NIW - Nebraska
- Thread starter 2464
- Start date
jk0274, nscaganoy, and madmonkey
Thank you all for your comments and concerns. I yet did not receive the RFE letter. I expect it to go to my attorney directly, this was not a DIY. I have some feeling, and a trackitt user also suggested the same thing, that this RFE might be inquiring about my current employment. When I originally turned in my petition, I was leaving my post-doc position and not officially in my current full-time position. I hope that this is what the RFE is about, but it is only a speculation.
I do not think this is about reco letters because the ones I turned in are really strong enough for this petition. Let's see what happens.
In regards to citations, I never mentioned this as a criteria or bothered to include it. But If they ask this explicitly, I would look things up. I only know for example that hundreds of copies were sold in the first month, in the US and Europe, of my Springer-Verlag Book which is about some advanced and recent research topics. Could these be counted as citations?? I am not sure about my Journals, but I could find this out too. It has been more than a year since I turned in my petition, so I think there will be some changes.
This week I was sitting on another funding review panel at NSF, so I might include this as well in my RFE reply.
Madmonkey, please let us know what is your RFE about.
I will keep you updated guys!
Thank you all for your comments and concerns. I yet did not receive the RFE letter. I expect it to go to my attorney directly, this was not a DIY. I have some feeling, and a trackitt user also suggested the same thing, that this RFE might be inquiring about my current employment. When I originally turned in my petition, I was leaving my post-doc position and not officially in my current full-time position. I hope that this is what the RFE is about, but it is only a speculation.
I do not think this is about reco letters because the ones I turned in are really strong enough for this petition. Let's see what happens.
In regards to citations, I never mentioned this as a criteria or bothered to include it. But If they ask this explicitly, I would look things up. I only know for example that hundreds of copies were sold in the first month, in the US and Europe, of my Springer-Verlag Book which is about some advanced and recent research topics. Could these be counted as citations?? I am not sure about my Journals, but I could find this out too. It has been more than a year since I turned in my petition, so I think there will be some changes.
This week I was sitting on another funding review panel at NSF, so I might include this as well in my RFE reply.
Madmonkey, please let us know what is your RFE about.
I will keep you updated guys!
Last edited by a moderator:
My RFE also will go to the attorney...so it may be a while before I know the contents...keeping fingers crossed and hoping for the best! My suspision is that they lost my application package and want me to re-send it. Weird as this may sound, it happened to a friend of mine!
My attorney contacted me and he told me that my RFE will go to him and that he will let know ASAP about it.
nscganoy, my reco letters come from a director at the Army Research Laboratory, particularly from the directorate of the Army Research Office... Another letter is from a program director at NSF. I have also submitted 7 other letters from national and international professors and one from a leading researcher (with two PhDs) at an R&D lab from the industry.
I am anxious to know what is my RFE about... I really hope it is something simple....
nscganoy, my reco letters come from a director at the Army Research Laboratory, particularly from the directorate of the Army Research Office... Another letter is from a program director at NSF. I have also submitted 7 other letters from national and international professors and one from a leading researcher (with two PhDs) at an R&D lab from the industry.
I am anxious to know what is my RFE about... I really hope it is something simple....
Last edited by a moderator:
JerIst,
I have a feeling that your RFE might require (or at least benefit from) your citation list. If you can get 1- a letter from your publisher attesting to the number of copies sold at the time your petition was filed and/or 2- a citation list for all your papers using something like scopus.com, you should start compiling these over the weekend in order to pre-empt the possible contents of your RFE. Remember, according to everything I have been told by attorneys, only accomplishements at the time of filing will be considered, because you are supposed to be qualified for the NIW at the time of filing, so publications etc after the fact usually will not be considered by the adjudicator. Or at least, are not supposed to be considered.
