expert letters
5. Eligibility for extraordinary ability classification
6. Evidence of extraordinary ability (five criteria)
7. Final merits determination
8. National importance that will substantially benefit the USA
9. Intent to continue work in the area of expertise
10. Conclusion
11. Exhibit list

My petition was 40 pages long with wide margins, 12-point font, and 1.5-line spacing, making it look clean, spacious, and easy to read. However, my petition was textual. Meaning it consisted only of words - I don't mean it was wordy. So what I did was add summary tables and an exhibit table at the end of each claim, listing all exhibits the adjudicator should consider when reviewing that claim. I think this is a cleaner way for the adjudicator rather than referencing in-text citations. I also kept the in-text citations, but added these exhibit tables regardless. I strictly DID NOT use any form of AI and did not seek any AI assistance while developing my petition. It was purely my attorney's and my work. There was an immense feeling of satisfaction. I regularly write technical memorandums (engineers here will know what they are 😃 and how much we hate writing them 😄) - but that experience certainly played a lion's share in these efforts!!!

Here is how these tables looked: I think this idea of presenting evidence may help/work for others, too.

Example of exhibit tables at the end of every section/claimed criteria:

Criteria	Exhibits Cited
Employment in a Critical Role for Organizations of Distinguished Reputation — 8 CFR 204.5(h)(3)(viii)	X, XX, XXX, XXXX, ...

Example for judging section: Added a count row at the end of the table.

Exhibit	Journal / Conference	Reviews Completed	Subject Matter
X	XX	XXX	XXXX

Example for authorship: to me, this is an amazing way of showing sustained acclaim - it also establishes the timeline wonderfully. X is the individual exhibit number I wanted the adjudicator to review. Added a count row at the end of the table.

Subject Matter	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027
1	X				X, X, X	X, X, X, X
2		X		X, X	X, X, X		X, X		X, X

OCMS includes frameworks and intellectual property that I cannot disclose/mention here. But evidence was submitted duly. I am not authorized to discuss it here.

Many international press outlets covered me, including ENR - Engineering News Record, Bloomberg, Engineering.com, but I did not claim press/media criteria. I used it as the final merits argument. I don't think press, membership, and the other criteria applied in my case, so I went ahead with my instincts.

Lastly, I did not include any additional evidence that was not cited in my petition. The petition was a 40-page, well-articulated document with not a single sentence that did not serve a specific purpose. There was not a single superlative in the entire petition, including the letters.

Dear community, thank you so much, again, for all the contributions, support, and guidance. You've been a great help to me and to many others like me. I am happy to try to respond to questions if I can. I promise to take a short break in a few weeks to celebrate this with my family 💝

Hi everyone,
I’m considering applying for EB1A and would appreciate feedback on how competitive my profile is.
Background:
PharmD + MS Biostatistics
Currently working in U.S. multicenter clinical trials and biostatistics
Also pursuing MS in Pharmacometrics
Working on NIH-, DoD-, and federally funded Phase 2/3 clinical trials
Profile summary:
20+ peer-reviewed publications
Publications in high-impact journals including:
NEJM
JAMA
Clinical Infectious Diseases
300+ citations on a major COVID-19 outpatient convalescent plasma publication
Served in key operational and biostatistical roles in multicenter national clinical trials
Major FDA / regulatory impact:
Contributed to the national outpatient COVID-19 convalescent plasma trials (CSSC-004/CSSC-001)
Trial evidence contributed to the FDA expansion of Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for high-titer COVID-19 convalescent plasma for outpatient immunocompromised patients
Research findings were incorporated into national treatment guideline updates from infectious disease organizations
Trial evidence later contributed to the first FDA Biologics License Application (BLA) approval for COVID-19 convalescent plasma in the U.S.
Work supported transition of convalescent plasma from emergency authorization to fully licensed biologic therapy
Participated in development of decentralized investigational product infrastructure and regulatory-compliant blood product coordination systems used across national trial sites
Current and ongoing work:
Primary/lead biostatistician on NIH-funded multicenter trials involving:
Chronic pain / NIH HEAL Initiative
Sickle cell disease
Intracerebral hemorrhage
Alzheimer’s disease
Responsibilities include:
Statistical analysis plans
Randomization methodology
DSMB reporting
Missing data strategy
Longitudinal modeling
PK/PD analyses
Regulatory-grade clinical trial analyses
Additional points:
Clinical Research Forum Top 10 / Top 20 recognized projects
Experience supporting trials with tens of millions in federal funding
Contributions to decentralized and AI-assisted clinical trial infrastructure
Working on increasing peer review/judging activities
Potential EB1A criteria:
Scholarly articles
Original contributions of major significance
Critical role for distinguished organizations/projects
Published material
Judging/reviewer activities (developing further)
Would appreciate feedback on:
Whether this profile appears competitive for EB1A currently
Main weaknesses USCIS may focus on
Importance of independent citations vs authorship
Whether more reviewing/judging activity is needed before filing
Thanks in advance.

