Two U.S. green cards need no employer. Whether your record carries one is a question of evidence.
EB-1A and EB-2 NIW are self-petitions. No sponsor, no lottery, no half-million-dollar investment. What they ask for instead is documented proof of what you have already built — and that is the part almost nobody reads honestly before spending money on it.
Free, and it commits you to nothing.
0 / 10 · three is the regulatory minimum
Check what already exists in your record. Nothing here is stored on our servers.
Start the free assessmentWhy this goes wrong
The industry sells you the filing before anyone reads your record
The usual sequence is backwards. You pay a retainer, and only then does someone look carefully at what you actually have. By the time the honest answer arrives — that the record is thin, that a criterion was documented the wrong way, that the endeavor was never framed as nationally important — the money is spent and the incentive to say so is gone.
A petition under 8 CFR 204.5(h)(3) is not a form. It is an evidentiary argument: ten criteria exist, three are the minimum, and USCIS then weighs everything together in what the agency calls a final merits determination. Meeting three on paper and losing on the merits is one of the most common ways these cases die.
So we invert it. The read on your record comes first, in writing, at no cost. If your record does not carry a case yet, you find that out before you spend anything — and you find out what would have to change.
How it works
Four steps, and the first two cost nothing
The assessment
You answer a structured questionnaire about your field, your years in it and what already exists in your record. It takes about ten minutes.
The written read
You get back which pathway fits, which criteria your record plausibly reaches, and what is missing. In writing, so you can act on it — or take it elsewhere.
Building the case
If we take the case on, we build the evidentiary record: exhibits, expert letters, and the brief that ties them to the standard. This is the paid work, at a published price.
Filing
A U.S.-licensed immigration attorney reviews, signs the Form G-28 and files with USCIS as counsel of record. Responses to any Request for Evidence are included.
Pathways
Permanent residence through work and merit
Two of these you file for yourself. The rest need a U.S. employer behind them — which changes who the client is, how long it takes and what it costs. The distinction matters more than the category names, so we lead with it.
Extraordinary Ability
For people at the top of their field who can document it. No employer, no job offer, and the fastest of the employment-based green cards.
You file it yourself
EB-2 NIWNational Interest Waiver
For people whose work is in the national interest of the United States. Waives both the job offer and the labor certification — so you file it yourself.
You file it yourself
Who does the work
Built on this side, signed on that side
Meritus is a brand of Brown Lima LLC. We do case preparation and assessment: reading the record, structuring the evidence, drafting the argument that connects one to the other. That is the work that decides these cases, and it is the work we do.
Filing is a separate act, and a regulated one. Every petition is reviewed, signed and filed by a U.S.-licensed immigration attorney, who appears on the Form G-28 as counsel of record before USCIS. You will know who that is before anything is filed in your name.
The founder of Meritus is not a U.S. attorney and does not present himself as one. That separation is deliberate, and it is why the structure is stated plainly here instead of buried in a footer.