After the second Trump administration took over power in the US, there have been so much of restrictions over H-1B visa including the $100k fee. Now, attention is shifting to the EB-1A category, a green card route meant for individuals with extraordinary ability in fields such as science, arts, education, business and athletics.
What is EB-1A visa?
The EB-1A green card is designed for people at the very top of their fields. Applicants do not need an employer or a labour certification. Instead, they must show sustained national or international recognition through their work and achievements.
Stricter scrutiny by USCIS
According to Immigration Attorney Kevin J. Andrews, USCIS has been tightening the screws on EB-1A this past year.
“Higher evidentiary standards. Stricter adjudications.
Petitioners are increasingly being asked to submit more detailed proof, and approvals are becoming harder to secure even for strong profiles,” he said.
“At the same time, the administration rolled out the Gold Card, where the evidentiary standard is simple: Show me the money Same visa category and annual caps. One path is harder. The other is a wire transfer. Yesterday, the lawsuit finally arrived. The American Association of University Professors and a coalition of immigrant researchers are challenging the Gold Card, calling it a Frankenstein monster of immigration law,” he added.
Core argument
The lawsuit claims the prestige visa categories of EB-1 and EB-2, skips the investment requirements Congress built into EB-5, and treats a bank statement as more dispositive than years of documented achievement. It argues that Congress defined “extraordinary ability” through accomplishment, not account balances.
As plaintiff’s counsel put it, Congress made deliberate choices about these categories. “None of those categories include ‘give us a million dollars.’” Most immigration attorneys have been telling clients to wait on Gold Card filing since September.
According to the attorney, if you filed under the Gold Card, you may have purchased a front-row seat to years of constitutional litigation. For now, applicants pursuing EB-1A are being advised to prepare for tougher scrutiny, while the future of the Gold Card remains tied up in court.
Another ruling on EB-1A
A United States federal judge delivered a major ruling that could significantly reshape how “extraordinary ability” green card (EB-1A) applications are evaluated in the future.
In an order dated January 28, 2026, Senior US District Judge Joseph F. Bataillon ruled that a long-standing USCIS practice known as the Kazarian Rule, or “Final Merits Analysis,” is unlawful. The decision has the potential to benefit thousands of applicants whose EB-1A petitions were denied over the past 15 years.
Judge Bataillon held that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services never had the legal authority to introduce a second “final merits” step in the EB-1A adjudication process in the manner it did. The court noted that the agency implemented this requirement through internal policy memoranda, rather than through formal rulemaking, which legally requires public notice, opportunity for comment, and a clear explanation for the change.
The ruling also found that USCIS failed to adequately justify why it departed from its earlier, long-established approach to evaluating extraordinary ability cases. As a result, the judge concluded that the second step of the Kazarian two-part test does not constitute valid law.
Because USCIS has relied on the Kazarian framework for more than a decade, the judgment raises questions about the legality of many past EB-1A denials. Applicants affected by those decisions may now have grounds to challenge USCIS, seeking to reopen and re-adjudicate their cases under the correct legal standard.