My EB2-NIW RFE Letter!

J

JerIst

Registered Users (C)
RFE Letter:

PAGE 1:-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The documentation submitted is not sufficient to warrant favorable consideration of your petition/application.

See Attachment for Details
Your response must be received in this office by March 14, 2008

Your case is being held in this office pending your response. Within this period you may:
1. Submit all of the evidence requested.
2. Submit some or none of the evidence requested and ask for a decision based upon the record; or
3. Withdraw the application or petition. (It is noted that if you request that the application or petition be withdrawn, the filing fee cannot be refunded).

You must submit all of the evidence at one time. Submission of only part of the evidence requested will be considered a request for a decision based upon the record. No extension of the period allowed to submit evidence will be granted. If the evidence submitted does not establish that your ase was approvable at the time it was filed, it can be denied.

If you do not respond to this request withing the time allowed, your case will be considered abandoned and denied. Evidence received in this offce after the due date may not be considered.

PLACE THIS LETTER ON TOP OF YOUR RESPONSE. SUBMISSION OF EVIDENCE WITHOUT THIS LETTER WILL DELAT PROCESSING OF YOUR CASE AND MAY RESULT IN A DENIAL. PLEASE USE THE ENCLOSED ENVELOP TO MAIL ADDITIONAL EVIDENE REQUEST BACL TO THIS OFFICE.

Sincerely,
F. Gerard Heinauer
Diretor NSC


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Additional evidence is requested to assit the Service evaluate eligibility for a national interest waiver pursuant to the tests established in Matter of New York State Dep of Transportaion, 22 I&N Dec. 215 (Comm. 1998). (Please note: the evidence already submitted demonstrates that the proposed research employment has substantial intrinsic merit and national in scope).

Please submit any available additional documentary evidence that, as of the petition priority date, you had a degree of influence on your field that distinguishes you from other scientists with comparable academic/professional qualifications. The evidence may include, for example, copies of additional published articles that cite or otherwise recognize your research achievments. Similarly, evidence of official recognition conferred on you by governmental entities or professional organizations may also be submitted.

If applicable, please submit evidence in the form of letters from current or former emploers showing that you have at least ten years of full-time employment experience in your feild of endeavor.

Please submit evidence of your annual salary, or remunerations for your services in your field as evidence of your exceptional ability.

Please submit evidence of your memberships in professionals associations.

Please submit additional avidence of your personal recognition for achievements and significant contributions to your field by peers, governmental entities, or professional organizations.
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Do you have an advanced degree? Why do they ask for 10 years experience? That doesn't make any sense.

JerIst said:
RFE Letter:

PAGE 1:-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The documentation submitted is not sufficient to warrant favorable consideration of your petition/application.

See Attachment for Details
Your response must be received in this office by March 14, 2008

Your case is being held in this office pending your response. Within this period you may:
1. Submit all of the evidence requested.
2. Submit some or none of the evidence requested and ask for a decision based upon the record; or
3. Withdraw the application or petition. (It is noted that if you request that the application or petition be withdrawn, the filing fee cannot be refunded).

You must submit all of the evidence at one time. Submission of only part of the evidence requested will be considered a request for a decision based upon the record. No extension of the period allowed to submit evidence will be granted. If the evidence submitted does not establish that your ase was approvable at the time it was filed, it can be denied.

If you do not respond to this request withing the time allowed, your case will be considered abandoned and denied. Evidence received in this offce after the due date may not be considered.

PLACE THIS LETTER ON TOP OF YOUR RESPONSE. SUBMISSION OF EVIDENCE WITHOUT THIS LETTER WILL DELAT PROCESSING OF YOUR CASE AND MAY RESULT IN A DENIAL. PLEASE USE THE ENCLOSED ENVELOP TO MAIL ADDITIONAL EVIDENE REQUEST BACL TO THIS OFFICE.

Sincerely,
F. Gerard Heinauer
Diretor NSC


PAGE 2:-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Additional evidence is requested to assit the Service evaluate eligibility for a national interest waiver pursuant to the tests established in Matter of New York State Dep of Transportaion, 22 I&N Dec. 215 (Comm. 1998). (Please note: the evidence already submitted demonstrates that the proposed research employment has substantial intrinsic merit and national in scope).

