EB1-OR NSC Denial Reason

D

dnastar

Registered Users (C)
Dear Folks

I posted news regarding my denial couple days back,

http://www.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?t=237903


and I am providing additional details upon seeing the denial notice. I also feel sad for MYEB1_2006 with a similar case and timeline. Never before I saw EB1-ORs for faculty members denied.

1. The immigration officer has taken extra pain and efforts to go through every page of my 600 page file.

2. The denial notice is extremely detailed referring lines from every reference letter I submitted (18 letters). ''The letters submitted leave little doubt that the beneficiary is quite highly regarded by those with whom he has come into contact, and moreover that he is a highly capable researcher''.

3. The officer repeats that I am highly capable, have super scholastic aptitude and show outstanding promise but that does not mean I am outstanding.

4. The officer tells that second author paper which was cited multiple times (since it was published in 2000) does not justify because my first author papers (published in later years) doesnt have that many citations.

5. The officer commends on several awards and fellowship that I won and does not deny that I am competitive, but tells they are not ''major''.

6. The officer tells that the news article that I submitted has the name of my doctoral advisor mainly and not my name.

7. The officer tells that most of my accomplishments were done when I worked in other labs and prior to me having my own lab.

8. The officer concludes that I am a great scientist but just not there for this category." The beneficiary is highly accomplished and that his career may be on the rise, insufficient evidence has been submitted to allow the Director to conclude that the beneficiary meets the criteriaon of 203(b)" I hired the best lawyer in Southeast USA.


9. The officer suggests that this denial will have no prejudice on future applications and suggests that my petitioner (medical school) apply in other possible categories.

The denial notice was not in point form but in extreme detail.

I just have one f****** question:

1 The law is very unclear about the above points and never explains in detail; and in addition I know many people with lesser credentials having their EB1-OR approved.

Options:

1. Lawyer suggested to sue in Judiciary Court in DC (Cost 15000). But mostly likely my petiontioner (State Govt) wont agree to it.

2. Appeal the process ($385 + $2000 for lawyers) looks gloomy.

3. Wait for another year and reapply (I might get couple papers with few more conferences, dont know whether that will make a difference).

4. Apply under EB2-NIW or EB-1EA and hope to get another officer or center.

I hope these details help.

Thanks again

dnastar
 
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Sorry to hear about it, dnastar. This is enormously strange. Wonder who would qualify then.

EB1_Slamdunk


dnastar said:
Dear Folks

I posted news regarding my denial couple days back,

http://www.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?t=237903


and I am providing additional details upon seeing the denial notice. I also feel sad for MYEB1_2006 with a similar case and timeline. Never before I saw EB1-ORs for faculty members denied.

1. The immigration officer has taken extra pain and efforts to go through every page of my 600 page file.

2. The denial notice is extremely detailed referring lines from every reference letter I submitted (18 letters).

3. The officer repeats that I am highly capable, have super scholastic aptitude and show outstanding promise but that does not mean I am outstanding.

4. The officer tells that second author paper which was cited multiple times (since it was published in 2000) does not justify because my first author papers (published in later years) doesnt have that many citations.

5. The officer commends on several awards and fellowship that I won and does not deny that I am competitive, but tells they are not ''major''.

6. The officer tells that the news article that I submitted has the name of my doctoral advisor mainly and not my name.

7. The officer tells that most of my accomplishments were done when I worked in other labs and prior to me having my own lab.

8. The officer concludes that I am a great scientist but just not there for this category.

9. The officer suggests that this denial will have no prejudice on future applications and suggests that my petitioner (medical school) apply in other possible categories.

The denial notice was not in point form but in extreme detail.

I just have one f****** question:

1 The law is very unclear about the above points and never explains in detail; and in addition I know many people with lesser credentials having their EB1-OR approved.

Options:

1. Lawyer suggested to sue in Judiciary Court in DC (Cost 15000). But mostly likely my petiontioner (State Govt) wont agree to it.

2. Appeal the process ($385 + $2000 for lawyers) looks gloomy.

3. Wait for another year and reapply (I might get couple papers with few more conferences, dont know whether that will make a difference).

