NIW

National Interest Waiver – Part II

In continuation of our ongoing segment of national interest waiver approvals, we’re going to discuss another previously approved case.  In this matter, the applicant was an Indian national but unlike today, the EB2 category was current for Indian nationals, and we could file an NIW application and there was no extra waiting period beyond normal USCIS processing times.

National Interest Waiver Requirements

1. That the alien seeks employment in an area of substantial intrinsic merit;
2. That the proposed benefit will be national in scope; and
3. That the national interest would be adversely affected if a labor certification would be required for the alien.

National Interest Waiver Approved Case Part II

Degree: MS in Biochemistry

Position: Senior Laboratory Technician (This position was amended prior to filing)

Field of Expertise: Stem Cell Derivation

Publications: 1 (4th author)

Citations: 8 including self citations

Abstracts: 11

Recommendation Letters: 3

The applicant in this case was an Indian national.  The NIW application was approved although a difficult request for additional evidence was issued that held up the approval for an additional two months.  However, the applicant still obtained his residency approximately 14 months year after filing.  Current NIW processing times are much faster and since the second half of 2009, we are regularly seeing approvals in less than 3 months.

By looking at the applicant’s job title at the time we took his case (tech), it would seem like a national interest waiver was a long shot.  His publication record certainly did not help.  However, we were able to identify some novel techniques the applicant developed as a tech and were able to convince his University employer to move him to a different position that is more associated with research prior to filing.  This was certainly a difficult case but a case that we were very proud to get approved because the obvious accomplishments were just not there.  If we took this case today we would consider filing a concurrent EB1 filing since the EB2 category is backlogged.

National Interest Waiver – Part I

I’m going to introduce a new segment to my blog readers.  Many current and potential clients contact me or my office to discuss whether or not they can qualify for certain applications like the national interest waiver.  I wrote one previous entry describing the typical qualifications for our NIW clients but I would like to start a periodic series describing particular NIW cases that we have successfully handled in the past.

National Interest Waiver Requirements

1. That the alien seeks employment in an area of substantial intrinsic merit;
2. That the proposed benefit will be national in scope; and
3. That the national interest would be adversely affected if a labor certification would be required for the alien.

National Interest Waiver Approved Case Part I

Degree: PhD in Physics

Position: Research Associate

Field of Expertise: Materials Science

Publications: 14

Citations: 11 including self citations

Conferences: 21

Recommendation Letters: 4

The applicant in this case was a South Korea national.  It was approved without a request for additional evidence and because the visa numbers were current for the EB2 category, the applicant obtained her residency approximately 1 year after filing.  Current NIW processing times are much faster and since the second half of 2009, we are regularly seeing approvals in less than 3 months.

This applicant surpassed the minimum requirements for an NIW application.  Most of our clients have 4 publications or less and are employed as a post doc at a University.  However, the applicant had a very poor publication to citation ratio.  This could lead the adjudicating officer to believe that her work was not well regarded and of poor quality.  In a sense this was true but we were able to overcome this issue by highlighting her other accomplishments and through her recommendation letters.