Dear friends,
We wanted to share an important and encouraging development for the EB-1A community.
This week, a federal court in Nebraska issued a strong decision holding that USCIS adopted the Kazarian two step framework in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. In plain terms, the court found that USCIS never lawfully created the so-called final merits determination that has become the basis for so many EB-1A denials.
In this case, USCIS agreed that the petitioner met well over the required regulatory criteria. But it still denied the case at the final stage, relying on a subjective assessment of whether she had remained at the very top of her field for a sustained period of time. The court rejected that approach outright.
The judge held that USCIS fundamentally changed EB-1A adjudications by adding a second step that does not appear in the statute or the regulations, and that it did so without notice and comment rulemaking as required by law. Because of that, the final merits framework was deemed unlawful, arbitrary, and capricious. The court did not just remand the case. It ordered USCIS to approve it.
Why this matters:
For years, many extraordinary professionals have done everything the regulations require, only to be denied because an officer subjectively decided their acclaim was not sustained enough, recent enough, or impressive enough in the officer’s view. This decision pushes back hard on that practice.
While this ruling technically applies to a case out of the Nebraska Service Center, its reasoning is broader. The court relied heavily on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Loper Bright, which significantly curtailed Chevron deference. Courts are no longer required to defer to agency interpretations simply because a statute is ambiguous. That makes this decision potentially persuasive well beyond Nebraska.
For EB-1A aspirants, this is real hope. It reinforces the idea that USCIS does not have unlimited discretion to invent extra hurdles after you meet the regulatory criteria. It also strengthens legal challenges to denials that rely on vague, moving goalposts at the final merits stage.
If you have received an EB-1A denial, especially one based on a final merits determination after USCIS acknowledged that you met the regulatory criteria, we encourage you to reach out. In appropriate cases, we can file a federal lawsuit challenging the denial and push back on exactly this kind of overreach.
We do not expect USCIS to change course overnight. But decisions like this matter. They shape litigation strategy, influence how future cases are argued, and slowly reset the boundaries of agency power.
As always, we will keep fighting for fairness, clarity, and accountability in high-skilled immigration.
Warmly,
Sameer
