We have a lot of articles on how to receive Talent visas to the USA, but today we’ve decided to tell you in detail what requirements we have to follow to get it with ease.
Today we have a special guest Stanislav Shamayev, a Business Immigration Attorney, who we’ll share with us all his experience and experience with the clients of migration. This article is a great opportunity to make sure that you will be very well aware of the exact criteria for one of the most important criteria for EB-1 visa and O-1a or O-1b visas – major media. So let’s start.
Who is Stanislav Shamayev?
Stanislav Shamayev is a licensed business immigration and corporate attorney in an immigration company in Miami. He has a big corporation: they have 70 departments and are a very fast-growing dynamic company, the first and the most technologically and process-advanced company in the States because they use the processes in getting the results for their clients. His company has had more than 2,000 approvals since the beginning of the work in the States and their clients are from more than 50 countries.
He also has a valid immigration law license to practice in any state in the US and corporate law in the State of Florida. He graduated with honors from two universities in the US: Florida Atlantic University and also the Saint Thomas School of Law in Miami, where he was one of the top five students in his class. He is an active member of the Florida State and Broward County Associations, as well as the Florida Courts of Appeals and the Eleventh Federal District Court of Appeals. Stanislav came from Russia that’s he speaks three languages Russian, English, and also Spanish.
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Understanding O-1 and EB-1A US Visas: criteria and requirements for O-1 and EB-1A US Visas
O-1 US Visas
O-1 is a non-immigrant visa for people with extraordinary talents. This is a very good tool to make your first step to come to the States because it’s relatively easy to get approved. For you to understand out of hundreds of petitions for this type of visa we have only one denial. We have like 99% of our 0-1 petitions approved which I think speaks volumes. So I guess we know what we’re doing with this and that’s why we’re here that’s why we’re discussing it here.
So what this visa does allow you to do? It allows you to come to the States and stay here for up to three – you can be here for up to three years and work for the employer who signed your petition. If your employer and your talents are aline, so basically you do the work that you have the talent for. Yes, you must have an employer to obtain for O-1.
However, if you don’t have an employer, it’s very important to understand that you yourself could be your own employer. How is that possible? You can open up and register your own company in the US and this company can become your employer. It’s a simple process and we can assist you also with this.
Who else can be your employer?
It could be a company, it could be an association, it could be a non-commercial company something like a charity company, or it could be an agency or even one person. For example, one person is a producer in the music industry and you are a DJ so he could be your producer for many projects, and that person may not even be incorporated or have LLC.
It also is a group of people, who are also incorporated. The best example is a circus. They move from place to place and they perform, so they need another person to help to do the performance, so they could sponsor you one petition. Another good example is sports, let’s say we have a motorbike club and they also can sponsor you if you are a motorbike rider to come and train with them. So there are many people or groups who can become your sponsor.
Advantages of Talent visas
What are the other benefits there? There is no limitation number for O-1 Visa. It’s not like H-1B. We have like 65,000 and 24,000 advanced degrees. There’s no lottery, there’s no limitation. There are as many as we can file, and as many as we can approve. On average every year USCIS approves about 17,000 to 20,000 petitions for O-1. If there are people from India here, and you don’t win the H-1B lottery but you have an employer, the O-1 visa would be the solution to all of your problems.
There is no queue, O-1 can be processed relatively quickly, typically taking anywhere from 1 to 8 months to be issued.
Furthermore, O-1 gives three years initially and we can extend it for one year more. If you changed employer we can change your for another three years for your visa, but from my experience, those who got an O-1 visa approved with us, the overwhelming majority of those people got green cards through EB-1A, EB-2, EB-3, or other visas. So most of them are getting green cards within those 3 years.
There’s also expediting processing, which means a profile repetition, and the timing for preparing documents for the O-1 petition. With my company, it’s 6 months, so we have a 6-month contract. Out of these six months, five first months my team and you work on the evidential base. The evidential base is the strategy, that I create at the beginning of the work with the case. So 5 months we collect these documents and I take one month to write the memorandum.
The memorandum is a document that makes a legal argument on an evidential base to the immigration officer. That document alone can be one hundred – one hundred fifty pages. It’s huge work.
