Hello! The attorney is giving a lot of attention for reference letters and I am finding it hard to find the right people to write me a letter. How much emphasis immigration officers put on reference letters? Thank you!
Super super important. They will ask you for letters from references outside of US too
Remember EB1A is about showing "significance". If you don't have a 1000s of citations or a major award, your recommendation letters need to be really strong and from people who are considered topmost on their field.
Very very very important. Take the time to approach and convince the right people to write these reference letters. And a bunch of them need to be from people beyond 2nd degree connections to you and well known in your field. Nowadays EB1 applications are getting scrutinized even more carefully and lots more people are getting RFIs than before. Back in my day (2010-11), I simply reused my O-1 reference letters as-is for my EB1-b.
Good old days that you can pass eb1 with 30 citation. No more.
DM me if you want to chat.
It's super important. For a strong case, they have to be from people who are geographically distributed (eg. not all of them from US) and they have to be from people who are experts in your field who you do not directly know, but know you through your work -- this eliminates your co-authors and even people affiliated with your past and present institutions. This is of course the ideal case for the strongest chance.
No, co-authors is fair play
I disagree with FXzH34's disagreement. For the strongest case, the people who are recommending you should know you only through your work and have not worked with you in the past, either as a co-author or as a colleague in your institution.