Please submit any available additional documentary evidence that, as of the petition priority date, you had a degree of influence on your field that distinguishes you from other scientists with comparable academic/professional qualifications. The evidence may include, for example, copies of additional published articles that cite or otherwise recognize your research achievments. Similarly, eidence of official recognition conferred on you by governmental entities or professional organizations may also be submitted.

If applicable, please submit evidence in the form of letters from current or former emploers showing that you have at least ten years of full-time employment experience in your feild of endeavor.

Please submit evidence of your annual salary, or remunerations for your services in your field as evidence of your exceptional ability.

Please submit evidence of your memberships in professionals associations.

Please submit additional avidence of your personal recognition for achievements and significant contributions to your field by peers, governmental entities, or professional organizations.
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Click to expand...
 
I have a Ph.D. and post doc experience too, and oh one year of teaching experience at assistant professor level...... Nothing makes sense in this letter at all... It is a generic one... I even found a similar one here:

http://boards.immigration.com/showthread.php?t=217704

Why they are asking about my salary?? There is no job offer needed for NIW. My salary is great, but what difference this makes here???

Also, they ask about government entities and peers... I did turn in 10 reco letters, two from directors of funding programs, the only relevant ones in the US... What government entities else they are seeking? Foreign ones ?? There are no other than these two agencies in the US that fund the work I do... Computational Intellgience.... Funded by NSF and Army Research Office! I cannot think of other agenices to contact...

I am pissed off from this RFE... The officer certainly did not go through my file, else he/she would have come up with better questions to ask.
 
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Which one ? Exceptional Ability or Advanced Degree

JerIst
Want to ask you. Did you file as `an alien of Exceptional ability' or did you file as`a member of professions holding an advanced degree' ?. Also, did you mention in your letter (other than in the I-140 form) you are requesting NIW ?. In other words, did you clearly emphasize in the cover letter something like ``I hold a Ph.D in the field of Computational Intelligence. This petition is on the basis that I am a member of the professions holding an advanced degree. Please note that I am requesting a waiver of the labor certificate requirement under 8 CFR §204.5(k)(4)(ii) as such a waiver is in the national interest''.

I am puzzled because why should they ask professional memberships, 10 years experience etc. if you claim to have only advanced degree. [Yes, I agree there is only one check box to fill in the I-140 whether it is Advanced Degree or Exceptional Ability- however, in your cover letter you can clearly say which one you are claiming for]. To me it looks like they considered you for Exceptional Ability, may be because you didn't clearly emphasize in your cover letter that you want to be considered for Advanced Degree. Also, it seems that they didn't consider you in NIW, otherwise why should they ask for job offer letter ? (yes, I see that they write that your work is in National Interest and has substantial intrinsic merit). Sorry, I couldn't help much- because I am thoroughly confused. Probably they didn't read your cover letter at all. They just read what reco. letters say.
 
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Hi HelpingHand...

I did emphasize that I hold an Advanced Degree, and they admit that " the evidence already submitted demonstrates that the proposed research employment has substantial intrinsic merit and national in scope"

Unfortunately it is not clear what evidence they have looked at because all the questions mentioned have been extensively addressed in my original filing... So they admit that my research subject is national in scope and the merit of the research is high... It seems they do not agree about my contribution and impact in the area and in this research activity... This has been extensively documented in my petition with my publication records, invitation to panels at ggovernment level, publication of a Book, and many book chapters, and more than 10 Journal papers, and 15 confernce papers. Nothing is mentioned about this as being exceptional....
 
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I have seen few of my friends get RFE for NIW a couple of years back; although I do not remember what exactly the RFE, all they did was submit 3-4 additional letters, one or two more published papers, conference presentations,and any additional information they had. You should probably do the same and, more importantly ask your lawyer (or yourself) to write an effective response.

As far as the 10 years experience, and other criteria that you did not claim/not applicable, I guess you can simply say that you did not claim and they do not apply to your NIW petition. One of my friends, got an RFE for his I-485 (based on his approved I-140 NIW) asking him to prove his employment. Since he was still doing his post-doc, he got an employment verification letter but I remember his lawyer, in addition to attaching that letter, responded saying that a job offer is not required for NIW, and thus the RFE is absurd (or something like that). They aproved his I-485 days after that RFE response. So, don't bother about criteria that do not apply to you.
 
