Hi Reader,

You checked the lottery results.

Your name was not there.

And right now you are probably in one of two places. Either you are mentally preparing to leave. Or you are telling yourself next year will be different.

I want to talk to you about the third option.

Because there are people in your exact situation who are not sitting around waiting for next year's lottery. They are not packing their bags. They are not starting over in Canada or the Netherlands.

They found a different path. And right now they are moving on it while everyone else is still stuck in the grief of the lottery result.

Let me tell you about Akash.

Akash is a product manager at one of the biggest tech companies in the Bay Area. He is not famous. He is not a celebrity. He is not a Nobel Prize winner or a household name. He is just a really talented PM doing his job well.

He came to the US for his masters degree. Got a good job. Good salary. Did everything right.

For three years in a row, he entered the H1B lottery.

For three years in a row, nothing.

By the third rejection, he had 60 days left before he had to leave the country. He had already called his parents back home and told them he might be coming back. He had already started looking at jobs in other countries. His company had agreed to transfer him to the Netherlands. The visa paperwork was already in motion.

He was mentally done with America.

Then someone mentioned the O1 visa.

His first reaction was exactly what yours probably is right now. That is not for me. That is for executives and Nobel Prize winners and people who are famous. That is not for a regular PM.

But with 60 days left and nothing to lose, he decided to look into it anyway.

What he found changed everything.

What the O1 actually is

The O1 is not a lottery. There is no random computer picking your name. There is no annual cap you are competing against. You can file it any time of the year.

USCIS reviews your petition, looks at your evidence, and makes a decision based on your merit.

That is it.

The current approval rate for properly filed O1 petitions sits at around 94%. Compare that to the H1B lottery odds of roughly 25% and you start to understand why the people who know about this are not waiting around for next year.

The visa requires you to demonstrate that you are among the top people in your field. Not the top one percent. Not globally famous. Among the top in what you do.

And it has eight criteria. You need to meet three of them. Most strong petitions are built around four to five.

For someone like Akash, a product manager with a few years of solid experience, the relevant criteria looked like this. He had published articles about product strategy. He had spoken at industry events. He had led high-impact product launches with documented business outcomes. He had received recognition in tech publications. He had mentored junior PMs in a formal capacity.

He had done all of this. He just had never looked at his own career through the lens of extraordinary ability. He had never framed it that way.

That is the shift most people miss.

What Akash actually did in those 60 days

Once he understood the criteria, he did not waste a single day.

After his full-time job, he was spending five to six hours every night building his case. He reached out to more than fifty people in his network to gather recommendations and supporting documentation. He went through every project he had ever touched, looking for proof of impact. He collected old research, internal presentations, performance reviews, anything that showed he had played a meaningful role.

He worked with immigration lawyers around the clock to put together a strong petition.

Then he filed with premium processing.

With four days left on his OPT, he had already decided this was his last trip to Yosemite. One final memory before he went home.

Then the approval came through.

Approved. In the United States. Building his life here. Because he did not assume the answer was no before he asked the question.

What happened next is the part most people do not know

Getting the O1 was not the end of Akash's story. It was the beginning of the next chapter.

Because here is the reality for Indian nationals pursuing a green card through the traditional employer-sponsored route.

The EB2 PERM backlog for India is currently over 100 years. That is not a typo.

At the current rate of processing, Indian nationals who enter the EB2 queue today would not see their green card in their lifetime.

Akash understood this after getting his O1. And he realized something. If he could build a case strong enough for O1, he might be able to build a case for EB1A.

EB1A is the employment-based first preference green card for people with extraordinary ability. It is the green card equivalent of the O1. No employer sponsorship required. No PERM labor certification. No waiting for an employer to decide when and whether to start the process for you.

You own it. You file it. It is yours.

The criteria for EB1A has ten items and you need to meet at least three. The bar is higher than O1. The approval rate sits around 66%. It requires what USCIS calls sustained national or international acclaim, meaning a body of work over time, not a single achievement.

Akash spent 18 months building toward it. Writing more. Speaking more. Documenting everything. Building the kind of paper trail that tells a clear story about sustained impact in his field.

He filed. He got an RFE, a request for evidence, which is USCIS asking for more documentation before they make a decision.

His lawyers at Manifest responded to the RFE directly and thoroughly, addressing every point USCIS raised. And the I-140, the immigrant petition that puts you on the path to a green card, was approved.

18 months. For a green card. When the EB2 route would have taken over a century.

That is what happens when someone stops waiting for the system to work for them and starts building a path that actually fits their situation.

What this means for you right now

If you have just lost the H1B lottery, or if you have been on H1B for years and watching the green card backlog stretch further into the distance, this is the conversation you need to be having.

Not next year. Now.

Because the O1 and EB1A paths reward people who start early. EB1A specifically looks for sustained acclaim over time. The longer you have been building a visible track record in your field, the stronger your case.

Every article you write, every talk you give, every project you lead with documented outcomes, every time you mentor someone formally or review someone's work, every time your salary is demonstrably above others in your field. All of it becomes evidence.

Most people start thinking about this when they are desperate. With 60 days left, like Akash. And it can still work, he proved that. But if he could go back to the day he landed in the US, he would have started building his profile from day one.

You do not need to be in crisis to start. You just need to start.

The single most useful thing you can do today is find out where your profile actually stands. Not guess. Not read eligibility lists and self-reject. Get an actual assessment from someone who reviews these cases every day.

The H1B lottery is not the only game in town. It just feels that way because nobody told you about the other one.

Akash is not special. He is not exceptional in any way that you are not. He is a regular person who did regular work and learned how to frame it correctly.

The difference between him and the people who got on a plane back home was not talent.

It was the decision to try.

Watch the full video here to go deeper on O1 and EB1A, including a breakdown of all the criteria and what each one actually requires: YouTube video​

And if you have questions about your specific situation, drop them in the comments. I read all of them.

One more thing before you go.

I am hosting a free live QnA Immigration session next week with an immigration lawyer. You can ask questions live.

​Register for the session here.​

This Week in US Immigration

1. The $100K H1B fee was struck down.

If you are on F1 or OPT, your H1B lottery odds this year were actually better because fewer outside applicants competed. If your employer wants to bring someone from India on H1B, the fee barrier is temporarily removed. But an appeal is coming. Do not make any travel or filing decisions based on this ruling yet. Watch the full breakdown.

2. B1/B2 expedited appointments coming July 1 for $750.

If your parents are waiting years for a US visitor visa appointment, this pilot program could help. It guarantees a faster interview slot only, not visa approval. Participating consulates have not been announced yet. Do not pay anything until July when the consulate list is published.

Disclaimer: The information in this newsletter is for general awareness only. It is not legal advice and should not be treated as such. Immigration law is complex and every situation is different. I am not an immigration attorney. Nothing here creates an attorney-client relationship. For advice specific to your situation, please consult a licensed US immigration attorney before making any decisions.