I140/485 Concurrent – Denied - Help Please

P

psam123

Registered Users (C)
Hi Gurus,
My application have benn denied due to the inability to establish my education to be U.S. baccalaureate degree equivalent.
I have two bachelor degrees. 2nd bachelor degree requires 1st one, thus exempted 2 semesters (1 yr).

My ETA 750 (Labor certification) application had this evaluation enclosed and stated in the column "College" to be "4" and "College degree required" to be "Bachelor Degree"

After the labor approval, I filed for concurrent petitions for both I-140 and I-485, in January 2004. Later, I received an RFE in Nov, 2004 requesting the following
1) Evidence to establish that petitioner had the financial ability to pay the offered wages...
2) Evidence establishing the beneficiary's education at XXX University and/or any eight semester degree must be submitted...

In response to the RFE in addition to the company related financial statements, w2s etc, for RFE item (1), I submitted the following documents for RFE item (2) with records
a) Notarized letter explaining my double Bachelor degrees and explaining
how the my second Engineering degree is a 8 semester(4 yr) degree
b) copy of the same evaluation report
c) degree certificates and marksheets

After my submission of the response to the RFE, my company filed for bankruptcy on Feb, 25(Chapter 7 - liquidation), but established an agreement with another firm to be successor of the interest (in essence, to take the ownership of the employee contracts and immigration petitions).

My questions are as follows:
1) Can I make an appeal (motion to reopen)?
2) How does the motion to reopen or appeal get affected given that I-140 petitioner has filed for bankruptcy?
3) If an appeal can be made what steps do I need to take next?
4) What documentation do I need to submit with my appeal?

I really appreciate your help on this

Thanks
psam
 
Sorry to see your denial.

How come you or your Attorney made the same evaluation report when CIS sends out RFE for education evaluation. At the first phase, it's good that you received RFE and CIS may be expecting better documents to approve your case.

But it's still possible to prove CIS about your Education through better evaluation. I am not sure how the new company merge affect your appeal. It's good that the reason for the denial is your education, so you could still appeal based on this education evidence and no need to worry about financial condition.

UnitedNations may give some inputs... ask user: UnitedNations
 
psam123 - What is your Lawyer response to education?

Sorry to hear that your I-140 denied. I am scared after seeing your post. I am also in same boat.

What is your lawyer's advise? Are you going to appeal?

My Labor not yet approved. I am expecting that it will get approved in two months. I am preparing for I-140 stage to file in EB2 class. My labor requires "4 year Bachelor degree" and six years experience. But I am like you, have two BS degree each 3 year duriation. The first BS degree is required to study second BS degree. One year credit was given for my first BS degree when I was admited second BS degree. So totaly I have 6 years of college education after 12 years of high school. I have strong education evaluation, which says my second BS degree is equvalent to US Bachelor degree.

Guys! What should I do now? Is it advisable to file a one more labor in PERM by rightly specifying the educational requirements?
 
Appeal

My lawyer is saying USCIS is made a mistake. So we are planning to Appeal.
I feel my lawyer is made a mistake of submitting Education evaluation that was used for my H1B. I am appealing through some other lawyer.
 
Does the LC say "Bacherlor's Degree or equivalent"? I believe that if it doesn't say "or equivalent" then there may be problems.
 
psam123, cafiler,

What is your & your new lawyer's confidence level? I feel you should be ok in appeal. What does your H-1B evaluation saying? Is it different from the evaluation you are preparing for I-140? Have you filed I-140 in EB2 or EB3?

Appreciate if you share your experience with me as my pattern of education is same as you. I do not want to hear any denial of my I-140 as I tried very hard to convinece my employer to start my GC. Also I am in my 6th year of H-1B. Please suggest me what I can do in this stage.

My ETA 750A says:

Education College: 4 years
College Degree: Bachelor's Degree
Major Field of Study: Mechanical/Automotive Engineering
Experience: 6 years in releated occupation.

My qualification:
BS (Chemistry, Physics, Maths) - 1987-1990
BS Automotive Engineering - 1990-1993
 
Actually I don't know a whole lot about educational evaluations since my bachelor's is from the US and I have my own approved LC. Sorry. Hopefully someone else can help you.

My guess is that if your Bachelor's are from the US then you should be OK. If they are foreign degrees and you are using an educational evaluation to show that they are the same as a US Bacherlor, then you may run into problems if the LC does not say "or equivalent". But I may be wrong. That's just how I understand it after spending plenty of time on this site.
 
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Dear Unitednation,

We have already discussed in some other thread in this issue. Appreciate if you help me again. My LC does not specificaly say "or Equivalent". However education evaluvation was exclusively performed on" single degree "(my second BS degree) by International Credential Evaluvation Servies in NY.

It says number of Diplamos evaluated: 1 . B.Tech automotive Engineering Anna University.