4. Apply under EB2-NIW or EB-1EA and hope to get another officer or center.

I hope these details help.

Thanks again

dnastar
Click to expand...
 
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dnastar,

The only thing I could think of from this that the officer was determined not to give you approval by any means. It sounds like "oh you have won Nobel Prize, but that doesn't make you outstanding according to my standard"!

One quick question, did you submit enough letters from people who never knew you?
As you have strong credentials, apply again using e-filing, so that it goes to TSC.

Best.
 
Hi dnastar,

You do have a strong background for EB-1OR. It seems that the officer in NSC held a very high standard in your case. I feel very sorry for you and wish you the best luck.

Well, talking about your case, I wonder if there is anything, in the way your case was presented, can be improved next time around. For example, did you point out that the citation number depends on when a paper was published? it may be useful to find other means to demonstrate the impact of a paper, such as "news and views" and a letter from editor saying how competitive to publish a paper in such a journal. I know some people did research and stated the average citation times for papers published in the same year and do comparisons with their own papers. This is very time consuming, but at least making it harder for the immigration officer to argue.

I noticed that you had 18 letters. That is a huge number. What are the relationship between your referees and you? Are they in some way related to you? I think it does help a lot if you can get one or two letters from big shots who don't know you in person. I think it helped a lot in my case.

Good luck.
 
Other options

dnastar,

First of all, I am very sorry to hear that your EB1-OR petition was denied.

I would like to suggest that you try other categories like EB1-EA or EB2-NIW. As you are a faculty at Medical School and engaged in health-related research, EB2-NIW should be an attractive option for you.

Back in early 2005 when I first tried to petition EB1-OR based I-140, I had hard time convincing university immigration lawyer that my position was permanent (At that time, I was research scientist that was a little more than a postdoc, but not exactly like a tenure-track faculty). After six-months of delay, the lawyer had decided not to petition EB1-OR for me. It was very disappointing, but I had to accept the reality. I filed EB2-NIW later on and now I have GC in my hand.

If you are not from the retrogressed countries, I suggest you consider EB2-NIW petition. Good luck!
 
it seems recent EB1 denials are for those requesting PP. or it can be that mostly PP petitions are being processed to begin with! is there any info available on these statistics?
 
letters

Hi,

dnastar said:
3. The officer repeats that I am highly capable, have super scholastic aptitude and show outstanding promise but that does not mean I am outstanding.
Click to expand...

Were these words written in your letters? This is plain WRONG, and I think this is THE primary reason for the denial. I am sorry to sound harsh but you should have researched this forum very thoroughly before filing. It was said many times here that such language should have no place in the recommendation letters.

USCIS does not care what is your capability, what is your aptitude, what is your personality, and that you are driven, motivated, clever, and a successful researcher. There are a lot of successful researchers out there. USCIS does not care that you have outstanding promise. USCIS cares about your current achievements.

The letters should present you as a full-blown, outstanding, internationally recognized scientist who has risen (already risen!) above your peers. Every letter should contain word "international". Never use words "young", "rising star", "promising", "potential", "will become", and "impressive achievements for his age". Those mean that you are NOT YET outstanding, and USCIS does not care about what happens in the future.

As one source, check page 5 of http://www.isso.cornell.edu/academicstaff/PRpriority.pdf (that does not mean that I am from Cornell). I can't give you links to all other material I used when preparing petition (because my pile of printouts from this forum is 2 inches high) but I found *everything* via search here.

I have only 5 journal papers and 8 reference letters but I tried to persuade letter writers to write the letters according to the rough guidelines above. My EB-1 OR was approved in NSC 2 months ago. I had RFE on permanent job offer but they did not question international recognition at all.

/dzxing
 
xing bing

Before you jump ahead and bash the letters, I sincerely suggest that you read what I wrote.

The letters that I got never said those words, the immigration officer came to those conclusion.

Yes, you did sound harsh and I did research plenty and the lawyer I chose was a good one. Its okay I will apply again and get it. Its just a matter of time.
 
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dzxing said:
Hi,


....
I have only 5 journal papers and 8 reference letters but I tried to persuade letter writers to write the letters according to the rough guidelines above. My EB-1 OR was approved in NSC 2 months ago. I had RFE on permanent job offer but they did not question international recognition at all.