So six months on average – to prepare the petition, file it, fifteen days to get approval and we rarely get requests for evidence for an O-1 visa. Usually, it’s just approval. Like I said, we had just one denial in the whole history of the company and I don’t agree with that.
If you’re in the States we can change your status and you can start working immediately on the approval and get your Social Security number and everything else that you need.
So it takes around 8 months from the day you start filling in your petition till the day you cross the US border with your O-1 visa.
Another advantage of these types of visas is that you don’t have any limitations to apply one more time in case of denial. Let’s say they refused, we are taking into consideration their recommendations, see what we can change or add and we refile it again. And most of the time it works. It doesn’t impact on your reputation or something like that.
Appropriate industries for Talent visas
Let’s go further. Your talent could be absolutely in any sphere or industry.
It’s very important to understand but there is a difference between O-1A and O-1B. What’s the difference?
O-1A is for business, science, education, and sports – four big categories. Sometimes we have hybrid petitions like for businesses in IT. Who are you: a businessman or you’re an IT person? Each case is individual and we deal with that all the time.
O-1B is art, movies, and television. The art is huge in itself – it could be the models, influencers, and bloggers, like YouTubers, TikTokers, and things like that, that could be content managers, marketing, and much much more. Marketers indeed could be in both types of visa – EB-1, O-1A, and O-1B. For example, lead generation is O-1A, but content generation is probably O-1B. It all depends.
So we need to satisfy at least three criteria. And again O-1B includes 6 criteria altogether, O-1A has eight criteria and if you want EB-1A, you’ll need to satisfy 10 criteria. So depending on which Visa we are applying for, we need to satisfy three or more of whatever we have for that.
From my experience, usually, it’s never less than five. I know that some of you may be afraid of this number, but believe me it’s almost always more than you think. Why? Because just an expert, a licensed attorney can see how many criteria you have. Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know, so that’s important to understand. By the way for this reason we have a free evaluation of your case.
Also, it’s a dual intent visa, meaning that you can have a different intention to come to the States.
EB-1A US Visa
So let’s switch to EB-1A. EB-1A is a green card that gives you permanent residency for 10 years. After 5 years they give you a blue passport and you’re a US citizen. Furthermore, once you get approval for your EB-1A visa, you have approval for the members of your family: wife, husband, and children under 21. All are getting green cards.
Once you have your password stamped with an EB-1A visa and that will happen approximately in a year and a half – after we started working on your case. That’s why sometimes people come to the States using an O-1 visa, because it takes only 8 months.
Requirements for O-1 and EB-1 visas
Now let’s switch to the exact requirements for the criteria of these types of visas. Let’s talk shortly about those that we have and more specifically about the media and what’s going on with the media. Because this is, like I said before, I believe is one of the most important criteria in the whole thing. That’s why we’re going to speak about it in very much detail.
So we have awards. I want you to bring me awards or prizes from the competitions between the professionals. Don’t bring me awards from your school, from your 10th grade, or from your student’s life. I want that the awards would be among the professionals. Who are those professionals? Those, who at least have a bachelor’s degree. Sometimes you can not have a bachelor’s degree, but you still may call yourself a professional, because you have an experience in your field. There are a lot of IT people without education people but they have a decent experience to work and compete with others. Also, the grants, medals, or other things from the government, the huge investments into the business in the Business category could be your awards.
Also, if you’re in the industry of science, if you deliver a speech to conferences and then you’re getting published – that can be an award. That was a bit deep, but I wanted to show you different options for the awards.
Media and published articles
After showing the awards we need articles. For EB-1A I want you to bring me it at least to public scientific articles. The more, the better. If you’re good with publications bring me as much as you can. For O-1 it’s possible to show the scientific publications or the expert publications in the same media that may write about you.
It’s important to explain more about the expert publications: with the help of PRNEWS.io or other media services you can be published in the appropriate media. These media could be used to publish your expert article. That would be a substitution for the scientific article in O-1 (in EB-1A – no). So for that reason working with PR agencies is crucial because you can satisfy two criteria. And two criteria are a lot.