The last part of educational evaluvation says "The calculations based on course duriation and composition in Bachlor of technology program indicate that Mr.XXXX satisfied similar requirements to the completion of Bacehlor of science degree in engineering from an accredited institution of teritary education in the United States"

1) Am I ok now to apply EB2 petition in Nebraska?
2) Is any thing I can do now to prevent RFE/Denial in I-140?
3) My LC (PD May 2004) is pending and about to go to Regional or BPC from State?
4) Is it better to file a new LC through PERM to avoid all these problems?
 
Hi,

It is very evident that each service center handles the I-140 slightly different than others, especially when it comes to the issue handling the educational evaluation. Also, it is also known that most of I-140 denials for reasons of education seems to do with combined degrees.

I agree that psam123's case is not a combined degree issue. Service centers are tough on combined degrees, so in case of psam123 it may be important to establish that his situation is NOT a combined degree. However, after seeing his case and so many others in these situations, it emphasizes the fact that it is VERY important to ensure that you do things right from the beginnning of the GC process. Only a competent attorney can guide one through such cases.

Few things to note:

1) If you do NOT have a single 4 yr Bachelor degree (if you have 3 yr degree or two 3yr degrees), do NOT reuse educational evaluation done for your prior H1B. The criteria for labor approval and further immigration process are quite different between H1B and GC process. current USCIS documentation states that for - EB-3 Eligibility and Filing
...
"Professionals must hold a U.S. baccalaureate degree or foreign equivalent degree that is normally required for the profession. Education and experience may not be substituted for the degree."

It is always a good idea to get a NEW educational evaluation done for your GC process.

2) For people who do NOT have single 4 yr bachelor degree, It makes a big difference between the words "Bacherlor's Degree" and "Bacherlor's Degree or equivalent",as it may have been stated in the LC.

3)If you get an RFE at I-140 stage (or in cases of appeal or mtion to reopen), just by simply resubmitting the same educational evaluation that you had provided earlier will do no good. The fact that you received an RFE is bcoz, service center has a concern with your case based on the documentation already provided. IT is very important to get an EXPERT credential evaluation for your specific case beyond a regular educational evaluation. Please note that, some attorney think that, any such new documentation submitted should not conflict with the initial documentation (evaluation reports) provided with the application.

gc_puli, for your EB2 scenario, check with your attorney for your options and implications.

Good luck.
 
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Evaluation documents.

psam123 / Gcpuli,


Combination of degree is acceptable in some cases, but when you provide the education evaluation make sure Evaluator specifies one single degree, and also they mention your first degree is pre-request to complete the second degree. So your entire degree adds upto 6 years degree program which is more than sufficient to prove that you have US BS degree ( 4 years).

I had similar issue with 3 years + 1 1/2 years, then I re-evaluated with Trustforte and it worked for me.

I would recommend you to show the entire denial notice to Trustforte evaluator, so that he/she can mention the correct words on your evaluation.
 
Do you have status?

Hi,

psam123 - I'm curious as to what status you are in now? Given that your concurrrent application has been denied, how are you able to mainatain status? Do you still have H1B? or did you do a H1B transfer?

I was wondering how will one be able to a H1B transfer from bankrupt company.

Thanks
 
Status

Another company bought my bankrupt company. Both companies has signed an agreement to show the new company is taking care all employee liabilities and immigration stub.

I had chat with couple of lawyer; one lawyer is saying i don't need to any thing. Another lawyer is saying i need to do H1B transfer. I am confused ???
Do guys think, I need to do H1B transfer?
 
Waiting for response for the appeal

Hi Unitednation,
Thank you for your response. I really appreciate you for helping people like in this community.
I was able to get CE from Trustforte saying my 2nd degree is equivalent US 4 year degree.
And my lawyer has given explanation saying why it is different from my previous CE.

With new CE , my lawyer appealed last week.

Thanks

I will update you guys once I hear something from USCIS.
Normally how long it takes to see a change in online status?
 
Good luck psam123,

Certainly this forum is a great help. Normally, it takes about 7-10 days to see change in LUD. However, with NSC's unpredictability, you may get an email with the approval, before any changes.

Look forward to that.

DIGS
Eb3, India
RD : Apr.04
140 ??
 
psam,

It takes 30-60 days, after the I290 receipt letter , CIS will send out another letter to your Attorney and to your Employer once your application has accepted for BCIS motion. You should be fine once CIS accepted to treat your application based on BCIS motion, then approval letter follow within few weeks.

On your side, keep watching your I140 online status.
 
psam123 said:
Hi Unitednation,
Thank you for your response. I really appreciate you for helping people like in this community.
I was able to get CE from Trustforte saying my 2nd degree is equivalent US 4 year degree.
And my lawyer has given explanation saying why it is different from my previous CE.

With new CE , my lawyer appealed last week.

Thanks

I will update you guys once I hear something from USCIS.
Normally how long it takes to see a change in online status?
Click to expand...
PSAM123,

Can you tell us that what catagory you have filed I-140 (EB2 or EB3)?
 
psam123 said:
perm_lc,
EB3
Click to expand...

Thank you psam123. I am also having same pattern of engineering education in India. 10+2+3+3. I discussed with country's leading immigration attorney about this issue, to fight this.

I would like to discuss with you. I have sent an privite message.
 
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