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There is an unprecedented restructuring in the tech industry in relation to employees.
There have been more than 185,000 layoffs of tech workers this year alone, and a couple of thousand more are expected to occur in the upcoming months.
While on one hand, it’s being claimed that there is an unprecedented rise in stocks and corporate earnings in Silicon Valley. On the other hand, there is a significant transformation process going on, which is slowly eroding the base of corporate stability in terms of job security.
In the tech industry, there is ruthless re-allocation of capital which is taking place. Oracle, the giant enterprise, has officially confirmed that it slashed down 13% of its workforce i.e., 21,000 employees, due to the use of artificial intelligence in its business processes. Meta, PayPal, and Cisco announced workforce reductions while simultaneously increasing investment in AI infrastructure, generative AI products, and data centers.
For general working professionals, a corporate layoff can be painful. However, for foreign nationals working in a country like the US on temporary visas like H-1B, it can be a headache on an entirely different level.
The moment a company cuts down its employees in order to divert funds for AI, the laid-off employees are faced with a 60-day ticking clock. If an elite tech worker is not able to find another employer willing to absorb them and the complex legal logistics of visa sponsorship within two months, they have only one way to go - leave the US.
This situation has triggered a shift among the top talented international tech workers. Most senior engineers, data architects, and product leaders are realizing that tying their legal right to stay in the US to an employer, in an industry that is rapidly transforming, is a terrible move.
They are looking for a better way that would help them stay in the US, work, and prosper.
Some tech professionals have already started decoupling their visa status from their employers. And this includes seeking an EB1A Green Card, which doesn’t need employer sponsorship.
For many decades, the standard path that the majority of international tech professionals working for big tech companies followed was to rely on the H-1B visa. These professionals usually secured an H-1B visa through the lottery process, and after a few years of employment, they moved towards the employment-based EB-2 or EB-3 permanent residency pathway.
But the current macro environment, especially in terms of EB-2/EB-3 backlogs, has shattered that possibility as well.
Highly talented tech professionals are now realizing that they are not indispensable and can be replaced by AI-led automation in the coming months. As a result, those working in the US on an H-1B visa for years are now asking a question:
“Why leave an entire future in the hands of a corporate board when your personal professional profile has the merit to stand alone completely?”
In order to escape the cycle of corporate dependency, many top professionals in the tech industry are bypassing the standard employer-dependent visa pathways. They are moving towards a powerful merit-based alternative that is free from employer-sponsorship: EB1A green card.
EB1A, or employment-based first preference extraordinary ability green card, is a visa pathway that provides permanent residency to those who have proved that they are the top minds in their field. It is a self-petitioned visa pathway that is completely independent of your employer. Unlike the H-1B lottery-based process or the frustratingly slow EB-2 PERM, the EB1A visa doesn’t need any employer sponsorship or labor certification from the Department of Labor.
Applicants sign their own immigration paperwork, decide their own filing timelines, and keep track of permanent residency status, irrespective of the volatility due to layoffs in the job market. If, for instance, an EB1A green card applicant gets laid off on one fine day, it won’t affect their green card adjudication process, and the application will keep moving forward.
For many tech professionals, this comes up as a pleasant experience given that, after a layoff, they don’t have to desperately apply for jobs and seek sponsorship for a visa from employers. Given that EB1A is entirely merit-based, it solely depends on the ability of your profile to convincingly prove that you are a professional with extraordinary ability.
Given the general impression of the EB1A green card being the ‘Einstein Visa’, most tech professionals don’t consider themselves or their work to be extraordinary enough.
Despite working in major tech companies for years and contributing significantly to the field, many tech professionals still fall prey to classic imposter syndrome. As a result, they don’t even think of exploring the EB1A pathway.
There is another misconception that doesn’t go away - EB1A is only for Nobel Laureates.
However, that’s not entirely true. The Nobel Prize is just an indicator of extraordinary ability and impact; it’s not the only criterion for EB1A.
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) lays down ten major legal criteria to measure the extraordinary ability of an applicant. However, you need to meet at least three of the ten criteria. Many applicants think that proving extraordinary ability is equal to discovering new laws of physics. But that’s not at all the case. You need proper and reliable evidence that proves the consistency of your work and impact.
Below are the three major criteria that should be met in order to become eligible for an EB1A green card:
Critical Role: This criterion seeks whether you have architected or steered a cloud infrastructure project that allowed a business to scale to millions of active users.
Original Contribution: This criterion seeks to understand whether you have built proprietary, open-source code distributions, engineered patented technologies, or designed internal frameworks that transformed how an enterprise operates.
Judging: This criterion seeks to know whether you lent your expertise as a peer reviewer for leading technical journals or served as an official judge for major industry hackathons.
It is extremely important to remember that USCIS officers are not technical experts. They are bureaucrats. Applicants usually tend to use the technical jargon they are familiar with in their petitions and then wonder why they end up receiving a Request For Evidence (RFE) or a denial.
If you are talking about your work in your petition, you need to explain your work and its impact in simple layman's terms, and those claims should be backed by solid, undeniable evidence.
Given the glaring misconceptions and myths surrounding the EB1A visa and the lack of awareness about this particular immigration pathway among the tech professionals working in the US, immigration consultancies, like EB1A Experts, can help a great deal.
EB1A Experts is an immigration consultancy company, founded by Raghu Reddy Suram, who is himself an EB1A green card recipient. EB1A Experts stands out among its competitors because it brings a perspective that most immigration consultancies don’t - its founder has been through the entire process of EB1A visa and successfully qualified for it.
The company has helped 300+ tech professionals qualify for EB1A green card. Its team of highly specialized experts provides assistance with evidence strategy and compelling narrative development, translating your work, which is filled with complex, high-level milestones, into accessible and highly persuasive legal briefs that demonstrate exactly how your unique talents directly impacted the larger industry.
In light of the current precarious scenario where tech companies are on their way to slash the headcount of their workforce, the legal status of those immigrant tech professionals, who have been working in the US for years on temporary visas like H-1B, is in danger. It is natural for several tech professionals to pivot towards a visa pathway that decouples their immigration status from their employer and sets them free to pursue their American dream. As a result, immigration consulting companies like EB1A Experts become saviours for highly talented tech professionals who are willing to explore the EB1A green card pathway.
