Interesting RFE

>Membership requires outstanding achievements. For example, you almost have to be elected a fellow of your professional association to use this criteria--not just an associate or senior member of say IEEE.

Are you sure Senior Membership of IEEE does not count? In this forum, somebody mentioned that his Senior Member status of IEEE was accepted by BCIS.

Once I-140 is approved, do we know what criterias were met and what not?
 
Read the AAO decisions more carefully, they have been challenging this type of membership.

My point mainly is that we need to be fully aware of the various pitfalls and present our petitions much more carefully. These are some of the areas that may require more explanations in the form of responses to RFEs.
 
Originally posted by topew
Read the AAO decisions more carefully, they have been challenging this type of membership.

My point mainly is that we need to be fully aware of the various pitfalls and present our petitions much more carefully. These are some of the areas that may require more explanations in the form of responses to RFEs.
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However, AAO will only see a petition once it has already been rejected. AAO decisions alone do not necessarily set policy.

Out of curiosity, topew, are you an attorney?

Brian
 
BIA decisions.

I agree with Brian. AAO administrative decisions will only give us the trend of AAO apeal rulings. There is no binding power to BCIS. However, BIA decisions are binding on all DHS officers and Immigration Judges unless modified or overruled by the Attorney General or a Federal court. One example of BIA decision is NYDOT case.
 
Brian,

I am not an attorney. I am in the social sciences. Indeed, I just filed my petition in April. Initially, I had prepared a 3 page petition statement. Then I discover this forum. It was a blessing as I learnt a lot from other petitioners on the forum. I also searched other websites such as yahoo and msn by typing "eb1 extraordinary ability" which led me to other articles, including AAO deicsions, on this subject matter. In a sense, this is simply doing what a researcher will do in preparing scholarly articles!

As a result, it gave me the opportunity to revise the petition statement to more than 30 pages. In the revised statement, I now tried to explain the significance of the documentary evidence submitted (about 700 pages) as they relate to the criteria and as they prove "sustained international acclaim and extraordinary ability."

If you have a nobel prize, you do not need to go through this process. You just filled 140 form and attach a copy of your nobel prize certificate! But for ordinary mortals like most petitioners on this forum, proving extraordinary ability and sustained acclaim is not an easy task. Statistics indicate that only about 2000 to 2500 petitioners are approved in this category yearly.

Thus the issue is not simply whether AAO or BIA sets policy or guidelines, but what can we learn from their decisions to ensure that our petitions come out successfully. If AAO tends to defend the decisions of directors, certainly you will not want to be in the position of the outcome of a director's decision on your petition being defended by AAO!!!
 
Hi topew

I learned you are an EB1 applicant and filed in April just like me. I looked your qualifications you posted in December 2002. Your qualifications are very impressive for this category. Good luck your application!

I discovered this forum after my filing. I filed by myself, and I actually followed a succesful application of my colleague in my field whose application was filed by a lawyer (who chagred $8000). My colleague,s qualifications were outlined in just 6 pages. During the application - he was an posdoc (only 28 years old), 7 goog papers, five excellent recommendations (all from USA), 20 citations. no majo awards - some graduate fellowships, memberships like me, no review any papers (however his supervisor mentioned he participate in judging other works in his lab. I summerzied (I tried to make it shorten) my case in 8 pages. However, I have also like 600-700 pages ducuments. If you like you can see my qualification in this fourum and appreciate your comments. I am enjoying this discussion forum very much.
Which center you applied?
 
Thank you for the comments on my qualifications. As I earlier noted, I benefitted a lot from this forum and from other articles I read on the web. I am using TSC.

It appears to me that in your colleague's case, the five letters of recommendations could have been "the difference between approval and rejection" as Brian once noted. Please see also the article on letters of recommendations at www.immigrationassociates.com.

There is an article on "California Service Center Analyzes EB-1 Extraordinary Ability" at www.immigrationlinks.com/news/newshints63. The article discusses what CSC is looking for in EB1.

Also check out "The following is a note from the INS Texas Service Center" at
www.canamglobal.com/eb1eb2.pdf.

There is also a very good article on EB1 at www.3law.net.

You may find them useful in evaluating your case or in responding to RFE if there is any.
 
Originally posted by $$01011964


I summerzied (I tried to make it shorten) my case in 8 pages. However, I have also like 600-700 pages ducuments.
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My own petition was about 400 pages. After the consular interview, my immigrant visa was stapled to the whole application. They had to stick it in two large envelopes. At the border, the INS guy who processed me looked at the two envelopes and asked me why I had such a large petition :).

