Greencard Received in 10 Months in Nebraska Service Center
Our law firm recently received an I-485 approval filed for Dr. H, a postdoctoral fellow in Indiana.
The NIW I-140 was filed with the Nebraska Service Center (NSC) in September 2006 while the EB1B was filed in October 2006. The I-485s were filed for Dr. H and his family members based on the pending EB1B.
The NIW was approved in May 2007, while the EB1B was approved in April 2007. There was no RFE. The I-485s were approved in August 2007.
Dr. H was thrilled because the entire process took less than one year from when the I-140 was submitted to the USCIS. We are happy to report that Dr. H is the third client of our office who received his green card in less than one year since 2005.
Background:
Dr. H received both his M. S and M. D in China. He had more than ten years of research experience in biomedical engineering while in China. His previous work was in vascular biology and his work was aimed at clarifying the long unsolved problem of myocardial protection in cardiovascular surgery process.
He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Indiana. As a key scientist in a project funded by NIH, Dr. H’s current research focuses on bone disorder and disease, particularly osteoporosis and bone fractures.
Dr. H co-authored twenty-plus publications in peer-reviewed journals with national and international circulations, such as: J Applied Physiology , Biol. Sci. Space, Annals of Biomedical Engineering , Circulation , Chinese J Clinical Anatomy, Chinese J Sports Medicine. In addition, Dr. H has contributed about ten abstracts to the following conferences: The Annual Meeting of the Orthopaedic Research Society, the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research and the International Symposium on Morphological Sciences. Dr. H is a recipient of a number of prestigious research grants, including the National Scientific Research Fund and the Young Research Grant funded by his research institute in China. He is a member of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, a member of the Orthopaedic Research Society and a member of the International Chinese Hard Tissue Society.
Dr. H’s research has evidently had impacts within the area of his specialization, as the work has been favorably cited more than forty (40) times by other researchers in the field. While in China, Dr. H was invited to serve as a reviewer for a book published by Chinese Traditional Medicine Publishing House.
Disadvantages:
- Among the 20-plus publications Dr. H has co-authored, about 2/3rds of them were published in Chinese journals. Most of the Chinese journals do not have an official website providing detailed background information. As a result, Dr. H’s papers were mostly cited in Chinese articles published in China.
- Although Dr. H has received a number of prestigious research grants in China, there was no evidence establishing the reputation of the organization granting the research awards, the significance of the grants and the criteria used to select the recipient. There were no official award certificates issued to Dr. H either.
Our Strategies:
Given the fact that Dr. H has made substantial achievements in China, we spent a substantial effort and successfully showed satisfactory evidence that the subject journals were in fact leading academic journals in China. Dr. H has made original scientific contributions of major significance in the published papers. Based on the information obtained from China Journal Database, we are able to include evidence showing Dr. H’s papers were extensively cited in China as authoritative.
To establish the significance of the research grants Dr. H received in China, we further advised Dr. H to obtain one recommendation letter from China attesting to his research achievements and the criteria applied to select the recipients. Based on our experience handling immigration petitions for numerous clients who received their advanced degrees in another country, their publications and research experience in the home country are as important as the research achievements made in the US. They establish convincingly that the beneficiary has a demonstrable prior track record of achievements which will justify his future contribution in the US.
We further argued that Dr. H has made groundbreaking research discoveries and his novel findings provided an invaluable means for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis.
Dr. H submitted eight expert opinion letters from his advisor in China, post-doctorate mentors and other independent experts both in the US and abroad. No letters from US government agencies were provided. We did a thorough analysis of each writer’s background and how the writers came to know the beneficiary, making sure the drafted letters were appropriate from the perspective of the advisors and independent experts.
Both I-140s filed in EB1B and NIW were approved in about eight months by the NSC. The I-485s were approved in three months following the approvals of the I-140s.