NIW CSC approved after RFE

S

sffamily

Registered Users (C)
Hi folks,
I just received the notice e-mail from USCIS that my NIW I-140 has been approved!

I've been watching this forum silently for a year and learned a lot. Thanks everyone!

Now it is my turn to share my info with you and give you guys some more confidences.

My case is kind of on the borderline and is kind of weak (at least I myself think so).

Basic:
1) Field of Study: Bioinformatics/Computational Biology, working in a very small drug discovery start-up.
2) Degree: 2 Masters(Bioinfo and CS both from top US engineering schools)
3) Publication: 3 (2 on regular journals in the field, and 1 conference paper from a NIST/DARPA sponsored conference), none of them is the 1st author, the best is the 3rd author. about 20-40 citations from different sources
4) no award, no patent, no invited talks, no paper review, no membership
5) I-140 NIW submiited to CSC in 2/04, received RFE the end of 2004 and responded at the deadline in early March.
approved in late April.
6) reference letters:
original 6 (2 from people in National Labs, 2 from one of the leading Pharma, 2 from supervisor and CEO in my company), all of them have been working with me either currently or in my previous company. ---- That's one of the major reason I got the RFE.

RFE, 6 letters(2 from professors in top US universities, 1 from friend's friend, 1 from senior management of the company and 1 from the director of scietific advisory board of the company, 1 from a professor who is in the field and also was also successful in industry-- I know him through business trip)


I don't think my chance is high, but I am very happy that it can get through.

My experience to share:
1) My English is not good enough to do DIY application, and my background is not strong enough, too. So I shift the heavy task to the professionally trained immigration lawyers, and they did a good job in both original filing and in RFE. (Cover letter is very important -- When I read the lawyer's cover letter, I didn't even think that I could have been such an excellent person, and with the same supporting materials they can find so many flashing points that I cannot figure out. :) )
My philosophy -- Spend money as necessary, never risk your more important thing just to save several thousands of money -- attorney feesworth the money and time. You can spend more valuable time to find reference letters than perparing all materials on your own.

2) Always keep good relationship with all people you've been working with. Many of your previous colleagues may grow a lot faster in terms of career and at certain degree they can offer your help you really need. (Almost all the letters I obtained are directly from people who worked with me or through the people I used to work with)

3) Try to think at the point of view of the immigration officer. -- they are not professionals in your field, and they don't know who's who in your field. The only thing they know is the referer's titles. So don't limit your search in your field only. The impact of the letter from a person who completely doesn't know what you are doing but carries a stellar title is more than a No.1 researcher in your field but only a univeristy professor.

4) Get all back-ups and plan the worst. For my case, I've planned all possible outcomes so I don't feel much excited for this approval as this is just one of the better results in my plannings and has some shortcomings than some other choices. I've applied CANADA green card and got approved 3 years ago and I've landed 2 years ago. I also have been planning to return to my home country for different career path.

5) I feel paper and award is less important in NIW than in EA/OR. The most important factor is what you are doing. If you can easily convince yourself that your field/project is directly related with National Interest, then your chance to get through is high.

One thing I figured out is that both processing speed and approval rate are increasing! Good Luck everyone!
 
What was your RFE about ? Can you please share that information ? Did you add additional evidence with your RFE or only support letters ?

Thanks
 
sffamily said:
Hi folks,
I just received the notice e-mail from USCIS that my NIW I-140 has been approved!

I've been watching this forum silently for a year and learned a lot. Thanks everyone!

Now it is my turn to share my info with you and give you guys some more confidences.

My case is kind of on the borderline and is kind of weak (at least I myself think so).

Basic:
1) Field of Study: Bioinformatics/Computational Biology, working in a very small drug discovery start-up.
2) Degree: 2 Masters(Bioinfo and CS both from top US engineering schools)
3) Publication: 3 (2 on regular journals in the field, and 1 conference paper from a NIST/DARPA sponsored conference), none of them is the 1st author, the best is the 3rd author. about 20-40 citations from different sources
4) no award, no patent, no invited talks, no paper review, no membership
5) I-140 NIW submiited to CSC in 2/04, received RFE the end of 2004 and responded at the deadline in early March.
approved in late April.
6) reference letters:
original 6 (2 from people in National Labs, 2 from one of the leading Pharma, 2 from supervisor and CEO in my company), all of them have been working with me either currently or in my previous company. ---- That's one of the major reason I got the RFE.

RFE, 6 letters(2 from professors in top US universities, 1 from friend's friend, 1 from senior management of the company and 1 from the director of scietific advisory board of the company, 1 from a professor who is in the field and also was also successful in industry-- I know him through business trip)


I don't think my chance is high, but I am very happy that it can get through.

My experience to share:
1) My English is not good enough to do DIY application, and my background is not strong enough, too. So I shift the heavy task to the professionally trained immigration lawyers, and they did a good job in both original filing and in RFE. (Cover letter is very important -- When I read the lawyer's cover letter, I didn't even think that I could have been such an excellent person, and with the same supporting materials they can find so many flashing points that I cannot figure out. :) )
My philosophy -- Spend money as necessary, never risk your more important thing just to save several thousands of money -- attorney feesworth the money and time. You can spend more valuable time to find reference letters than perparing all materials on your own.

