Hello Friends,
I've been a silent reader on this forum for a while, and I found the information here very useful. Now it's time for me to reciprocate, hopefully my story will bring a glimpse of hope to all of you waiting for a Green Card.
I came in the US in 1999, as an F-1 graduate student. Graduated with a PhD in May 2004, applied for OPT. Worked as a Postdoc for a couple of months in my former advisor’s lab, then got a new Postdoc position at reputable university hospital in Texas. My employer obtained an H1-B for me effective May 2005. Then I hired an attorney who suggested filing an EB2 NIW I-140. I have about 10 publications; on most of them I am the first author. They include papers in good journals, presentations at international conferences, and a couple of patent applications. In addition, I received extremely laudative recommendation letters from known scientists in my field, including from industry and from overseas. I am a member in a couple of professional associations, served a few times as a reviewer & associate editor for a major journal. We filed the I-140 in the beginning of May 2005, and TSC approved it exactly 2 weeks later. According to my attorney, this was “unprecedented”. Took me some time to assemble the documentation for my wife’s and my I-485, and we filed it in mid-July. FP notice was for late August, but we did it earlier – beginning of August. The LUDs changed once or twice few days after fingerprinting, and then again on September 15.
On the other hand, in mid-August I applied for AP and EAD. The attorney fees seemed a bit too steep, and I was confident I would be able to do it by myself, so I did. Remember, the stakes were pretty low, I have a fresh H1-B (but no stamp in the passport). But just in case I needed to travel outside US, I wanted to have the AP as “insurance”.
I E-filed the I-131 and I-765, then called the 1-800 number to schedule the FP for the EAD card. One day before the scheduled FP date I got an e-mail letting me know that an RFE was issued for my I-765. Sure, I did not know what was it about, but I went ahead and got my FP done the next day. The RFE arrived in the mail another couple days later, and it stated that USCIS had not yet received my signature, FP and photo. Now surely, there was no way they could have received them, since they were only going to be collected the next day. But mistakes happen. I was fixin’ on writing a response to the RFE, but I guess that does not matter anymore – this morning I got the e-mails letting me know that both my wife’s and my I-485 had been approved, and that the cards had been ordered. So it’s been 4 months and a few days from start to finish – assuming the plastic cards will indeed arrive with the mail, and won’t accidentally be mailed out to Transylvania or whatever.
Some other details – I was born in a country not affected by retrogression of EB-2 visa numbers (somewhere in Central Europe). The attorney bills – with filing fees and mailing fees and copying fees and everything – added up to about $8k. That’s a shitload of money – at least for me. Nevertheless, I should point out that I am very satisfied with the job they did with my application. I wouldn't have been able to do put together as strong a case on my own. After the LUD changed yesterday evening the case status became unavailable on the USCIS web site – clicking on the case number took me to a screen containing a text like “The status of this case cannot be found in this automated system, call USCIS at 1-800-… to request additional info”. It changed to “Approved” this morning around 6:00 AM – which by the way is the exact time when the approval e-mails were sent.
I know that for some of you folks, who have been waiting for the GC from as far back as the past millennium, it might seem unfair that there are people like me who get it in like 4 months. However, the past 4 months are only the tip of the iceberg. The invisible part is the years spent in grad school, on a Graduate Assistant salary of about $1000 a month after taxes, from which I also had to pay tuition and university fees. So if you look at it from this point of view, I am as well one of the old-timers in this club.
You all take care of yourselves. Thank you for boosting other people's hopes by posting your experiences in this forum. Good luck with your Green Cards, and may God be with you.