I have a feeling that your RFE might require (or at least benefit from) your citation list. If you can get 1- a letter from your publisher attesting to the number of copies sold at the time your petition was filed and/or 2- a citation list for all your papers using something like scopus.com, you should start compiling these over the weekend in order to pre-empt the possible contents of your RFE. Remember, according to everything I have been told by attorneys, only accomplishements at the time of filing will be considered, because you are supposed to be qualified for the NIW at the time of filing, so publications etc after the fact usually will not be considered by the adjudicator. Or at least, are not supposed to be considered.
jk0274,
Thanks for your helpful comments. I did not know that things should be by the time of filing. I will try to investigate all my citations and things, I do not know how to collect my citations at the time of filing, I can only do that for the current time. I will contact my publisher about my book. The book was published in Oct 2006, the same time I filed my petition, and by december when I received the yearly royalty report, hundreds were sold already.
Anyway, I hope all gets cleared once I see what is in the RFE letter. Usually however, as I have seen on this forum and trackitt, most RFEs require rebuilding the case, which makes me really very worried. This is why I hope this is a simple information that is being asked, like current position, etc.
Thanks for your helpful comments. I did not know that things should be by the time of filing. I will try to investigate all my citations and things, I do not know how to collect my citations at the time of filing, I can only do that for the current time. I will contact my publisher about my book. The book was published in Oct 2006, the same time I filed my petition, and by december when I received the yearly royalty report, hundreds were sold already.
Anyway, I hope all gets cleared once I see what is in the RFE letter. Usually however, as I have seen on this forum and trackitt, most RFEs require rebuilding the case, which makes me really very worried. This is why I hope this is a simple information that is being asked, like current position, etc.
Last edited by a moderator:
JerIst, once you print out as complete a list of citations as possible, you can highlight those papers (that cite you) that were published up until October '06. But print everything because the adjudicator might not care if the papers are more recent than your receipt date.
I hope you are right about them wanting only simple information. However, I do worry a bit because you never gave them the number of times your work is cited, which is something the adjudicators are used to seeing. It is a common method of illustrating one's impact in the field. They don't only want to see how good you are, they want to see impact. That's why the rec letters and the citations are both important. It's nothing to sweat about, just have a list of articles that cite your work ready. If an article actually discusses your work beyond just citing it at the end of a sentence, then you should also include a copy of that article and highlight where they are talking about your work.
I hope you are right about them wanting only simple information. However, I do worry a bit because you never gave them the number of times your work is cited, which is something the adjudicators are used to seeing. It is a common method of illustrating one's impact in the field. They don't only want to see how good you are, they want to see impact. That's why the rec letters and the citations are both important. It's nothing to sweat about, just have a list of articles that cite your work ready. If an article actually discusses your work beyond just citing it at the end of a sentence, then you should also include a copy of that article and highlight where they are talking about your work.
Thank you jk0274,
What you are saying is all important stuff. I will spend this weekend thinking about all this...
I actually checked my previous correspondance with my lawyer, and indeed he asked me about citations. At that time, most of my journals were new (less than 15 months old), and I guess there was no enough time for them to be cited by another journal. At the time, I gathered only 8 citations and the lawyer at that time told me he will not put too much emphasis on the citations since they are less than 20 and the publications are quite new. This is why I forgot about them, so I do not think the lawyer put any emphasis on them in the cover letter.
I will write back once I receive the RFE. Enjoy your holidays everybody.
What you are saying is all important stuff. I will spend this weekend thinking about all this...
I actually checked my previous correspondance with my lawyer, and indeed he asked me about citations. At that time, most of my journals were new (less than 15 months old), and I guess there was no enough time for them to be cited by another journal. At the time, I gathered only 8 citations and the lawyer at that time told me he will not put too much emphasis on the citations since they are less than 20 and the publications are quite new. This is why I forgot about them, so I do not think the lawyer put any emphasis on them in the cover letter.
