EB1-OR PP NSC RFE question

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ioananv

Registered Users (C)
Hi everybody!

New RFE up for your consideration!

My husband has applied for I-140 in the EB1-OR category. RD at NSC was June 21, 2006. He upgraded to PP on November 21, 2006. Of course he received an RFE yesterday, November 27. He is an assistant research professor (non-tenure) at a US University. There are several issues mentioned in the RFE (permanent position, additional reference letters, etc.). These are more or less standard issues, as I leared from reading from these boards.
But the last of them just left us speechless: we have no idea how to deal with it. Below is an excerpt:

F) Evidence of the alien's authorship of scholarly books or articles (in scholarly journals with international circulation) in the academic field. If the evidence includes authorship of scholarly articles, explain the significance of the publications in which they appeared.

The evidence suggests that the beneficiary has published 22 articles and presented at 32 conferences. Provide evidence that the beneficiary has written a large amount of articles in comparison with his peers, or that he has been asked to present his work more than others at scientific conferences. Such evidence of the significance of the autorship of the beneficiary may include evidence that the beneficiary has been the keynote speaker at conferences.

My husband says that he was an invited speaker at one conference, but it seems that is not enough. Does anyone have any idea how to prove that one has written a large amount of articles in comparison with his peers?

Any input would be appreciated.
 
I think the whole PP upgrade has been a disaster at NSC for EB-OR and EB-EA. I would suggest you consult an experienced attorney. I did get an RFE not as yours but asking me to provide details about grants. The EB-OR was the most objective category, but NSC is holding people to vague standards.
Good luck with your case and please update the RFE tracker.
 
Dnastar, thank you for your answer. Good luck with your application and let us know when it gets approved :) .

PS. I added our info to the tracker
 
What to make of this?

ioananv
It would be very difficult to suggest anything with out the complete cover letter. It all depends on who you interpret the cover letter.
If you had claimed in the cover letter that you did published more then the peer, then it would be difficult to prove it, it is a non measurable event. Even for corelational observation, you need to know how people in your area of reaseach publish in general.
My sincear suggestion to you, rewrite the whole of the cover letter, and have the focus more on your contribution to the benifits of your reseach to humankind.
Infact it is very difficult to make a measure of any two achivements in research.
One might be completely diffrent then the other.
Again this is only my openion, better consult a law office, make sure that they understand what it what in these kind of cases.
good luck
Rama
 
How to compare

ioananv,

It may not be an easy one to answer the RFE question , however, it would certainly be possible to reply to the RFE. I would suggest the following:

(a) Consult a lawyer. He or she might have experience dealing with the RFE question you have received. or,

(b) Do some survey within your husband's department to make a short table on how many papers graduate students/postdocs publish annually. What I know and people normally say is the average number of publications for a Ph.D. student in the US institutions is 1 (one). Your husband has 22 publications and the number is well above the average, assuming that he has less than 10 years of research experience. With this table as a supporting document, submit a letter of recommendation from the chair of your husband's department to USCIS. Your husband could also get a similar letter from the Dean of College. Another thing that I can suggest is that you should try the US Department of Education or NSF (National Science Foundation) webpage to see if it has some sort of data on the average number of annual publications by Ph.D. students/faculty members in the US academic institutions.

Good luck!


ioananv said:
Hi everybody!

New RFE up for your consideration!

My husband is an assistant research professor (non-tenure) at a US University. Below is an excerpt:

The evidence suggests that the beneficiary has published 22 articles and presented at 32 conferences. Provide evidence that the beneficiary has written a large amount of articles in comparison with his peers, Does anyone have any idea how to prove that one has written a large amount of articles in comparison with his peers?

Any input would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Rama 9193
Thank you for your answer. Unfortunately we don't know what was written in the cover letter. It was written by the international advisor at our university (who was paid by the department $2000), and she didn't provide us with copies of the I-140 package. For sure the cover letter is terrible, since all the others additional requests, although very specific, ask for evidence already provided in the application. But indeed this is the solution: my husband wants to see the old cover letter, and to write the new one himself (or go to a lawyer, unfortunately there are no good immigration lawyers in our small city).

Freeman
Thank you for your excellent suggestions. My opinion is that the immigration officer invented this absurd criterion, as anyone in the scientific community would know. Unfortunately, since the request is so specific, we will need to touch it in some way, and your ideas might be just enough for the person who is so interested in the quantity, not quality of research.

Thank you both for your answers.
 
Thank you ioananv,
What freemann suggested is really good. If I may add, when you are writing the cover letter, see that you drive the focus of your letter towards the quality of research. List out the impact factors, and also put in ink, how many times each individual paper had been cites, this should suggest about the importance of your work. The letter should look like, your contribution this area of reseach is importnat internationally, and not just to US. Some of the important elemnts that I came across this and other forums are:
1) Letters: It should include from people who know you in various forms, like your Ph.D advisor, you senior, your collaborator, peopel who know you through your work - like meeting in the symposium, peopel who used your work for their work.
2) Awards: Any award can be listed, like if you are from India, CSIR fellowship to conduct Ph.D studies. These awards must be nationally and internationally known, like Humbolt fellowship etc. Even if it is not from US, still if you were working in a country and a well known fellowship of that country should be good enough.
3) Papers: How many are published ? Where did you publishe them, like impact factor, How many times each paper was sited, suggesting the importance of the work and how hot is your area of reasech is?
4) Presentations: List out even poster presentation, and invited talks etc, also make a point at which symposium you presented, what is the membership of that society suggetsing how much of exposure you had received.
5) Membership: List of the socities and also list out the criteria for getting into the socitey, some of them require that you publish certain number of articles before you are allowed to get in.
All these are some of the things that I can remeber now, but will update as and when I recollect any thing new.
remember this is the most difficult category, not because most of them do not qualify, but becasue the USCIS decession on these cases is very very subjective. You need to make your cover letter good enough that it will include all the mental make up of most of the Immigration officers. So work on the cover letter, this is the summary of all your CV, letters, awards, presenatation, memberships etc....
Good luck and keep updating
Rama :)
 
rama_9193

Thank you for your detailed answer. We will use all your suggestions when writing the cover letter and will keep you updated. It will take a while, though, because wee need some additional reference letters. :(

Good luck to you, too, and hope to post some good news soon :)
 
Thank you,
I wish, I can post some good news on my I485.

It so happens that I did not psot my details on this forum, I will take this opertunity to post them.

Concurrent filing: Yes
EB1-Outstanding researcher cat.
Service center :TSC
I140 RD 10/5 ND 10/7 AD 10/10 In three days!!!!!!(I went for premium processing: My reason was with limited number of employees at USCIS, and much of the application backlog, I figured that they would give more imp to PP application rather then the regular one, and/or the regular application will be delayed a bit longer, than usual time frame, and it is worth 1000$ rather then killing your gray matter)
EAD AD 10/20
FP (code 3) 10/23
AP AD 11/24
I485 status: case received and pending. NO LUD after FP.
Just in case, if this info is usefull some one who filed around the same time.
Good luck to you all..
Rama
:)
 
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