2) Always keep good relationship with all people you've been working with. Many of your previous colleagues may grow a lot faster in terms of career and at certain degree they can offer your help you really need. (Almost all the letters I obtained are directly from people who worked with me or through the people I used to work with)

3) Try to think at the point of view of the immigration officer. -- they are not professionals in your field, and they don't know who's who in your field. The only thing they know is the referer's titles. So don't limit your search in your field only. The impact of the letter from a person who completely doesn't know what you are doing but carries a stellar title is more than a No.1 researcher in your field but only a univeristy professor.

4) Get all back-ups and plan the worst. For my case, I've planned all possible outcomes so I don't feel much excited for this approval as this is just one of the better results in my plannings and has some shortcomings than some other choices. I've applied CANADA green card and got approved 3 years ago and I've landed 2 years ago. I also have been planning to return to my home country for different career path.

5) I feel paper and award is less important in NIW than in EA/OR. The most important factor is what you are doing. If you can easily convince yourself that your field/project is directly related with National Interest, then your chance to get through is high.

One thing I figured out is that both processing speed and approval rate are increasing! Good Luck everyone!
Click to expand...

Congratulations! I like your attitude---thanks for sharing your experience with the forum. All the best with your 485s.
 
Same question- Which lawyer and Congrats and Thanks a lot for sharing your experience. It really gives me some hope. Good luck
 
NIW-Nov 04 said:
What was your RFE about ? Can you please share that information ? Did you add additional evidence with your RFE or only support letters ?

Thanks
Click to expand...

My RFE contains the following points:

* I need to submit persuasive documentary evidence that the exemption would be in the national interest. The evidence is insufficient to clearly demostrate that exemption (of labor certification) would be in the national interest.

* most of the submitted supporting letters (for the original filing) appear to be from associates, professors, employers and/or colleagues in my field and are more akin to "reference letters" than testmonials.

* Also, from the original submission, it is unclear that how the petitioner/beneficiary specifically intends to utilize my experience and abilities--more than any other individual among other highly qualified people in my field--toward the prospective national benefit of the US.


I was asked two types of supporting materials:
* one from my employer, the detailed future plan and why they are "national interest"
* the other from a long list of goverment associated agencies and departments/offices


I finally submitted 6 more letters, and a couple of news articles from FDA talking about the work our company is doing.
 
Thank you very much. Can you please tell what and how you answered this question "The evidence is insufficient to clearly demostrate that exemption (of labor certification) would be in the national interest."

Thanks
 
NIW-Nov 04 said:
Thank you very much. Can you please tell what and how you answered this question "The evidence is insufficient to clearly demostrate that exemption (of labor certification) would be in the national interest."

Thanks
Click to expand...
The lawyer did all that, but if I understand correctly. the logic reasoning is like:
1) assume that the point I am exceptional among peers and better than most peers with similar background and experience has been proved and accepted.
2) assume that the point the project I am working in is of National Interest has been proved and accepted.
3) assume that the point I am key to this project has been proved and accepted.
4) LC will qualify any candidate with MINIMUM qualification to take my role.

Now it is easy:

The only thing that needs to prove is that the project CANNOT be finished with only MINIMUM qualification. (Simply raise the bar through your employer AND other people who has the authority to judge it)

So, if taking LC process, other candidate with MINIMUM qualification will take the role, and he cannot meet the project requirement, and the project cannot be finished as expected(in terms of both time and the results), the national interest will then be adversely affected, so only I can do it and not adversely affecting the National Interest, hence the exemption of LC is of National Interest.

Usually 1) and 3) are easy, but 2) may not apply to some fields. I happen to work in a field that is related with early detection of drug's side effects, I associated this with the recent Cox-2(Vioxx...) news with Merck and Pfizer, which makes it clearly that the project is of National Interest, because it will reduce the risk of millions of US patients' life and will save drug development cost significantly and ultimately reduce the US patients medical cost, of course another National Interest.

But I think some field may be harder to prove the point 2). If you are working on a project making good web searching algorithm, though you are the best, but since there are Google out there, there is no URGENT need from the National Interest point of view so if the project loses you National Interest will not be affected too much, as there are still other replacement/similar technologies.

So, make sure to find out the uniqueness of what you are doing.
 
sffamily said:
who worked with me or through the people I used to work with)

3) Try to think at the point of view of the immigration officer. -- they are not professionals in your field, and they don't know who's who in your field. The only thing they know is the referer's titles. So don't limit your search in your field only. The impact of the letter from a person who completely doesn't know what you are doing but carries a stellar title is more than a No.1 researcher in your field but only a univeristy professor.

!
Click to expand...

This is a very important point. The reviewer must understand what you are doing. Using language that only a scientist will understand is not productive. In my case, I had to make my attorney understand what I was doing doing. This took a lot of time. Once she understood, she helped make the USCIS (INS at the time) reviewer understand.

Congratulations.

Brian
 
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