Hi Friends,

EB1A RFE from officer XM1849.

Looks like USCIS accepted:

1. Judging
2. Authorship of scholarly articles

Critical/Leading Role was partially accepted — officer acknowledged the company is distinguished, but requested more evidence on my individual critical role and impact.

RFE issued for:

1. Critical or Leading Role
2. Original Contributions
3. High Salary

Working on strengthening the response with more impact evidence, letters, comparable salary data, and project details.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated!!

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.

Recently received an EB1A denial despite having what I believed was a strong case and already holding an O-1 visa.
USCIS only accepted the “judging the work of others” criterion and denied the other 6 criteria presented.

PP and with known attorney.

Profile included:

400+ peer reviews

30+ publications

+1M income/compensation

Top ~2% salary level in my state

Master’s degree

20+ recommendation letters from well-known professors, C-level executives, and industry experts

Published media/articles about me and my work.

National and international industry awards.

The denial was not based on final merits determination they simply did not agree that the evidence satisfied most criteria.

The denial seemed like a template and no obvious reasons. e.g. the officer mentioned he doesn’t believe my salary among top paid people in my position in the state however the average people in my state same position paid not more than 200k based on department of labour and other websites.

Honestly surprised and trying to understand how USCIS is evaluating EB1A cases lately, especially at TSC

Any industry profiles approvals from TSC recently?

Hi everyone, I’m currently preparing my EB-1A petition and focusing on the "Critical Role" criterion.

I work in an industry-facing role (Salesforce Technical Architect) where I’ve led multiple high-impact projects. However, almost all these projects are for external clients under strict NDAs.

I have two main questions:

1. Evidence Gathering: Aside from a support letter from my employer, what other evidence is effective for a TA to prove a "critical" impact on a project?
2. Confidentiality: Can I keep client names anonymous (e.g., "A Major Fortune 500 Banking Client") in my petition? Or does USCIS require the actual names to verify the "distinguished reputation" of the organization?

Has anyone successfully navigated this without breaching NDAs? Thanks!

Hi, I have applied for Premium processing EB1-A on Apr 15th, 2026. Yesterday was my business day 15 and today is Day 16. I have emailed Premium processing unit and received the following response. Anyone saw this happening with EB-1A I-140 alone? I haven’t filed I-485 yet. Just I-140 was filed

Good Day,

Thank you for contacting the Premium Processing Unit. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) records, we are waiting for your biometrics to be taken. USCIS records indicate your Biometrics Appointment has been requested. 

We are unable to provide a timeframe for the biometric appointment.  

Hey everyone,

I am preparing to file for my EB-1A and am currently trying to choose my attorney. I have an industry profile, and while I know Chen (Wegreened) is the gold standard for researchers, they do list some recent industry profile successes on their website.

Has anyone from the industry actually had success with them? Do you recommend them? Chen offered me their "Approve or Refile" option, mentioning that they are not currently providing the "Approve or Refund" option. Has anyone gotten the refund option from them recently?

My questions for the community:

1. Has anyone with a purely industry/patent-heavy profile had recent success with Chen for EB-1A? Did you have to do a lot of the heavy lifting to organize the narrative?
2. My profile was also evaluated and accepted by the following attorneys/firms. Does anyone have strong recommendations, success stories, or warnings about any of these specifically for an industry EB-1A?

