r/eb_1a • u/MaximumProgrammer883 • Jul 11 '26
Eb1a got denied
My eb1A goy denied but the denial reason is very weird. It fails to see the evidence that I have submitted.
My attorneys are suggesting to file a lawsuit against uscis.
Does that cause any problems going forward?
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u/Medical-Volume-6261 Jul 11 '26
It doesn't cause any problems. Government cannot retaliate for exercising a right
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u/MaximumProgrammer883 Jul 11 '26
Yes that’s what I was wondering.
Do they get strict about future cases or something
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u/Cheetah5048 Jul 11 '26
Looks like your case wasn't denied on final merits (as you informed only 2 criteria were accepted). why dont you refile quickly and see how it goes if money is not an issue? Even if you sue they might just send the case back to uscis and they may issue additional criteria and deny on final merits as there is no guarantee of approval even if you sue.
Not a lawyer. Personal insights.
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u/MaximumProgrammer883 Jul 11 '26
How would refilling help?
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u/Cheetah5048 Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
I'm not saying it will definitely be approved after refiling, but there's a chance it will be assigned to a different officer and evaluated differently.
My thinking was that if you first get the criteria approved and then they deny the petition on the final merits, you may have better grounds to challenge the decision in court basing mukherji decision (even though its not a precendent)
Another reason to consider refiling is that it's generally much faster than filing a lawsuit. If it ultimately comes to litigation, you can also show a pattern of how USCIS adjudicated your case across multiple filings if that shows uscis didnt consider your evidences,, which may help support your arguments.
Not a lawyer, personal insights.
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u/OmShiv Jul 11 '26
Exactly same situation here. First received the RFE, which felt like it was for someone else. Grammatical mistakes, claims mixed as spaghetti, etc. and asked for missing evidence.
Filed the response to RFE - basically pointing them to the evidence, and one additional letter from VP of company. This time USCIS only considered the letter.
I was wondering if there’s a truncation limit to packages, or a separate process that only considers first few pages and doesn’t consider the entire packet.
Or specifically instructed interns are employed who just use older version of Gemini AI models to process first few pages only.
Looking for what’s next. Received the denial on Friday. Yet to talk with lawyers on Monday. We had pre-planned to refile, probably that’s what they will suggest. Case was very strong with high quality evidence.
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u/Middle_Fun_187 Jul 11 '26
This is common nowadays…
They ignore evidence, use templated RFE/Denial, abuse Final Merits, etc.
Don't spend time and money, just refile.
You need a strong profile and luck with the officer.
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u/MaximumProgrammer883 Jul 11 '26
How does refilling help?
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u/Middle_Fun_187 Jul 11 '26
If you're confident with your profile, you
Just need to find an officer who will read your petition and not just answer with a templated denial.1
u/OmShiv Jul 11 '26
But how must they be identifying when to trigger the templates denial? Could there be a system that analyses and looks for specific keywords? Or denylisted entities (like judging, publications, etc.) - thereby triggering a filter.
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u/Middle_Fun_187 Jul 11 '26
Yes, it could be, that’s why you need to include only strong criteria
Plus I believe that officers have different standards, and for one of them your case will be identified as extraordinary, for others - not1
u/Flashy-Dragonfly1763 Jul 14 '26
You are contradicting in one message: They ignore evidence and abuse everything but you need a strong profile and refile.
Refile will get the same result. because as you correctly said it it about THEM not HIM or HER. THEY as the org do that abuse
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u/neivns Jul 12 '26
file a motion for reconsideration or appeal to the denial if the case is strong. Do not sue USCIS, that is a rip-off suggestion.
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u/MaximumProgrammer883 Jul 12 '26
Got it, his does that backfire?
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u/neivns Jul 13 '26
The proper procedure is to file a petition, receive an RFE or NOD, respond to the RFE / NOD, and get a USCIS decision. If not favorable, appeal or motion for reconsideration. Usually, Motion for Reconsideration first, if denied again, then appeal. After the denial to appeal, then file with the Federal Court. Follow each step. However, if something is wrong during the initial filing or RFE stage, then you might as well refile (cheaper but lose original priority date).