/dzxing
Click to expand...

I totally agree with this. Even I had only around 5 publications and 4 or 5 letters. But the letters that I got were screaming that I am a unique achiever with knowledge of genetics, surgery and substance abuse doing animal research. Letters were the only thing that mattered for EB1. I had also filed in EB2 wich had an RFE similar to what you got. To that I printed out all the citations and journal critiques (How good the journal really is in teh market?) Also, I have authored 4 text chapters in www.emedicine.com which is one of the primary resources all doctors (in training) use a lot. I printed out information about www.emedicine.com and had it with answer to RFE for EB2 which was subsequently approved too.
 
Xing and desi
I do not agree to this concept of letters making a good case about you.
the bottom line runs to this.....
1) COVER LETTER, agents at USCIS will not have enough time to read through every letter you submit. They go by the cover letter. If they find some thing out of place they will go deep or just skim through. Even if the letter is out of place, usually lawyer will leave a hint or clue for the agent how to take that info from the letter, that is the function of the cover letter.
2) Your Pubs, the number do not matter at all. I have seen a guy who got his EB1-OR with one paper, it is the quality, this one paper was cited 64 times in a span of 1.5 years, yes the subject was hot and also the pub was in very high impact factor journal. Not just the numbers, the fall out of that particular research is important rather then the number.
3) Luck, the unpredictable and uncontrollable factor, even if the USCIS agent is a good guy and well informed, but if he had a fight with his wife/girl friend on the coffee table early morning, unintentionally the causality are the applicants.
So let us stop the discussion on what went wrong, this is not a match about who got approvals with how many less number of pubs and letters, dnastar was courteous enough to share the denial letter with us, so that others in the forum can have a look at that and anticipate what to expect when a situation of this nature arise, for the new applicants to prepare their applications on a backbone frame work of these kind of denial letter so that they don't have to face it again, of all the people xing, you did admit that you have made good use of this forum taking printouts almost one inch thick, you have been a product of this forum in terms of filing an application. dnastar was not in request of any sympathy from the forum, nor was he looking at the appraisal of the letter from the USCIS. So if you cant get good words to communicate your idea, by not being harsh, keep it to your self, because you never know, you might be in need of them later in life. You actions should encourage others to come and post info like this so that people like Xing can benefit. But don't post stuff like xing and desi so that people like dnastar are discouraged.
have a good day

dnastar
sorry for this, on behalf of xing and desi I apologize.

Rama
 
rama_9193 said:
Xing and desi
---
dnastar
sorry for this, on behalf of xing and desi I apologize.

Rama
Click to expand...

Sorry, I did not mean to hurt anybody. I totally agree with what you said. I had a good lawyer who has a good reputation as I have heard from others as well that he has gotten approval with even 1 or 2 publications. I guess I will have to give him the credit here. My only intention was to be more careful with the language of letters, and of course with USCIS nobody can predict what are their criteria to approve or deny any kind of application is. This country is more worried about making illegal aliens as citizens while people like us lawabiding, taxpaying ones can keep getting frustrated day by day.
 
Dnastar, I am sorry to hear that. The fact of being a faculty memeber in a top medical school itself is already showing that you are an outstanding researcher. Hope you can get over it very soon.

Somehow I feel that immigration officer set up his/her mind to turn down your application from the begining. It is shocking to know that how detailed the officer went through your materials. How many hours do you think he/she sepnt on your case?

I am going to file my EB1-OR in couple of days. And I am very scared now. Based on the criteria the immigation officer gave to you, they can deny most applicants at their will (the 'outstanding' and 'international recognition' is a vague definition afterall ).

I thought about the idea of using premium processing, but it looks like the PP will definetly get RFE (any case using PP without ending up with RFE?) Really hesitating now :-(


dnastar said:
Dear Folks

I posted news regarding my denial couple days back,

http://www.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?t=237903


and I am providing additional details upon seeing the denial notice. I also feel sad for MYEB1_2006 with a similar case and timeline. Never before I saw EB1-ORs for faculty members denied.