Brian
 
Size of the application materials

I agree it is always good not to send big size application. However for this type of application, you also need to add the cv and publications of the letter writters. It might possible to make the size if one include only cv (without publications). Is it reasonable not to enclose list of publications (in my case it was about 20 pages for each referee)?
 
Re: Size of the application materials

Originally posted by $$01011964
I agree it is always good not to send big size application. However for this type of application, you also need to add the cv and publications of the letter writters. It might possible to make the size if one include only cv (without publications). Is it reasonable not to enclose list of publications (in my case it was about 20 pages for each referee)?
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No, include it all. He said it with a half smile. He didn't usually see EB-1 cases. EB-3 petitions are much smaller and more straightforward.

Brian
 
10 referees, 20+ pages CV of each refree, shall we include their full papers as well?
I think, if one is working with experienced lawyer, no. of pages will be minimum. If it is self petition, I would like to include each and every item. After all, one is not sure what the office likes?
 
Originally posted by bambhole

10 referees, 20+ pages CV of each refree, shall we include their full papers as well?
I think, if one is working with experienced lawyer, no. of pages will be minimum. If it is self petition, I would like to include each and every item. After all, one is not sure what the office likes?
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It depends how the matrials are organized. Well organized ducuments are not difficult to handle.
 
I got my NIW approved -self-petitioned. I sent in less than 200 pages with a 4 page cover letter.

I received an RFE and sent about 20 pages including a 5 page response letter.

I included only first pages of all papers and the
cover page of journal showing it had international circulation.

Maybe I was lucky. I had never seen any other persons petition. I did everything logically as one would to write a journal paper. My effort also was
roughly equivalent to the time spent on writing a journal paper.

cncoold
 
Originally posted by cncoold
I got my NIW approved -self-petitioned. I sent in less than 200 pages with a 4 page cover letter.

cncoold
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Is it the reason that you received RFE wording "Request for initial evidences" instead of "Request of additional evidences"?
 
It could be. But I doubt it. I think it was given because I had no letters of refernce from "independent witnessses". They did not want to give me EAD/AP.

From one of the immigration websites.
http://www.chugh.com/newsletter/newsletter/decembernewsletter.htm


PROCESSING OF I-140/I-485 CONCURRENT APPLICATIONS

INS has confirmed that the procedure for concurrent filings of I-140 and I-485 applications is that the Service Center will first conduct a prima facie review of the I-140 petition. If the INS determines that a Request For Evidence (RFE) must be issued, then the RFE will cover any and all evidence. If the RFE is for “additional evidence” which is required to assist an officer in making a decision rather than an RFE for “initial evidence” which is required to make a prima facie case, then the usual 90 day processing time for work authorization cards (EAD) and advance paroles will apply. The applicant will be entitled to receive these interim benefits within 90 days.

If the RFE is for “initial evidence” which is requested by an officer to determine whether or not the petition/application meets the basic requirements, then the processing time “clock” will restart and application will be put on hold until the information/evidence is received. The applicant will only be entitled to the interim benefits 90 days after receipt of the requested evidence.
 
As you earlier posted in this forum and quoted here, the RFE in your case was quite specific as to what BCIS wanted: an independent letters of recommendations.

"Please demonstrate how your achievements are more significant/noteworty than others in the field and are above that normally attained by somebody at your current level. To establish this you should submit letters from independent witnesses who have not worked with you but are familiar with your impact on the field"

There are subtle differences between NIW and EB1 EA.

From my own readings, independent letters of recommendations may be more important in addressing the issues raised under NYDOT for NIW, particularly if they are not well articulated in the petition statement.

However, independent letters will not mean much for EB1 EA if you do not meet the 3 or more evidentiary standards specifically requested in the regulations.

Furthermore, one may qualify for EB1 EA and not necessarily qualify for NIW and vice versa. For example, it may be easier to prove NIW in the physical sciences than in the arts or social sciences. But, one can still prove EB1 EA in the social sciences or arts by providing the requisite evidences standards that meet the regulations.

You may have observed that attorneys tend to charge more for NIW than for EB1 EA as they spend more time proving NIW. Overall, approval in NIW is highly discretionary and amorphous as Jim Mills will say.

The postings in this forum also tend to support these viewpoints.

To conclude, the lesson to draw from your case is that a successful outcome can be assured with a well prepared petition statement backed by few quality oriented independent letters and copies of relevant evidences.
 
You're right, the NIW is more amorphous but it still is extremely useful. I filed one last week.

The application needs to be long enough. In some cases, it may be possible to prove qualification for an NIW or EB-1EA in less than 50 pages and in others you may want to submit 1000. It all depends on what is necessary to prove qualifications.

Someone who won a Nobel Prize or was an internationally recognized authority could probably get by with a relatively short submission but most cases would take a more substantiall submission.
 
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