It is a system with a feedback time of months-years. At these time horizons, you can’t do rapid iterations, and you have to be extremely risk-averse. The system is also indeterministic so not conducive to hacking.
My application for EB2-NIW was recently denied for totally inappropriate reasons. The process has a randomness component to it, what you can do is to maximize your chance of success but it’s still a chance.
Why not just start a business, be 'firable' using the article's strategy, then hire yourself out as a contract company thus be able to work for anyone while technically only working for your own sponsor company.
This applies to many different visas. The point is to ensure you are actually employed and not just here to subsist off of social services or working for illegal enterprises (i.e. organized crime). You can change jobs but the new employer must agree to sponsor you. Visas are not permanent residencies or citizenship. If you just want to tour the country or take university classes, get a tourist or student visa. If you did all the work to prove your "extraordinary abilities", you should be putting them to use. And yes, perhaps freelance work should be eligible for employment status but I feel that can be accomplished through some creative structuring of a tiny contracting firm.
I can easily compare an O-1 visa to being accepted to a prestigious university. You proved you are smart and talented enough to be there but if you don't actually put in the work (get good grades/stay employed), you get kicked out so that someone else just as smart and talented can take your place.
> Nice, just like in the good old days with serfs and feudal lords.
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.
Serfs were largely agricultural workers bound under the feudal system to work on their lord's estate. Foreign workers aren't serfs. They're not bound to a particular estate, nor do they typically execute agricultural work. They have the right to collectively bargain their salary, working conditions, and benefits. They are free to resign their position and leave the country.
The O-1 visa is a temporary worker visa. The expectation is that folks on a temporary work visa work temporarily. That is, there is no intent to immigrate.
You are also not bound to a particular employer. You're only bound to that employer on that visa instance. You can, if you like, apply for another O-1 visa sponsored by a different employer.
There are, in some cases, restrictions on work even for folks that have the right to work and live in the US. For example, if company A contracts out work to company B, it is often not permitted for company A to offer workers at company B full-time positions at company A because of the existence of the contract. If someone freelances for company A they often can't also hold full-time positions at a competitor to company A. Is this feudalism? Of course not.
TL;DR: Freedom to work does not imply or mean, "I can do whatever work I want for whoever I want." There are rules, regulations and laws present for a reason. We can debate whether or not those reasons exist in good faith, but equating "I can only work for one specific employer on a temporary work visa" to serfdom is awfully disingenuous, in my opinion.
That’s false. You can apply for EB visas from outside the US. After the approval of the I-140 (application for employment-based visa), instead of “adjustment” of your visa status in the US, you perform immigrant visa processing at your local consulate to get your green card.
You can still travel after filing the I-140 but not after filing the I-485 (adjustment) without advance parole.
Not sure why this comment is being downvoted. It's exactly right: you can apply for EB visas (or any other permanent resident classification you're eligible for) without any prior connection to the US and get an "immigrant visa" in your passport to travel to the US.
While your greencard is processed you can indefinitely renew your current visa (eg HB1 you get it for 3 years and can renew only once, with application pending you can keep renewing it).
Also, Green Card has different stages with their own limitations PERM -> I140 -> I485 -> green card.
Okay, let's try this another way. 8 US Code § 1153, "Allocation of immigrant visas," has the section for EB (employment-based) immigrants. (b) (1) begins: "Visas shall first be made available...to qualified immigrants who are aliens described in any of the following subparagraphs (A) through (C): (A) Aliens with extraordinary ability, (B) Outstanding professors and researchers, (C) Certain multinational executives and managers".
Is this section of the U.S. code talking about EB-1s when it says "Visas shall be made available," and, if not, what is it talking about?
It's not common for people with no prior connection to the US get one of these, but it is 100% possible. You can look up statistics on the number of employment green card visas issued here: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/v... In the PDF you need to search for E1, E2, etc.
you're missing the point. the immigration "visa" is actually the green card. while your greencard, under EB-X category is processing, you still need a "proper" dual-intent visa like HB1.
You don’t need to be the US while applying for a green card. You can be living in, like, France, and apply for an EB1 green card with USCIS and then when it’s approved go to the US Embassy for a EB1 visa stamp and move to the US. This is what I meant.
In this case you don’t need a non immigrant visa because you don’t live in the US while it’s processing.
I am an F-1 doing an EB2-NIW so I have some background around these topics.
1. The bar is very high. You must show that you have "risen to the top of your field" through very substantive evidence. There is a list of admissible evidence on the USCIS website. An attorney can discuss whether this is worth pursuing from your credentials.
2. The USCIS values citations but it's not everything. In my petition, I relied on reference letters from experts in the field who have cited my work from across the country. Again, an attorney can help with this.
3. You must not have immigration intent at the start of your F-1 period. However, you can change your mind afterwards and you can file an I-140 after 90 days, which is what USCIS considers a "long enough" time period. But in doing so, you have demonstrated your intent to stay and it's highly recommended that you do not leave the country until you get your GC.
Not attempting to claim malfeasance or anything but PNAS has a weird "contributed article" track (this article is one of them) in which the authors _can pick their own reviewers_ [1].
"Only 18% of direct submissions were published in 2013, whereas more than 98% of contributed papers were published, according to figures on the journal's website" [2].
Note that the authors compared blood erythritol level, not _intake_. Erythritol is also a metabolite, which is produced by the pentose phosphate pathway, and has been associated with metabolic dysfunction before.
