FinTech Talent Approved for EB-1A In 2 Weeks

Applicant: Mr. Li
Expertise. Financial Technology
Highest Education. Master’s degree
Application category: EB-1A outstanding talents
Processing time. 1½ months from filing to approval (including retroactive RFE)

BACKGROUND
Mr. Lee, an executive in the financial technology industry, planned to move his family to the United States based on his daughter’s concerns and wanted to find a responsible legal team to plan and file an EB-1A petition for him to meet as many of the 10 requirements as possible, far exceeding the USCIS “three out of ten” standard. After being introduced by a friend, Mr. Lee chose Tsang & Associates Law Firm to represent him in his EB-1A Petition for Alien Preference in May 2017. After more than two months of intense preparation, Tsang & Associates Law Firm submitted more than 800 pages of documents at the end of July to prove that Mr. Lee met six of the criteria and other requirements. In order to convince the USCIS that Mr. Li was indeed eligible for EB-1A, the Zang team prepared and submitted a 600-page supplemental document within a month.

Difficulties in this case:
– Although Mr. Li has received several awards, his individual awards were given by provincial governments and not on a national or international scale; some of the awards provided were also unit/group awards rather than Mr. Li’s individual awards.
– Mr. Lee has membership in many associations, but it is difficult to prove that he was able to join these trade associations because of his outstanding achievements.
– Although Mr. Lee has an autonomously researched model of fintech innovation, it is difficult to demonstrate that it has contributed more to the banking industry than most of his colleagues in the sector.
– Mr. Lee has published many articles, but most of them are in layman’s terms and are not considered by USCIS to be academic articles for use in a specialized field.
– Although Mr. Li enjoys a high income, it is difficult to prove that he “enjoys a significantly higher salary than the industry” in the high-paying financial industry.
– Mr. Li’s daughter will turn 21 next June and face the problem of being overage. Mr. Li’s main purpose for EB-1A was because his daughter could still follow. Shortly after Mr. Lee’s appointment, the EB-1A immigration queue regressed, and although we told him that the quota would be available again in October, the client was still anxious.
– Mr. and Mrs. Li live in China and will be interviewed at the Guangzhou Consulate; their daughter is studying in the U.S. and will be adjusting her status in the U.S. alone. We had to take into account the consulate interview time, adjustment of status time, daughter’s age, and EB-1A quota opening time, and calculate every step to ensure that our daughter would not be overage.

KEYS TO SUCCESS
Key One. Proving the importance of the award (Prize/Award): A major challenge in the submission was that most of the awards Mr. Li received were provincial regional awards rather than national awards. Therefore, we submitted a publication from an authoritative Chinese news agency that documented the award, the winner, the criteria for the award, and the judging committee, and suggested that the award was given by a branch of a national organization recognized by the Chinese government to prove that Mr. Li’s outstanding ability was widely recognized nationwide. In addition, in response to the fact that a portion of the award was given to the organization for which Mr. Li worked and not to Mr. Li himself, we provided documentation that Mr. Li received the honor of “Most Influential Individual” in the award to demonstrate that Mr. Li personally played a key role in winning the project.

Key II. Professional Association Membership (Membership): Mr. Li is a member of several professional associations, and we submitted the membership rules of each industry association to prove that Mr. Li was admitted to the association through the nomination and inspection process set by the association, thus proving that Mr. Li became a member of the professional association to which he belongs because of his outstanding talent.

Key III. Contributions of Major Significance: Mr. Lee’s independent research on FinTech innovation model has helped many industry experts to choose the right business model for financial institutions to develop in the 21st century, which can be transformed from the traditional old model to the electronic model. Mr. Lee’s contribution to FinTech is also beyond the ordinary.

Key IV. Academic publications (Articles): In response to the question raised by the USCIS that most of Mr. Li’s published articles are easy to understand, we again provided citations of his articles, showing that most of Mr. Li’s articles are cited by universities and other academic institutions. In addition, we also provided industry data sites and professional journals that published Mr. Li’s articles to prove the academic and professional nature of his published articles.

Key Five. Industry High Salary (High Salary): Mr. Li’s income is higher than the national average level, we provide the trend of salary rise and fall of Chinese financial executives in recent years, and representative salary data to complement Mr. Li’s personal income sources and calculations, through comparison to prove that Mr. Li’s income is still at the top of the industry.

OUTCOME
After more than two months of preparation, Mr. Li’s EB-1A petition was filed at the end of July and was approved within a month after being requested by the USCIS to file a supplemental petition.

The client was very happy to learn about this and sincerely thanked Mr. Tsang and his team for their dedication to their application, which made it possible to fulfill their family’s American dream thanks to such efficient work and results.

Lawyer Joseph Tsang commented:
The EB-1A immigration application for outstanding talents has its own exclusive nature. It does not need to have an employer in the United States, and you can file the application yourself. There is currently no immigration waiting list, and applicants do not need to queue up, and the whole processing cycle is short.

USCIS typically uses a 2-step analysis when assessing whether an applicant has outstanding ability:

1) Does it satisfy the basic “three out of ten” OR the one-time international prize of.

The “three out of ten” criteria include.
1. Have won national or international awards;
2. Membership of professional associations;
3. Professional publications or mainstream media have reported on the foreigner and his related work;
4. Review the work of others in the industry;
5. Have made significant contributions in the industry;
6. The work is published in domestic and foreign journals;
7. Main works exhibited in art exhibitions;
8. Serving as a leader or important position in a well-known institution/group;
9. Enjoy high salary;
10. Achieve commercial success in the performing arts.

2) Comprehensive evaluation:
– Does the applicant belong to a small group of top talent in the industry sector;
• Excellence is sustainable ;

3) In addition, applicants also need to demonstrate:
• After coming to the United States, intend to continue to work in your professional field which will bring substantial benefits to the United States.

(Note: To protect privacy, the names of the parties involved in the case are pseudonyms)