1. The immigration officer has taken extra pain and efforts to go through every page of my 600 page file.

2. The denial notice is extremely detailed referring lines from every reference letter I submitted (18 letters). ''The letters submitted leave little doubt that the beneficiary is quite highly regarded by those with whom he has come into contact, and moreover that he is a highly capable researcher''.

3. The officer repeats that I am highly capable, have super scholastic aptitude and show outstanding promise but that does not mean I am outstanding.

4. The officer tells that second author paper which was cited multiple times (since it was published in 2000) does not justify because my first author papers (published in later years) doesnt have that many citations.

5. The officer commends on several awards and fellowship that I won and does not deny that I am competitive, but tells they are not ''major''.

6. The officer tells that the news article that I submitted has the name of my doctoral advisor mainly and not my name.

7. The officer tells that most of my accomplishments were done when I worked in other labs and prior to me having my own lab.

8. The officer concludes that I am a great scientist but just not there for this category." The beneficiary is highly accomplished and that his career may be on the rise, insufficient evidence has been submitted to allow the Director to conclude that the beneficiary meets the criteriaon of 203(b)" I hired the best lawyer in Southeast USA.


9. The officer suggests that this denial will have no prejudice on future applications and suggests that my petitioner (medical school) apply in other possible categories.

The denial notice was not in point form but in extreme detail.

I just have one f****** question:

1 The law is very unclear about the above points and never explains in detail; and in addition I know many people with lesser credentials having their EB1-OR approved.

Options:

1. Lawyer suggested to sue in Judiciary Court in DC (Cost 15000). But mostly likely my petiontioner (State Govt) wont agree to it.

2. Appeal the process ($385 + $2000 for lawyers) looks gloomy.

3. Wait for another year and reapply (I might get couple papers with few more conferences, dont know whether that will make a difference).

4. Apply under EB2-NIW or EB-1EA and hope to get another officer or center.

I hope these details help.

Thanks again

dnastar
Click to expand...
 
Hi alaer,
I think a good part is played by luck, so it all depends on where it lands, TCS is more flexible, and I think even the adjudicators manual is not very specific, they can do what they want.
I feel the best is to have membership in 2-3 societies that clearly states that you should have so and so publications and experience to get membership, and try to go for a full membership (though it may cost some$$).
Get more independent letters, clearly stating that you are one of the top in your area of research.
Try to get some letters from editors if you are reviewer for journals, and possibly state the article and date you did it (make it more authentic).
and finally a good cover letter will satisfy USCIS.
Good luck
 
Guys
To add on to what good_y had mentioned.
What I observed is that they are also looking for a consistency in reviewing articles for the journals. Like if you keep on reviewing for couple of years before you actually start your application process. That sounds more authentic than getting letters from just six months or so prior your application.
My experience with this part of the application, I am relatively young in terms of research experience, about 5 years, but during the post-doc days, i was presenting a poster at fly meeting, and one of the editorial board member of a journal happened to see my poster and asked me if i will be interested in reviewing a paper not directly related to my area of research but in tune with the work I had presented. I vehemently accepted the offer and asked him to provide the request on paper(in my little head i was thinking about my green card stuff in the background), he was more then willing to do that. But this was almost two years before I applied for GC, then later on others followed one by one, but this is how it worked for me.
Just to give you guys a heads up the situation.
good luck
Rama
 
sheer ill-luck

dnastar said:
Before you jump ahead and bash the letters, I sincerely suggest that you read what I wrote.

The letters that I got never said those words, the immigration officer came to those conclusion.

Yes, you did sound harsh and I did research plenty and the lawyer I chose was a good one. Its okay I will apply again and get it. Its just a matter of time.
Click to expand...

dnastar,

You just brushed with the worst kind of luck. Regarding the letters, I am sure they were fine. For what it's worth, my letters were far more benign. In my case, I had simultaneously filed under EB2 and EB1-OR categories but those were times when EB1-OR petitions were taking a year or so to be approved.

I wish you the best for your new efforts.

One quick comment. I do think a 600 page petition is a bit too overwhelming.

best,
tsc_eb1or
 
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