Maybe they just lost all your evidence. It has been sitting in their warehouse for a while. Its easier for them to have you send it to them again I guess. The salary is indeed irrelevant for EB2-NIW. I guess do your best to answer the RFE but don't worry too much. You seem to have the strongest case around, so either the IO is satisfied with your response or his supervisor or the AAO will correct him when you do MTR or an appeal.

shankyyy said:
I have seen few of my friends get RFE for NIW a couple of years back; although I do not remember what exactly the RFE, all they did was submit 3-4 additional letters, one or two more published papers, conference presentations,and any additional information they had. You should probably do the same and, more importantly ask your lawyer (or yourself) to write an effective response.

As far as the 10 years experience, and other criteria that you did not claim/not applicable, I guess you can simply say that you did not claim and they do not apply to your NIW petition. One of my friends, got an RFE for his I-485 (based on his approved I-140 NIW) asking him to prove his employment. Since he was still doing his post-doc, he got an employment verification letter but I remember his lawyer, in addition to attaching that letter, responded saying that a job offer is not required for NIW, and thus the RFE is absurd (or something like that). They aproved his I-485 days after that RFE response. So, don't bother about criteria that do not apply to you.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks you guys for your nice words and giving me hope.

I am gathering some new documentations. I will probably not send any new letters. I have one letter though that I have not used and I will use that one. My lawyer will re-emphasize the fact that we have sent out several letters, he has photocopies of everything. I do have original copies of them too since all recomendees sent me two original copies of each letter they signed.

If they are asking about my employment and salary in regards to I485, then that is fine, but it seems they are doing this at the I140 stage.
 
Another victim in the hands of an ignorant/inexperienced IO, I guess. We have submitted exactly the evidence they are asking in the original filing and they want them again!

As other members of this forum have commented, the ten years experience is NOT for people with advanced degree(s), and high salary and membership in professional association are applicable to EB-1A cases, not NIW. It reminds me my RFE form NSC some time ago that the IO issued the RFE on my concurrently filed I-485, but actually asking questions on I-140 - very smart. :rolleyes:

Your publication records are outstanding. Now, the only thing you need is to convince the IO that these records indeed set you apart from most of the others in your field. Since the IO has no clue that what the other guys in your field are doing, he/she may think that perhaps many people in your field also have a lot of publications and thus your achievement is not that unique, and you need to show them it is not the case. Usually, the most convenient and direct way to do this is a citation index where you can compare (rank) your citation numbers with other people's. However, I heard that in some fields it is difficult to get a decent number of citations (e.g. mathematics). If that's the case, then you may need to rely on reco letters. Make sure the letters specifically mention your achievement is superior than most of the others in your field. Since your RFE says, "Please submit additional evidence of your personal recognition for achievements and significant contributions to your field by peers,..." it may be a good idea to give them one or two new letters. I am also considering whether to send new letters, because my RFE is not that specific on reco letters. On top of that, they only gave me 42 days to reply, which seems relatively short compared to most other RFEs. Good luck!
 
Thanks CD4help for your comments.

I am spending all the time to gather citations. I have up to this moment collected several of them, I excluded of course self citing. Some of the citations however are coming from my previous group that I worked with. Since my name is not on these papers, I will include these papers particularly because most of them include some famous names from other schools in the world.

Some citations occur indeed after Oct 2006, the time I filed my petition.

I will include something about my book sale, hopefully this may demonstrate something about its impact... I hope it is not compared by harry potter!

I cannot ask for new letters from government entities, because it is becoming childish asking the same reference letter commenting on the same subject. What I will do however is to include recent email correspondence, and "thank you" emails from different directors thanking me or inviting me to panels, etc... I hope this should be convincing enough. I will stress again that the IO read the two letters submitted by the government entities earlier.

I will only add one new peer letter, and suggest the IO to look at 8 other letters by peers I submitted earlier two of these 8 however come from my research supervisor, and my institute director.

This is pretty much it, I am requesting employment verification letters from two previous employers, University and a Research institute that was run by the same Univ, and a letter from my current employer in the industry in the same area of speciality and a position that requires a Ph.D. degree.

I will include my affiliation to two IEEE societies, and that is it. I am enlisted on Who's Who in America, but I think from other members that this is not to my favor to comment at it in the RFE letter. It was mentioned in the original petition though.

I hope this response would be thorough enough!
 
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Hi nscagony,

I used google scholar as you suggested, I gathered about 23 Journal and Conference papers that mention my work. 6 of all these papers citing my work have my supervisor name on them, but I am not a co-author of course.