Recommendation letters
It’s not a part of O-1A or EB-1A and not a part of proving the talent. It’s part of the O-1B visa requirement. But for O-1A and EB-1A we still use the recommendation letters, but in this case, it’s better to call it expert opinions. How many?
For O-1 – 10, for EB-1 – 15. If not, it’s a bad sign for me, because it means that you didn’t participate in the conferences and are not connected with experts from your field.
Judging
You could be a member of a panel of experts, judging the work of others – it’s very good. Sometimes the alternative to that could be reviewing the publication for others, which also can be part of judging. Also, if you’re a member of an editorial board of a magazine, newspaper or enrollment commission, for example, to some school, some association, or something big, so the editorial board also could be a judging.
Contribution to the industry or in the field
Don’t be afraid of this, but the correct spelling of it is “contribution in the field” and the difference is huge. And I don’t know if the immigration officers do this mistake on purpose, or not.
The correct spelling there is “in” the industry. Contribution in the field doesn’t mean that you changed the whole industry. It means that you worked in this field and with your work made a contribution.
Make sure your contribution to the industry has to be original and significant – two subcriteria.
Membership and association
Associations require outstanding achievements. Where to check it? In the bylaws of the associations, you are participating. So you have to have five publications, two conferences, two projects, and some outstanding achievements. And those who are making decisions at the board of these associations, have to be national experts. It’s very important to understand too.
Commercial Success
Commercial success is very important too. Why? Because we need to show that you making significantly more than other professionals in the field. They want to see that you can bring them more money than somebody else and I want to see your taxes. If you don’t pay taxes on your income – it’s a problem. Make sure you pay taxes because in the States you have to get used to this. Everybody here pays a lot of taxes.
Importance of media coverage in talent visa approval
Publications in the media for obtaining a visa are one of the most important criteria. Why? Because it’s a universal tool to not only satisfy one of the six-eight-ten criteria ( depending on the visa type), that we are using but also to strengthen the weak points in other criteria.
For example, with the O-1 visa, you have to show evidence of your ‘extraordinary ability’ being recognized by national or international acclaim. This can include awards, scholarships, speaking engagements, and, of course, published coverage in the media, which is the easiest way to show it. That’s why it’s very very important.
How media coverage can enhance talent visa approval chances
Now let’s talk in more detail about the media. What are the exact requirements for these criteria to be satisfied?
So let’s start with the media. Media where we can publish or the articles about us may be published. In our countries, we have major media and we have professional media. So it could be two options to be published in.
The media is important because in the media we can incorporate certain things to prove other criteria (e.g. contribution to the field) or to make stronger other criteria. That’s why it’s so so crucial.
Out of hundreds and hundreds of petitions that I filed for eight years working in my corporation, I believe there was only one petition where we didn’t have the media. But that guy was like a guru in artificial intelligence, so he was number one in his country in artificial intelligence, so of course we could satisfy all other criteria.
Of course, if you like if you to that extent, which is rare, like one in a hundred, everybody has to have media publications.
Basically, you have no choice. At least, when you work with me. If you don’t bring me the articles, you’re going to do so much risk for nothing. That’s the significance of the press and the significance of working with PR agencies. It’s crucial to work with people who understand what they are doing and know all the criteria.
Different types of media publication and their significance
It could be either a big newspaper in your country or another country (if it makes sense) or in a professional magazine. I told “If it makes sense” because it’d be weird if the media is from Brazil and you live in Germany. It’d make sense only if you went there to the conference or something like that.
Because by law the immigration officer can use his subjective vision of the whole petition, not exactly on the press category but everything. So if a person has a publication in the Australian or Brazilian media and that person has nothing to do with those countries – he didn’t play a critical role in the company, didn’t go to the conference, didn’t do any master classes – it’s weird. So that may have an effect on the overall impression of your petition. If an immigration officer doesn’t like the petition he’ll find other reasons to refuse you in visa. Just because he or she feels that something is fishy.
And how do I know it? Because in my practice, that’s not a usual occasion. We could receive a denial, but when we file it to another immigration center, we have approval. By the way, we have analytics in our company, we have a blacklist of some immigration officers who have a higher subjective perception of the petitions. So if we see somebody from the blacklist, we will not join it and refile it to another one. It doesn’t mean that we’ll have an approval 100% but there are a lot more chances.
