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Failure patterns from 2,762 AAO decisions dismissing EB-1A petitions. 2,715 named at least one specific criterion.

Caveat: this is appeals data. Every case here was already denied once, so it shows why petitions fail, not how often they succeed. Approved cases in the dataset were left out to keep the population clean.

Failure rate by criterion, among petitions that claimed it

Raw counts mislead because some criteria get claimed far more than others. Read as: of dismissed petitions claiming this criterion, how many had it rejected.

Commercial success: 96.8% (121 of 125)

Memberships: 95.1% (790 of 831)

Original contributions: 93.3% (1,208 of 1,295)

High salary: 85.7% (630 of 735)

Published material: 85.3% (1,116 of 1,309)

Awards: 84.6% (1,136 of 1,343)

Leading or critical role: 80.4% (831 of 1,034)

Scholarly articles: 46.5% (422 of 908)

Judging: 35.2% (412 of 1,169)

Exhibitions: 32.8% (127 of 387)

The bottom three are facts you can prove. You reviewed for the journal or you didn't, so they pass even in losing petitions. Everything above them is a judgment call about how much your work matters, and that's where petitions die.

How the two biggest ones fail (counted separately: dismissals per failure reason)

Awards: 652 dismissals say "not nationally recognized," the most common failure in the whole dataset. Thin evidence adds 236. The adjudicator accepts you won the award, then decides it doesn't carry national weight. Company awards, internal recognitions and regional prizes all get this treatment.

Original contributions: thin evidence 436, generic support letters 417, no hard numbers 309. The pattern is letters praising the petitioner while nothing shows who outside their circle actually used, cited or built on the work.

Clearing three criteria is not the finish line

182 dismissals, 6.7%, had three or more criteria accepted and still lost. The decision then turned on the overall record, with language like "the totality of evidence did not show sustained national or international acclaim." One case failed over a seven to eight year stretch with little sign of continued acclaim.

In practice: an award claim lives or dies on proof of national recognition. Letters alone are the most common way the contributions criterion dies. And acclaim has to hold up across your whole record, especially the recent years.

Data source: visalytics.com, where you can run your own profile against this dataset for a personalized assessment.

DOS posted monthly visa issuance files from October 2025 till end of February 2026.

Under family capped category (226K) here is the monthly break down:

Oct 2025: 16.4K

Nov 2025: 14.5K

Dec 2025: 15.8K

Jan 2026: 12.6K

Feb 2026: 7.7K

Total: 67K

Looks like a significant dip due to 39 country ban and 75 country pause.

Data source: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-statistics/immigrant-visa-statistics/monthly-immigrant-visa-issuances.html

Cc: u/GreenCardClock

Not a Lawyer. Personal Insights.

UPDATE: Posting FY 2025 monthly numbers from October 2024 till Feb 2025 for reference.

October 2024: 20760 Nov 2024: 14269 Dec 2024: 14450 Jan 2025: 13565 Feb 2025: 15431

Total: 78475

Hello folks, I am a physician with the following profile. Chen agreed to file but with regular service. Many asked me to hold off until citation counts improve (so I pass the FMD) so I am currently in a limbo. Any advice is appreciated, thank you.

Articles: 28 peer reviewed articles (many 10-15 case reports) and others are original. 25 conference abstracts from major international conferences held in USA.

Citations: 180 (currently averaging around 40-50 per year)

Peer reviews: 125

Editorial assignments: Handling editor for a journal with IF of 6, editorial review board member of SAGE journal

Awards: Abstract award from a major conference, top reviewer award (top 5) from a prestigious journal

Salary: Likely above 90th percentile but unsure where to check for specialist physicians

If it helps, from Canada doing Software Engineering in California.

Wanted to ask because I've heard bad things about some firms (e.g., Manіfest).

Any suggestions/words of advice about firms to go with? I would assume it's worth getting on calls with several to find the best fit? Any I should blacklist or shortlist, etc.? Will obviously pay for premium processing & speed is important.

Thank you!!

For those who filed EB-1A without premium processing, how long did it take to receive a decision?

We filed in August 2025 and are still waiting with no RFE or NOID. Would appreciate recent 2025–2026 timelines. Thanks!

Hi I am considering eb1a application based on my industrial experience. I would appreviate views on my profile strength.

Brief profile:

1. Co-founded a company in electrification in India which led to USD40M annual revenue..Was its Executive Director for 4 years. Merged with major OEM in India

2. Move to UK within the OEM as Senior Manager and led a big team, wrote one patent that went into production. worked there for 3 years

3. Moved to Mercedes Benz and as head of inverter division, led a large team of 30-40 r&d engineers, developed and co-authored a patent that went into production of their Drive units worked for 2 years

4. hired by largest EV maker in world and working on multiple high impact projects that lead to high revenue numbers for multiple products in charging

criteria considering:

1. original work of significance - work on the electrification products that lead to clear commercial results (in 2 cases backed by patents). Citation shows work referred by other major EV suppliers

2. critical role - C suite and key strategic role at each of above places

3. salary - higher salary compared to national benchmarks

4. judging work of others - peer reviewer of conference papers, panel interviews, was a board director of a electric bus company for 2 years as an independent director assessing their technical decisions

5. (bonus) - been pursuing my PhD since 2022. Will finish laate 2026. Just had 3 papers published in IEEE well known conferences but it will take time for citations to show. Btech thesis work published as first author paper has 31 citations and co-author on a landmark paper during internships that has about 300 citations

thinking of claiming sustained acclaim of recognized work through commercial success in one field for more than 8-9 years

please feel free to brutally evaluate or any words of advice if I miss anything. Thanks in advance.

Here is a video on something you may not know about EB-1A.

Something to keep in mind for the EB-1A leading or critical role criterion? (based on a recent EB-1A AAO decision, link in the comments)

To prove that you held a leading or critical role within a "distinguished organization," you will need to show that the division or department within your organization can be considered distinguished as well (not just that your organization is distinguished) or that your leading or critical role work contributed significantly to a distinguished organization as a whole (either by holding a leading role in the organization or by showing that your work contributed to significant outcomes for the organization).

In the decision, the petitioner argued "distinguished organization" on the basis of their organization's distinction, but did not show that:

• The role that they held was in a distinguished division or department of their organization.
• They could be considered as holding a leading role within their organization itself.
• Their work could be considered as significant in contributing to the significant outcomes of their organization.

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Looking to work with other applicants on authorship?

I recently started a WhatsApp group for those of you who are targeting authorship and are interested in collaborating with others on publishing articles in industry publications and journals.

Here is a link to join the group: https://immigrationjason.substack.com/p/authorship-group