Immigration Attorneys

EB-12 Outstanding Professors or Researchers

To qualify for an immigrant visa in this category:

  1. The foreign national must be recognized internationally as outstanding in a specific academic area.
  1. The foreign national must have at least three (3) years teaching or research experience in the academic area. Experience in teaching or research while working on advanced degree may be counted if degree is acquired, person had full responsibility for the class taught, or the research has been recognized as outstanding in the academic field.
  1. For professors, the position must be a tenure track position.
  1. The professor or researcher position offered must be a “permanent” position and, if the petitioner is a private company applying for a foreign national researcher, it must employ at least three persons full-time in research activities and have achieved documented accomplishments in an academic field.
  1. Proof of international recognition must be shown by meeting at least two of the six criteria set forth at 8 CFR §204.5(i)(3)(i). These criteria are:
  • (a) Documentation of the alien’s receipt of major prizes or awards for outstanding achievement in the academic field;
  • (b) Documentation of the alien’s membership in associations in the academic field which require outstanding achievements of their members;
  • (c) Published material in professional publications written by others about the alien’s work in the academic field (such material shall include the title, date and author of the material and any necessary translation);
  • (d) Evidence of the alien’s participation, either individually or on a panel, as the judge of the work of others in the same or an allied academic field;
  • (e) Evidence of the alien’s original scientific or scholarly research contributions to the academic field; or
  • (f) Evidence of the alien’s authorship of scholarly books or articles (in scholarly journals with international circulation) in the academic field.

Labor Certification is not required for an EB-12 employment-based immigration case for a person who qualifies as an “Outstanding Professor” or “Outstanding Researcher.” An EB-12 case, however, still requires employer sponsorship (i.e. the employer petitions for the foreign national).