Extraordinary Ability Evidence Not So Extraordinary?

Written by: Hailey Sylvander

Have you ever had a time when you believed your client exhibited extraordinary ability, but the evidence just wasn’t quite there? Maybe the evidence just did not match up perfectly with what USCIS is typically looking for, or maybe you had minimal evidence that needed to be used for more than one criterion… If so, how do you handle this?

Park Evaluations recently handled an O-1A letter in the field of equity research that dealt with this very problem. The petitioner wanted the following criteria to be discussed: original contributions, leading or critical role; authorship of scholarly articles; published material about the candidate; membership; and salary. However, some criteria proved to be more challenging in terms of satisfying the surfacing evidentiary problems: membership, published material, and salary. Simply, the evidence either had to be relied upon in more than one place, the occupation of the candidate did not align properly with the U.S. Bureau or Labor categories, or there was merely limited evidence.

So, how did Park Evaluations navigate this problem? Below, we break everything down by each specific criteria addressed in the letter to demonstrate the steps one of our experts took to meet the evidentiary challenges head-on.

Membership: For this criterion, the evidence provided was for only one example of membership with very little information on the association, spurring the expert to reshape their argument and formulate this section in a way that showed such membership to be exceptionally impressive and greatly significant to the adjudicator at USCIS. Specifically, the expert looked into the association itself, and they found what the candidate was responsible for as a member of this association in detail. Plainly, the aim here was to convey that the work the candidate was doing with the association was shaping and furthering their field and, therefore, was extraordinary.

Published Material About the Candidate: Similarly, when it came to published material about the candidate, there were very few examples and minimal evidence provided. The two articles the petitioner wanted the expert to rely upon echoed the same information about the extraordinary ability of the candidate twice over. Because of this repetition, the expert decided to directly quote just one of the two sources, choosing the publication that appeared more impressive, and which held more renown. The expert also chose to not be redundant in their explanation of both articles, taking a slightly different angle in describing the information conveyed in each. In addition to how the expert aimed to convey that the sources cited the impressive nature of the candidate and their work experience, the expert also worked to emphasize that these articles were, indeed, referring to the candidate’s work directly, revealing a sense of extraordinary achievement through the candidate’s research in the field.

High Salary or Renumeration: Finally, for the salary criterion, finding a U.S. Bureau of Labor category that was the most analogous to the candidate’s position with a high salary was challenging. In the petition letter, the petitioner chose the occupational category of Equity Research Analyst; however, the expert was unable to find that exact category among those provided by the U.S. Government. This is not because the candidate did not meet the criteria; it is just that sometimes the U.S. Bureau of Labor does not have the exact same occupational category in their lexicon that matches up with what the petition letter articulates. In such cases, instead of matching the occupational categories, it is best to match up the job duties to determine the label the U.S. Government uses for the occupation. Therefore, the expert investigated what exactly the candidate’s position entailed, hoping to find a category among those listed by the U.S. Bureau of Labor that had similar duties. As a result of their searching, the expert found the category of Market Research Analyst, which had a lower median annual wage than the candidate’s salary, both nationally and within the state of employment.

Therefore, while the evidence may not have been the strongest at face value, Park Evaluations was, nonetheless, able to provide a strong letter and help get the case approved. This was done through the skilled crafting of logical arguments and strategically finding alternative ways to support the claims and evidence provided.

So, if you are ever concerned about the evidence that your case has in regard to extraordinary ability, know that Park Evaluations can find a way to make the evidence work and satisfy the USCIS criteria. Feel free to reach out to [email protected] for your next case.