Seven Ways to Build Your O-1 or EB-1 Case

Your resume or curriculum vitae is an essential building-block in your case. Include all employment in your field, paid and volunteer work, professional awards, prizes, publications, editorials about and citations to your work, performances, speaking engagements, peer review, etc. The relevant items will vary widely depending on your field of endeavor. Do not make any exaggerated claims that can be disproven by a diligent fact-checker. Remember that your resume is not evidence of your achievements; it is a statement you make on your own behalf, and serves only as a guideline, timeline or catalogue for the other types of evidence you may provide. For those in academia and the sciences, keep a current citation index as well.

Be a pack rat. Keep original evidence of any professional recognition, particularly anything from beyond the four walls of your employer, such as public speaking engagements or committee service for professional organizations. Again, what is relevant will vary widely depending on the nature of your work, but the letter "P" is a good place to start: professional prizes, press coverage about you & your work, publications by you (include peer-reviewed articles, editorials, op-ed, trade & general press, books, etc.), peer review by you of publications by others, patents, programs (from performances, exhibitions, panels, conferences, etc.), press releases, publicity materials, and paystubs - if you are paid significantly more than others in your field. Any published material should show the name & date of publication. You will need at least three different types of evidence.

Any documents in a foreign language submitted to USCIS in support of a visa petition must be accompanied by notarized English translations, with a sworn oath of accuracy by the translator. The translator may be anyone other than the beneficiary or petitioner, so you cannot do the translations yourself, nor should evidence be translated by anyone in your family. Translations of press clippings & journal articles must include the date and name of the publication, as well as the author's name, and title of the article or column. Keep clippings of any original articles by you or about you with the translations.

Any O-1 or EB-1 petition must be supported by testimonial letters confirming your extraordinary ability, preferably from people with authority to comment on the nature and impact of your work, and the influence you have had on others working in the same field and/or related fields. These letters should be specific to each reference provider, based on how they know of you or your work and their perspective on what you have contributed to your field. Most of the reference-providers should be people outside of your petitioner/present employer, and hopefully, you will be able to obtain some letters from people who first met you or contacted you through professional channels because they were favorably impressed, because they heard you give a talk, saw or heard you perform, read a publication by you, used or purchased a product you developed, etc. Reference providers may include past employers, professors, or colleagues, clients, editors, critics, curators, etc.

Testimonial letters in support of a visa petition should be completely unique to each reference provider. The writer should identify his or her professional credentials, level of experience or expertise in the field, and the basis of his or her authority to comment on your work, before discussing your particular achievements and how you have influenced the field. Distributing the same sample letter or template to all your reference providers can be the kiss of death to a case that might otherwise succeed, and even partial repetitions are damaging: if all your testimonial letters contain an identical paragraph or sentence, then all of the letters will be less credible.