What is a major media?
This is a very hard question because major media is relevant to that particular country where you’re from. If you’re from Germany your major media will be different from the major media in India. Major media got to be in the top 20 of media in your country and have to cover the entire country. It’s not a rule but this is a good indicator. So if you’re from Spain get those newspapers or magazines that cover the events of the entire country.
What is professional media?
The difference between major media and professional media is that we’re looking at the audience – who exactly reads those newspapers and magazines. Professional media is for professionals in that industry. So if you are an engineer or if you’re an IT person, your professional articles could be in some magazine or website or a newspaper that talks only about IT Innovations, inventions, and the solutions to tech problems. They’re not going to talk about dinosaurs or Manchester United. They have to talk about IT stuff. That’s how you know that this media is professional. They were created specifically for the people in the industry.
So these were two types of media you can be published articles about you in.
What do articles have to be about?
They have to be about you and/or your work. The article should be about your career, your company, your project, your methods of work, your achievements, and so on. Again, it could be about you, or about your work and project, or all together. It could be different combinations.
What are other criteria that must be there?
I cannot emphasize enough how what I’m going to say right now is important. Every article mandatory has to have three items: title, date (a day, a month, and a year), and author. Remember this as a mantra and never forget it. You can screw up the whole thing, so be attentive to this.
And, of course, it cannot say “commercial materials”, or “advertising” – nothing like that. Usually, when a client comes to me and he tells me that he has got ten articles about him and his work, I realize that probably he has five that we can show to the immigration officers. It’s not that will not be able to use them, we can use them in the “Contribution to the field”, in subjective criteria, but not in the media. So make sure you have all these three items there.
Also, you may have other types of media: video, radio, shows online, and so on. All that is media. It’s very important because we have to satisfy at least two criteria: the press itself and the expert publications, when you publish an article (or about you) and it is published in a media. It should be published in the media and not in the scientific journal, although the articles may include all appropriate to the scientific articles components, like graphs, statistics, research, references to other publications, and conclusions. We still may have those attributes of the scientific article but they’re not in a scientific journal – it has to be published in media.
Again, with publishing in the media, you can cover two criteria. And this is really big. Because minimum we have to cover three and if you publish the articles we already have two easily.
Strategies for identifying the right media outlets for talent visa applicants
Of course, it’s important to be published in good and credible media. Everybody knows and trusts The Economist, Forbes and so on, The better the name, the better is for your petition. Of course, if somebody’s using Forbes or Coindesk, working in the blockchain industry, in the cryptocurrency, and in the fashion industry, it will make a better impression and will significantly increase the chances of your visa approval.
How many should you have articles for your petition? The law is silent about it. There’s nothing in the law about it, there’s nothing in Federal Courts – we read all that all day long. From my experience for EB-1, you need to have 4+ articles. At least four, and more. For an O-1 visa, you need 2-4 and more articles. So the more, the better. Do now as many articles, as many scientific publications, as many awards, as you can.
Remember, if now the journalists didn’t write anything about you – you can ask PRNEWS.io to help you there.
And when we want to extend our visa or receive the new one, we can re-use these articles again. As long as we continue to be the experts, and are involved in the industry, we can use our old articles and publications to prove again our case.
And again I wanted to repeat that that only matters if we change the employer or if we apply for EB-1A, for the next level – for the green card. If we extend our employment with the previous employer it doesn’t matter – we can extension automatically.
But if it’s a new employer then yes – we use the old ones and of course, we want to see some fresh ones to show that we are still professionals in our industry.
Sometimes, I have questions if the immigration officers google about people. And actually, this is a very hard question because we don’t know if they do it if they do it on a regular basis. In my opinion, they don’t have enough time for this: my company files approximately 30 to 50 cases a month, so you can imagine the extent of how many cases they get. So in my case, I’ve never seen that they did it, but I know that sometimes it may happen. And I guess it was because a person didn’t tell all information about his past. So filling in the application for a visa make sure you can prove it and make sure the data you give is similar. Treat your attorney as your doctor – be honest and get it right.”
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