Chicago Immigration Lawyer Blog
The Chicago immigration attorneys at Zneimer & Zneimer can provide analysis regarding whether an O-1A petition is viable alternative to a person who was not selected for H-1B. The O-1A is a very document-intensive petition and sometimes omission of available evidence may lead to denial.
For example, the Administrative Appeals Office recently published a decision affirming USCIS’s denial for O-1 for a Cardiologist. The AAO went even further by withdrawing USCIS’s finding that the physician met the criteria as a judge of the work of others. The AAO determined that the USCIS made a mistake in finding that the Cardiologist met this criteria because while the Cardiologist demonstrated that journals have sent invitations for review, the documentation submitted to USCIS did not include evidence that the doctor actually did the reviews.
According to the AAO, the record did not contain sufficient documentary evidence demonstrating that the beneficiary met this criterion. The petitioner submitted invitations and articles authored by the beneficiary, but these did not establish that the beneficiary had reviewed journal submissions or acted as a judge of the work of others. The petitioner also asserted that the beneficiary had served as an instructor and been involved in projects improving medical care, but again, there was no detailed or corroborated information provided to support the claim that the beneficiary had participated as a judge of the work of others. In order to meet this criterion, a petitioner must show that the beneficiary has not only been invited to judge the work of others, but also that the applciant actually participated in the judging of the work of others in the same or allied field of specialization.
According to the AAO,
The petitioner asserted that the Beneficiary satisfies this criterion because he “is a reviewer for International Journal of Cardiology, ACC.org, and BMJ Case Reports” and claimed it has provided evidence that the Beneficiary has been invited to review submissions for these journals. The record before us, however, does not contain documentation establishing the Beneficiary’s participation as a judge of the work of others in the same or in an allied field. Rather, the Petitioner submitted invitations to the Beneficiary dated January 2021 and March 2021 from Acc.org to submit Expert Analysis articles on, respectively, the SCORED/SOLOIST-WHF clinical trials and the FIDELIO clinical trial; a letter dated March 2022 to the Beneficiary and his co-authors indicatin that their article was published in Dyslipidemia Clinical Topic Collection on ACC.org; a screenshot from Acc.org showing several Expert Analyses the Beneficiary co-authored that were published on the website between 2021 and 2022; and general information from the websites of the International Journal of Cardiology and BMJ Case Reports.
Here, the Petitioner did not provide documentary evidence establishing that the Beneficiary reviewed journal submissions for the International Journal of Cardiology, ACC.org, or BMJ Case Reports. Instead, as indicated above, the documentation reflects the Beneficiary authored several articles published in Acc.org and was invited by the American College of Cardiology to submit two other articles for publication.”
As a result, the Director’s determination on this criterion was withdrawn, as the petitioner did not establish that the beneficiary had participated as a judge of the work of others in a manner consistent with the regulatory criterion.
This applicant likely had evidence that he performed the reviews but only submitted the invitation for such reviews. The regulation is very clear: Evidence of the applicant’s participation, either individually or on a panel, as a judge of the work of others in the same or an allied field of specialization for which classification is sought. Therefore all aspects must be documented and evidence that the applicant actually judged the work, and that the judging was in the same or allied field of specialization is required.
If you have questions about your qualification for O-1A visa, schedule a consultation with our law firm. We will give you our professional opinion and suggest how you may qualify for O-1A or another status or visa in the future.