I hold a PhD degree in engineering from a US university. With my I-140 application, I submitted all usual documents such as evidence of education, letters of recommendation, evidence of publications and citations, evidence of funding, and evidence of peer review service (as mentioned in the FRE letter).
I have also cofounded two startups in the US. One was not successful, but the other one is currently operational. We have patents granted, customers and investments raised from VCs and Angle investors.
Per my lawyers' recommendation, we didn't include any documents about my companies and focused mainly on my publications and citations which are not that impressive (3 journal papers, 4 conference papers, and 17 citations). Then I received an RFE last week which specifically asks for documents and evidence that I have confounded those companies (since they were mentioned in my resume) and also my patent applications (as shown in the attached file).
This seems to be an unusual RFE. Now, my lawyers still insist that besides providing those documents, we should still mainly focus on citations and get more recommendation letters from people who have cited me. My argument is that since my citation record is not that strong, and also since the RFE is directly asking about my companies, I believe we should answer by providing strong documents about my business such as Purchase Orders from customers, evidence of investment raised, patent applications, business plans, number of employees, etc.
Is there anyone with the right expertise or similar experience who can give me some insights?
I have also cofounded two startups in the US. One was not successful, but the other one is currently operational. We have patents granted, customers and investments raised from VCs and Angle investors.
Per my lawyers' recommendation, we didn't include any documents about my companies and focused mainly on my publications and citations which are not that impressive (3 journal papers, 4 conference papers, and 17 citations). Then I received an RFE last week which specifically asks for documents and evidence that I have confounded those companies (since they were mentioned in my resume) and also my patent applications (as shown in the attached file).
This seems to be an unusual RFE. Now, my lawyers still insist that besides providing those documents, we should still mainly focus on citations and get more recommendation letters from people who have cited me. My argument is that since my citation record is not that strong, and also since the RFE is directly asking about my companies, I believe we should answer by providing strong documents about my business such as Purchase Orders from customers, evidence of investment raised, patent applications, business plans, number of employees, etc.
Is there anyone with the right expertise or similar experience who can give me some insights?