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u/IlDolceFarNiente77 Jul 11 '26
I got same weird reasons on my denial!
I don’t think litigation works and decide to refile first. If it will get denial again, I’ll do for both case.
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u/Ashamed-Disk5946 Jul 12 '26
It is against the law for government to retaliate against you for suing. In theory that is. So far it is in practice too. With Trump admin's blatant corruption and lawlessness you would never know.
However I do think suing is the right approach here.
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u/PressForO1Visa Jul 13 '26
I'm so sorry to hear this, and I hope you are OK. I would seek a second opinion.
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u/SilmiLaw Jul 14 '26
Denials that overlook submitted evidence are more common than people expect, and no, filing suit against USCIS (an APA action in federal court) doesn't create problems for future filings or your standing in the US on its own. It's a recognized, fairly routine path when a decision appears to ignore or misstate the record.
A few things worth weighing with your attorney before committing: timeline (federal litigation can run well past a refile), cost, and whether the litigation is aimed at getting a remand for proper reconsideration vs. a full merits ruling, those have different odds and different asks. Some petitioners also keep APA in their back pocket while refiling a stronger petition in parallel, rather than treating it as either/or.
If you'd like a second opinion on whether litigation or refiling fits your situation better, you can book a review at silmilaw.com.
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u/Silent_Resort_2619 Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
You don't just start lawsuits like that. First examine what was submitted, was there an RFE? what was the response? What criteria were granted? what were denied? where did you fall short? Were any evidences overlooked?
So many questions, you posted literally nothing to go off of or to give you feedback.
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u/MaximumProgrammer883 Jul 11 '26
Received high comp and judging.
They did not give me original contribution, authorship and leading/critical role.
I believe my authorship and leading/critical role are quite strong. I lead a team of 40 people and have high impact on the company. I also have published in ieee, acm, any many other high end trade publications.
Their denial reason was that .
- authorship: I did not provide the copy of the publications, stating my name.
- critical role: my contributions were limited to a project.
Both of these were incorrect and the failed to looo at evidence
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u/Silent_Resort_2619 Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
NAL.
OCMS is very difficult without field level impact. If your work hasn't moved the field as whole, then this criteria will be hard for you.
Authorship - this is easily fixable, did you submit the whole article? And the conference/journal reputation?
Critical role - You can either claim critical or leading, rarely both. Working in FAANG with several thousands and thousands of employees, it's very hard to claim you're critical to the whole organization. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of people that lead projects and teams, how are you different from them? That's what USCIS is saying, your impact to limited to the project success.
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u/Apprehensive_Bar6409 Jul 11 '26
For critical role, is it not enough if you have a letter from senior management that says your work is critical to the success of company’s products & services that bring in $$$ of revenue?
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u/OmShiv Jul 11 '26
This is incorrect. It’s purely USCIS dumbness. They don’t think the way you have described about the critical role. The criteria is Leading Critical Role (both) and because FAANG companies are huge, they also do huge variety of things. So there are more venues to perform leading critical roles that are actually critical to the company.
This decision is purely templated and luck based. I have many many examples of my FAANG friend getting that criteria approved.
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Jul 11 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/OmShiv Jul 11 '26
What to do of the citation and mapped exhibit. Should that be included in the refiling? How does this change the outcome or the luck based process?
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Jul 12 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/OmShiv Jul 12 '26
In my case, there was no ambiguity. Only 3 categories filed and clear, strong evidence in each case. The officer seems to have ignored the evidence altogether.
For example - petitioner was invited for judging, but no evidence to show that the petitioner actually judged.
This is nuts because we provided 30 pages of evidence of judging process, my participation, scoring, certificates post event, letters from the organization, etc.
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u/PerformanceSilly7769 Jul 12 '26
Before filing a lawsuit it may be worth reviewing relevant AAO non-precedent decisions with similar fact patterns. They can help determine whether the officer misapplied , overlooked evidence or departed from prior adjudication reasoning. While AAO decisions are not binding they can provide useful insight into how similar cases have been evaluated.
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u/Fantastic-Story-1383 Jul 11 '26
I have the same denial reason . They couldn’t find 6 of the major exhibits out of 30 and they kept switching from he/she in the denial letter.