is US employment a must for EB1A or NIW?

[nerf]

I am asking this for one of my relatives who works in China. Your comments will be sincerely appreciated if you can help me evaluate his following case:

My relative is an internationally well known expert in his area, has won numerous national awards and tens of national research grants, and has published extensively in numerous prestigious international journals. Basically he satisfies EB1-EA and EB1-OR easily.

Now he wants to probe the possibility to immigrate to U.S.. The question is, can he self-apply for permanent residence under EB1-E1 or EB1-OR or NIW WITHOUT US employment? Or does he have to at least launch a temporary US job (like visiting professor) to start such a petition?

I know EB1-OR requires employment and employer sponsorship. So this is dead end. This leaves EB1-EA and NIW the only remaining options.

I also have the impression that NIW does not require US employer sponsorship, or even US employment is unnecessary. At least some people who are still doing their PHD successfully get their GC.

EB1-EA is the tricky one: on page 1 of I-140 instruction it says
"In addition, a person may file this petition on his or her own behalf if he or she
1. Has extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education,business, or athletics demonstrated by sustained national or international acclaim, whose achievements have been recognized in the field". Based on the above quote, it does not seem to require US employment or employment sponsorship for EB1-EA to self-apply. Moreover, it does not even require the beneficiary to be physically in U.S. for the application?

So is the answer yes, or at least theoretically yes? That is, a foreigner can apply for EB1-EA (or NIW, with similar phrase in the instruction) himself without US employment or US employment sponsorship? Any comments are welcome!

 

[nscagony]

Sure. You don't need to be in the US or have a job here. Thats definitively not a requirement. However, you should be internationally known for your work. Just using Chinese colleagues as reference will likely not be sufficient. He needs a few good letters from the US and Europe and he should be ok. He can do consular processing instead of I-485.

 

[nerf]

Thanks for the confirmation. I understand the importance of international references, and my relative should have no problem getting them.

Sure. You don't need to be in the US or have a job here. Thats definitively not a requirement. However, you should be internationally known for your work. Just using Chinese colleagues as reference will likely not be sufficient. He needs a few good letters from the US and Europe and he should be ok. He can do consular processing instead of I-485.