• Ellis Porter (EP)
• Manifest Law
• Ashoori Law
• Alma
• Robinson
• Whitaker Warburton
• Alcorn Immigration Law
• Xu Law
• Prashant Dubey (Dubey Law)
• Rohit Srinivasa
• Raju Law

I am looking for a firm that knows how to craft a strong narrative around patents, real-world industry impact, and critical roles, rather than just counting citations. Any advice or shared experiences would be hugely appreciated. Thanks!

About me:

• Machine Learning Scientist with an approved O-1 and EB-1B (trying for EB-1A as I am from a non-ROW country).
• 15+ granted patents (~145 citations).
• 10 publications (with ~200 citations).
• Peer-reviewed 50+ papers for reputable journals and conferences.
• Strong evidence of my work being applied/commercialized in the industry.
• Media coverage highlighting my work and professional contributions.

Filed EB-1A in Dec 2025 (Database Engineering, Principal-level at a FAANG company, ~20 years experience). Got RFE, submitted comprehensive response with 5 expert letters, external adoption evidence, Guinness World Record documentation, salary surveys, association bylaws, and more. USCIS case tracker confirmed RFE received and officer assigned.

Got NOID on April 21, 2026. Here's the weird part:

• Original petition: officer approved 2 criteria (Judging, Leading/Critical Role)
• After RFE: officer now approved 3 criteria (added High Salary) — so they saw something
• But the NOID's objections reference ONLY original petition evidence. Not a single RFE exhibit is mentioned.

Examples:

• NOID says "impact limited to employer" → RFE included adoption by Fortune 500 companies, a gaming company (Guinness World Record), government platform. Not mentioned. 50 other large companies including DOL used my invention.
• NOID says "judging limited to 2024–2025" → RFE included evidence of judging all 132 submissions at a national Industry conference in 2026. Not mentioned.
• NOID says "Wikipedia printouts for associations" → We submitted actual bylaws and selection criteria that USCIS asked for in the RFE. Still says Wikipedia. 🤦
• NOID says "no wide use by others" → RFE included 640K+ page views on 18 publications (2019–2026), citations in open-source documentation. Not mentioned.

Has anyone experienced this? Specifically:

1. NOID that ignores RFE evidence?
2. Did you call out the procedural failure in your NOID response, or just re-present the evidence?
3. Anyone successfully overcome a NOID at Texas Service Center?

Have attorney call tomorrow. Any advice appreciated.

Today is my day 11 of PP and all of sudden status changed to case is still being processed. Does this indicate a positive or negative outcome? Any patterns folks have noticed ?

I received a status on my self filed EB1A petition on 14th day evening "We mailed you a notice informing you of the action we intend to take on your case." I believe this would be a NOID so contacted a live agent through Emma asking for the soft copy of the notice and the agent replied notice hasn't been generated yet. Is this normal for officers to update the status as above and generate the notice later.

Profile - I claimed 8 categories , industry profile 20+ years experience working in FAANG. OC is my patent + commercialization with real world applications ( 1M+ users ). Got rejected last year coz Manifest did a poor job so I self filed again adding 3 more categories.

I filed my I-485 concurrently with I-765 and I-131 last month for myself and my wife (derivative). My I-765 was returned for improper payment and/or other reasons. It notice said I may be able to refile this online. I am getting conflicting information on whether it is best to file online or by mail. Would the application be not tied to the original application if file online? Are there any downsides to doing it online?

Hello

Seeking a genuine suggestion from this forum. Your feedback will be massively helpful to uderstand if my credentials are fit for EB1A.

How good is this firm "The next league executive program" ?

Thank you very much as always.

I submitted my I-485 concurrently with I-765 and I-131 and for my wife and son as well on Apr 8 to the Elgin Lockbox. We're filing under EB1 and our date of filing is current (India). While the I-485 and 131 were accepted and I got the receipt numbers for them, I just received the I-765 packet back in the mail with a notice saying fees incorrect or missing. After a lot of checking, I had put in $260 each as we were filing with a pending I-485.

Should I refile online or by mail and what is the correct amount to put?