I work in tech and people keep telling me an O-1 move to the US is doable “if you build the right case”. Curious what that actually looked like for people here: how many recommendation letters, what kind of press or awards genuinely mattered, and how long it realistically took from start to approval. Trying to figure out if it’s within reach or just marketing.

  • bitofarambler@crazypeople.onlineEnglish
    8·
    8 hours ago

    Hey there. Haven’t done it myself but I have helped prepare many visas, including 0-1 visa applications. They’re real and they are historically granted, but you’ll need a powerful sponsor and you will have to prove your extraordinary ability via multiple prestigious awards in your field, high ranking CEO suite titles, published work, patents for your inventions.

    Accolades should be clearly about you or you have to be the clear leader or figure of interest in a team, and multiple examples of your unique exceptionalism is what they’re looking for.

    That said, the US visa and immigration system is currently operating extremely and critically unreliably, and there’s no guarantee that if you put in a lot of time, effort and money that the visa/immigration process won’t be entirely changed or negated on a whim. Even after you may be “officially” granted your visa, it could be canceled at any moment and you could arbitrarily become a “criminal” through no fault of your own.

    You’d have some assurance of success if you met all the above requirements and are being escorted through the system by a very powerful company with a high-profile leader, but i want to stress that there is no reliability or continuity of US visa/immigration procedure in the US right now, constitutional or statutory, so you want to have complete faith in your sponsor.

    I know several people who can’t even get 1-week US tourist visas for no valid reason, rejected up to 4 times in a row before they quit applying despite far exceeding the procedural requirements.