This forum has been extremely helpful to me in learning and sharing other people's experience in the green card process. Here is my journal through this process (not completed yet), but would like to share with others who have been through and still going through the agony, relief and excitement.
I filed I-140 EB2 NIW at VSC in May 2003 with an attorney who is relatively inexpensive. At his request I sent him a personal statement and prepared 6 recommendation letters from colleagues, friends and professors. I did not want to file with the company because (1) they required me to wait for at least one year after I joined the firm (2) I would be committed to stay with the firm for a fixed number of years and will otherwise need to pay for the application (something like $25,000). I asked the attorney about the possibility of an EB-1EA, since our company's desginated external immigration attorneys always recommend filing EB-1EA for our employees who requests company's cooperation in the green card process. However, my attorney said that I would not qualify. I took his advice and filed EB2 NIW instead.
I was completely ignorant at the time (did not know about this website at first). I learned about I-140/I-485 concurrent filing (and benefits of having an EAD/AP) from other people. I checked withh my attorney, and at my request we filed 485 in October 2003. The 485 was linked to EB2 NIW.
In 2004, the guy who sat next to me at work finished up his EB1-EA application with the help of our company's extrenal attorneys. He asked me to proof-read his application for him, and while doing that I realized that I could totally do this on my own. In June 2004, I filed a self-petitioned EB1-EA, using the same set of recommendation letters as EB2 NIW from earlier.
Heard absolutely nothing until January 2005, when I got finger printed.
In April, almost 2 years after the receipt date, I got the RFE notice on the EB2 application. The RFE request was very nicely worded, but it said that the original application did not satisfy either the second or the third prong of NIW and USCIS asked for more evidence.
On the same day that I received the email on the EB2 RFE, I also got an email that said that "at the request of USCIS", my EB1-EA case was "reopened". A week later, I got the intention to deny on EB1-EA, saying that the original application did not satisfy any of the EB1 requirements (three is required).
I asked four personal/business acquaintances who are in the same field as me whether they could write recommendations for me for the GC. All of them said yes. I got all the letters within 2 weeks. Then I took three days off from work writing up the RFEs for both EB1 and EB2 (there are a lot of synergies between the two to say the least, but there are still some differences). Mailed in the EB1 RFE in mid May (3 days before the stated 1 month deadline), and gave the RFE response for EB2 to my attorney and begged him to comment/revise/work on it promptly. Of course my attorney did not get to it untill the last week prior to the stated RFE response deadline, at which time he wrote up "attorney's statement" (which had some good stuff on national interest point that I would not have thought of on my own) and added it on top of the stuff I wrote and he subsequently revised. USCIS received the EB2 RFE the day before the stated deadline.
In late June, got the email that the EB1 was approved. I called the service center 2 weeks later and told them that I never received the approval notice. The call went to the VSC. This super nice gentleman at VSC confirmed my address and promised to send me a duplicate approval notice. Before I hung up, it occured to me to ask him if there is any way to link my pending 485 with the approved EB1 as opposed to the pending EB2. He checked with his supervisor and said that is do-able (and is actually the right way to do it). He said that he will send a duplicate EB1 approval notice to the 485 department and they will take it over from here. I thanked him profusely.
A week later, I got the 485 approval notice.
I filed I-140 EB2 NIW at VSC in May 2003 with an attorney who is relatively inexpensive. At his request I sent him a personal statement and prepared 6 recommendation letters from colleagues, friends and professors. I did not want to file with the company because (1) they required me to wait for at least one year after I joined the firm (2) I would be committed to stay with the firm for a fixed number of years and will otherwise need to pay for the application (something like $25,000). I asked the attorney about the possibility of an EB-1EA, since our company's desginated external immigration attorneys always recommend filing EB-1EA for our employees who requests company's cooperation in the green card process. However, my attorney said that I would not qualify. I took his advice and filed EB2 NIW instead.
I was completely ignorant at the time (did not know about this website at first). I learned about I-140/I-485 concurrent filing (and benefits of having an EAD/AP) from other people. I checked withh my attorney, and at my request we filed 485 in October 2003. The 485 was linked to EB2 NIW.
In 2004, the guy who sat next to me at work finished up his EB1-EA application with the help of our company's extrenal attorneys. He asked me to proof-read his application for him, and while doing that I realized that I could totally do this on my own. In June 2004, I filed a self-petitioned EB1-EA, using the same set of recommendation letters as EB2 NIW from earlier.
Heard absolutely nothing until January 2005, when I got finger printed.
In April, almost 2 years after the receipt date, I got the RFE notice on the EB2 application. The RFE request was very nicely worded, but it said that the original application did not satisfy either the second or the third prong of NIW and USCIS asked for more evidence.
On the same day that I received the email on the EB2 RFE, I also got an email that said that "at the request of USCIS", my EB1-EA case was "reopened". A week later, I got the intention to deny on EB1-EA, saying that the original application did not satisfy any of the EB1 requirements (three is required).
I asked four personal/business acquaintances who are in the same field as me whether they could write recommendations for me for the GC. All of them said yes. I got all the letters within 2 weeks. Then I took three days off from work writing up the RFEs for both EB1 and EB2 (there are a lot of synergies between the two to say the least, but there are still some differences). Mailed in the EB1 RFE in mid May (3 days before the stated 1 month deadline), and gave the RFE response for EB2 to my attorney and begged him to comment/revise/work on it promptly. Of course my attorney did not get to it untill the last week prior to the stated RFE response deadline, at which time he wrote up "attorney's statement" (which had some good stuff on national interest point that I would not have thought of on my own) and added it on top of the stuff I wrote and he subsequently revised. USCIS received the EB2 RFE the day before the stated deadline.
In late June, got the email that the EB1 was approved. I called the service center 2 weeks later and told them that I never received the approval notice. The call went to the VSC. This super nice gentleman at VSC confirmed my address and promised to send me a duplicate approval notice. Before I hung up, it occured to me to ask him if there is any way to link my pending 485 with the approved EB1 as opposed to the pending EB2. He checked with his supervisor and said that is do-able (and is actually the right way to do it). He said that he will send a duplicate EB1 approval notice to the 485 department and they will take it over from here. I thanked him profusely.
A week later, I got the 485 approval notice.
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