Verbatim response to that tweet, from a highly qualified friend with relevant scientific expertise:
"idk that critique is pretty dismissive of the actual experimental evidence that they generated in the study… consuming an erythritol sweetened beverage raises the erythritol level in the blood to a level that clearly causes an effect on platelets, and coincides with the difference between the measured levels in the observational study… seems pretty convincing to me".
Can't you recommend someone stop drinking alcohol (for behavioral/psychological or physiological health issues) without giving him something that tastes like alcohol and inebriates you like alcohol?
If you want the lowest risk option and don't experience any of the side effects, aspartame should be your choice. A 'newer' and promising substitute is Allulose, though some people report bowel complaints.
Er... Aspartame is a NMDA receptor antagonist, but at a site where it actually increases NMDA activity. I get super panicky and jittery/feel like my nerves are physically overloaded with Aspartame. My mom would call her reactions "aspartame headaches"
Each sweetener is different and different for different people. Allulose is not metabolized by the body but is free for all those bacteria to eat! Yum! Much much more sugar for the bacteria. It does taste truly lovely though, that said. Stevia glycosides are not bad at all with the taste a bit to get used to. Sucralose is just sucrose IIRC with three chlorine atoms... substituted on it? I think? It's not taken up in your intestine but it does block the transporter in bacteria/yeast that does take it up. So, havoc on the gut flora! I'm pretty sure it kills the bacteria/yeast too. I think.
Acesulfate Potassium is okay but it activates your insulin receptors, so your blood sugar plummets. I can barely stay awake after a single diet cheerwine for that reason.
Glycine is a fun one that's expensive that no one uses. It's literally the opposite of aspartame, even binds to the same receptor at the same receptor site, just... Opposite! It's also like magnesium in which lots of people could use to have it/maybe are deficient in it...I think (don't quote me on that please! D:) I always wanted to try it dusted on a blueberry cake donut. :3
We don't talk about saccharine, but D-ribose (this one is actually caloric) is very expensive but tastes fantastic and is great for your mitochondria to boot! It's a DNA building block as well. I use it when going on ultra-long physical excursions. Blackstrap molasses is great for cutting with any of the above sweeteners for cheap caramelly roasted toasted robust flavor without many calories. Inulin, a digestible fiber is also sweet and worth a shot! (I don't think it's super cheap, but I don't think it's break the bank or no).
Oh, 70% sucralose solution is fun (and cheap!) too. It's 600x sweeter than sugar lol. It tastes almost soapy bitter it activates whatever receptors so strongly lol. I love it. Sometimes it leaks and crystalizes on the outside of the bottle. What a rush it is to have those. Oh, to see my life flash before my eyes like that again....
I use that as my emergency sweetener sparingly. I have a small bottle that's lasted me for years at this point.
Stevia from Trader Joe's is my go to. I add it to beans with molasses and some garlic infused oil and some spicy stuff and such. Yummmmmmm. Gonna have to have some of that soon!
So there you go. There's more of course (like some corn fiber of some kind IIRC), but those are a lot of the main ones. And erythritol. But I say use what's good for you. It's literally different for each person. They're drugs but boy do I like the sweet flavor, and Stevia is a good tradeoff for me that I've come to love so much.
Hope that was interesting, if you made it to this point, thanks for reading and so much love! :)))) <3 <3 <3 <3 :))))
Great write-up! Thanks for putting it all together. Just want to add: Aspartame is extensively studied, the known side effects are very well understood and the probability of undiscovered side effects is extremely low. That's why I wrote lowest-risk. That is, if you don't experience the side effects.
The problem with monk fruit is that while it seems relatively benign on its own, many/most commercial products that claim to be "sweetened with monk fruit extract" actually have other cheaper commercial sweeteners mixed in.
If you google "monk fruit extract diarrhea" theres a good amount out there on this.
So you may switch to monk fruit thinking its a better alternative but actually be consuming erythritol anyway.
I'm pretty sure you're referring to the poor health outcomes correlating with high caloric intake, which afaict, come from people's consumption of heating oils (seed oils): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable_oil
There's bound to be mixups what talking about sugars and fats. But these fuel oils are really really bad for us. We've demonized sugars unnecessarily. Right?
Good point. This paper gets more hype then is appropriate. First it looked at a group of already very sick people:
> Over 40% had already had a heart attack. Over 15% were in heart failure. Over 25% had type 2 diabetes. Over 70% had hypertension. And over 70% had coronary artery disease! [1]
This is important because:
> people with this metabolic profile (Syndrome X) have been shown to have an overactive PPP & likely produce more erythritol (PMID: 20711518) Therefore, it is highly likely that this paper is simply a case of reverse causality. [1]
This gets underscored through:
> the authors’ finding that erythritol levels remain well above the cohort ranges for at least a day after consumption, suggests that none of the cohort patients were consuming erythritol in their diets [2]
Here's a study from 2017 showing that adiposity (basically having a gut and/or being overweight as far as I understand) correlates to elevated levels of Erythritol in the bloodstream. n=264 and the test subjects are all college freshmen so presumably in much better overall health than the subjects of the study that's been getting hyped in the news, so definitely looking like reverse causality here: https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1620079114
Edit: From the paper -
"Erythritol was shown to be synthesized endogenously from glucose via the pentose-phosphate pathway (PPP) in stable isotope-assisted ex vivo blood incubation experiments and through in vivo conversion of erythritol to erythronate in stable isotope-assisted dried blood spot experiments. Therefore, endogenous production of
erythritol from glucose may contribute to the association between erythritol and obesity observed in young adults."