Google scholar shows me more than 90 hits, most of them about accessing or buying my own publications.

You mentioned you gathered 120 original citation. I have excluded the papers citing my work in which I appear as a co-author. If I include these then, my citations will increase to 40+. What do you suggest? Should I keep only those 23 citations, some of them happened only recently? I am worried that I have few citations.

There are several manuscripts that are in review which cite my work. I happen to know about some of these cause I was asked to review them. But I cannot claim these as of yet because they are not published publicly?

I had some difficulties also because some of those citing my work swap my first name with last name, typos in the title, etc. Some files are not PDF searchable, but I expected its authors to cite me, and guess what they were. So I am sure search engines are not capturing 100% of everything possible as of yet... It is a headache I need to try new tricks to catch some few more citations :)

Well, I just found two additional ones, in press status, by going to Journals websites. These do not show up for public, but could be printed... The number is now at 25.
 
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glad to know that you are getting another letter

as for the citations, search with all possible variations of your name. no one database captures all - i had to get mine thru' web of science, and google scholar.
 
I used Scopus for my citations (back when I still had access). Seemed more organized. I also printed out the citations on color pages... So for each of my papers, I had a separate page (or pages) with my paper listed at the top and all the papers that cite that paper listed underneath...
 
I would definitively add anything you can find. Even unimportant stuff like tech reports, or papers that are in print. IOs are not scientists and can't tell the difference anyway. I collected all citations in a single index. Use a larger font and make it look "thick" (many pages). For each paper citing my work my lawyer made me print out the first page of the paper. I know, you can't really see the citation from it, but thats what the lawyer told me to do and thats how I submitted it. I also removed self-citations, btw.
 
I used Scopus, registered for a free trial, and this tool is amazing... I could find 3 more references. I never thought my master thesis is going to be cited..! But it was...

First, not all my papers showed at scopus, only 17 out of about 30. For these 17, I have 30 citations, but many of them are self citing...

Anyway way, I do not care, I have printed until this moment 29 citations of mine! I wish if scopus is registering all my publications. It is surely registering all journals, but not all conferences, and several of those conference papers were cited.

Also, scopus offers the h-index thing... some fellow at trackitt suggested me printing it, my h-index is 3 :(

See here: http://www.trackitt.com/discussion-forums/i140/53118669/last-page/

Have you guys used this h-index thing?

NSCagony, I hope I can reach the number 30 citations in print. I will printed the whole paper this time. Last time the lawyer asked me to print the first page. But now, I am sending him all the papers, and let USCIS sort it out... They wanted evidence, copies of articles... So here they go :)
 
JerIst, good to see you making progress :).

Not to hijack this thread, but I have one question here: when people exclude "self-citations," do they just refer to the citations from papers with their own names, or papers from the same lab (even though their names are not on these papers)? As JerIst pointed out earlier, the latter can be more stringent and yield less citations.
 
In my case, I included everything - all citations including papers where I am an author. BUT using Scopus, I placed a small checkmark next to all the papers that cite my work that I am NOT affiliated with (as an author, or papers from the same lab, or collaborators), so that USCIS will see the difference. However, I don't think my lawyer clarified what the checkmarks meant in the cover letter - I'm almost sure she didn't. My entire list of citations was about 300 or so for all my ~20 published manuscripts (did not include citations for conference abstracts, I didn't know you can do that), and citations from self-or-affiliated manuscripts were perhaps 20-25% of those (I'm only guessing here). So for an EB-2 petition, I figured the checkmarked papers (had I counted those only, I assume it would be in the mid to high 200 range) would be enough. I hope I'm right.
 
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CD4help,

Well, I count all papers citing my papers only if I am not an author or co-author of the citing paper...

I did not exclude papers written by people I was affiliated with and happen to cite my work... In fact, out of 30 papers gathered citing my work, ten of them has my Ph.D. advisor as a co-author...

jk0274,
Your citation record is surely excellent and I believe it is of the quality expected in an EB1-EA filing... :) Wish you the best!

In my case, I am trying in addition to these 30 citations, to count on my book royalty statement where hundreds of copies were sold... Since the book is really a research monograph, then I guess this might indicate some impact.

Finally, Scopus can show you who is citing your conference papers too. I have about 17 conference papers, all refereed and appear in proceedings.. Some of these papers appear on Scopus. I do not think Posters, or Conference Abstracts would appear at all. I have 4 of these, and I never tried to reference them.
 
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