I will write back once I receive the RFE. Enjoy your holidays everybody.
not to change the subject
Guys, not to change the subject which is important, but I need your suggestion. Some of you know me from trackitt.com. If you already have an attorney who submitted your I-140, 458, and EAD, and now your EAD is due for renewing, do you think I can renew it myself to save some money (attorney’s fee) or do you recommend I stick to my attorney and pay the $400-fee (for mine and my wife’s EADs)?
I originally posed this question at trackitt and got one suggestion to do it myself but still not sure yet if this is a good idea. Also, please spend few minutes to read my thread at trackitt to see if my EAD renewal is due or not.
Link:
http://www.trackitt.com/discussion-forums/i140/51355701/
Guys, not to change the subject which is important, but I need your suggestion. Some of you know me from trackitt.com. If you already have an attorney who submitted your I-140, 458, and EAD, and now your EAD is due for renewing, do you think I can renew it myself to save some money (attorney’s fee) or do you recommend I stick to my attorney and pay the $400-fee (for mine and my wife’s EADs)?
I originally posed this question at trackitt and got one suggestion to do it myself but still not sure yet if this is a good idea. Also, please spend few minutes to read my thread at trackitt to see if my EAD renewal is due or not.
Link:
http://www.trackitt.com/discussion-forums/i140/51355701/
anafiz,
What I did is that my lawyer contacted me reminding me that I have 4 months for my EAD to expire. The lawyer asked me if I would like to do it myself, or if I want the lawyer's firm to take care of it.
The attorney mentioned that if I want to do myself, their firm will provide me with the forms, and advice etc...
To be honest, I asked my attorney to go ahead and do it through their firm. I did not want to risk any mistake since I am working and do not have an H1...
It depends on your situation... If you are working on an H1, you can do it on your own... Else, if you get scared quickly like me
, then let the lawyer take care of it.
Note that if you use EAD, by using it on employer's I9 form, you loose H1 status.
I do not know what happens if your wife use the EAD. I do not know what happens to her H4, etc... Maybe some members here can help answer this question.
What I did is that my lawyer contacted me reminding me that I have 4 months for my EAD to expire. The lawyer asked me if I would like to do it myself, or if I want the lawyer's firm to take care of it.
The attorney mentioned that if I want to do myself, their firm will provide me with the forms, and advice etc...
To be honest, I asked my attorney to go ahead and do it through their firm. I did not want to risk any mistake since I am working and do not have an H1...
It depends on your situation... If you are working on an H1, you can do it on your own... Else, if you get scared quickly like me
, then let the lawyer take care of it.Note that if you use EAD, by using it on employer's I9 form, you loose H1 status.
I do not know what happens if your wife use the EAD. I do not know what happens to her H4, etc... Maybe some members here can help answer this question.
Last edited by a moderator:
Thanks JerIst for the super fats reply. But you know how much we spent so far on our immigration cases. I am sure some of you are almost financially broke like me due to many case-related and non related obligations. I am super scared like you JerIst when it comes to soundness of immigration procedures I do and I know that on the top of too many financial crisis and losses, one will not care about another $400. As we say in Arabic, {skinning the sheep will not harm after being sacrificed}.
When I filed my I-140, I prepared all my forms I-485, I-765, I-131 and just included them with the I-140 package my attorney prepared. The I-765 application is too easy (in my opinion) to warrant having a lawyer fees added to the cost. I have applied for 6 EADs during my life in the US with no problems whatsoever. I plan on filing a renewal next month by myself. The application is very simple and self-explanatory, and you just need to add a copy of your I-485 receipt, a copy (both sides) of your previous EAD, a clear copy of a gov't-issued ID (passport), the fees and two photos. If you're worried, you can add more stuff, like a copy (front and back) of I-94, etc. But it is a real waste of money, in my opinion, to pay an attorney for I-765. I have no underlying status.
JerIst, your letters of rec are stellar (clearly national interest). I don't think it will be citations. Citations are just one way of proving that your work is in the national interest, but support from government agencies is preferred according to my attorney.
If you end up needing your citations, try Google Scholar. Search for your own name, export all the citations to bibtex, and latex them all together. Looks neat and you can easily spot duplicates, have them counted etc. I organized over 120 citations in less than 2 hours, including downloading all the papers so I can print the first page for each paper citing my work. As long you find enough citations you don't have to list all of them, only those that are complete and easy to add. That saves a lot of time. There are another 50 or so citations I skipped because they were incomplete or I couldn't find the paper as pdf.
If you end up needing your citations, try Google Scholar. Search for your own name, export all the citations to bibtex, and latex them all together. Looks neat and you can easily spot duplicates, have them counted etc. I organized over 120 citations in less than 2 hours, including downloading all the papers so I can print the first page for each paper citing my work. As long you find enough citations you don't have to list all of them, only those that are complete and easy to add. That saves a lot of time. There are another 50 or so citations I skipped because they were incomplete or I couldn't find the paper as pdf.
nscaganoy,
Thank you greatly for your comments and suggestions. I will surely use google scholar as well as other sources. I do have my previous universtiy account and I can log in to Science Direct, and other citation websites.
I am only worried about what jk0274 rightly said about citations, that only citations that were available upon the time the petition was filed would count towards my petition. I looked at my correspondance with my attorney, and indeed we gathered in August 2006 about 8 or 9 citations to, at the time, my recently published Journals. I have never discussed in any quantitaive way the impact of my book, only discussed that it appears among one of the most prestigious series of Springer-Verlag. I do know that hundreds of copies were sold as of Dec 2006. I do not know if the sale of this research monograph may count towards citations, or may represent an indication of the impact on the research community.
I am preparing my self for anything at this point. I think though the fact that I left my previous post-doc position, and moved to another state for a full-time job, may be a legitimate reason for issuing this RFE.
Hope you are all having some quality times this holiday season...
JerIst
Thank you greatly for your comments and suggestions. I will surely use google scholar as well as other sources. I do have my previous universtiy account and I can log in to Science Direct, and other citation websites.
I am only worried about what jk0274 rightly said about citations, that only citations that were available upon the time the petition was filed would count towards my petition. I looked at my correspondance with my attorney, and indeed we gathered in August 2006 about 8 or 9 citations to, at the time, my recently published Journals. I have never discussed in any quantitaive way the impact of my book, only discussed that it appears among one of the most prestigious series of Springer-Verlag. I do know that hundreds of copies were sold as of Dec 2006. I do not know if the sale of this research monograph may count towards citations, or may represent an indication of the impact on the research community.
I am preparing my self for anything at this point. I think though the fact that I left my previous post-doc position, and moved to another state for a full-time job, may be a legitimate reason for issuing this RFE.
Hope you are all having some quality times this holiday season...
JerIst
Last edited by a moderator:
JerIst,
Proving that you sold 'hundreds of copies' of a book you authored is probably a lot better than any citation index. I was just preparing you for any eventuality, but I still think you have a very strong case. Any additional letters you may want to have written in response to your RFE, if it comes to that, can simply state the fact that your work sold a lot of copies.
Did your form I-140 list your new employer in your new state as 'potential employer' ? In other words, what did you (or your attorney) fill for Part 6 of form I-140?
Proving that you sold 'hundreds of copies' of a book you authored is probably a lot better than any citation index. I was just preparing you for any eventuality, but I still think you have a very strong case. Any additional letters you may want to have written in response to your RFE, if it comes to that, can simply state the fact that your work sold a lot of copies.
Did your form I-140 list your new employer in your new state as 'potential employer' ? In other words, what did you (or your attorney) fill for Part 6 of form I-140?
Last edited by a moderator:
JerIst, i have the same situation like you. I also left my previous post-doc position, and moved to another state for a full-time job. I hope this will not negatively impact our cases as NIW does not require current work when you file. It may indicate a state of an active scientist who relocate according to better research/academic settings.