Help! Got an RFE on my EB-2 NIW application

[Highrise 0]

Hello everyone!

I am new to this forum but I just had to come share and get opinions of people on the next steps. My case goes;

My wife and I have been here for almost 5 years now, she is almost done with her PhD in health outcomes research, and I am almost done with my Masters in Public health. We applied last year for the EB-2 national interest waiver with my wife being the petitioner through a lawyer. At the time of the application, she had a publication and several conference proceedings, greater than 10. She also had a couple of awards-outstanding teaching assistant nominee, is a member of a honor society, and two other societies, and obtained many travel grants for conferences. She has also been a reviewer at the conferences, reviewing more than 35 abstracts. We submitted about 12 recommendation letters with the application, we really tried to draft the letters well, as our lawyer was not helpful. Long story short, we received a Request for evidence, a 4 paged letter asking for the impact she has made on the field, especially on the conference papers and research projects she has been involved in.The officer picked 2 of the letters and used the wordings to say that she has not had any significant influence on the field as of yet, and this got us distraught!

On the positive side, she just got another publication approved and someone cited her previous publication. Based on this background, could anyone give us some guidance as regards how best to address this request for evidence?

Many thanks!

[Highrise 0]

Please can someone give me some advice? Thank you so much

[TBoneTX 45,303]

Welcome to the forum. Answers might be a little slow in coming over the weekend, but someone will be along to help.

In my opinion only (being personally unfamiliar with EB-2 / NIW), it sounds as though your wife has been as active as possible during this stage (threshold) of her professional academic career. The RFE asking about her impact on the field might be more or less a standard request.

[Moderator hat on]

In hopes of attracting an informed response, I'm moving your thread from the Introducing Our Members forum to the Work Visas forum. If this is an improper or unfruitful location, we can try it somewhere else. Just avoid double-posting your query anywhere else, please.

[Penguin_ie 5,993]

National Interest Waivers are difficult to get. Are you willing to share why you think it is a National Interest issue, ie her field of study etc?

What I would suggest (and I am also not an expert on these, just from what I read on here) is to get letters of recommendations from very prominent people; your Senator and Congress men, famous doctors and so on.

[Highrise 0]

Hi Penguin and TBoneTX,

Thank you for your response.

She is working on her dissertation now at UT Southwestern with a Physician on developing a disease specific instrument (Used by Dermatologists) to help patients with cutaneous lupus erythematosus, a chronic skin disease. Her PhD is in Health outcomes and Pharmacy practice and she worked on the attitudes and behavioral intentions of African Americans to screen for prostate cancer when recommended by their physicians, basically trying to understand their attitude towards screening for this very deadly cancer especially among African American men and how to counsel and educate them to undergo screening to reduce the burden of prostate cancer; this was for her Thesis. This was recently accepted for publication and she coauthored several conference papers, and had a few presentations at conferences. One of her coauthored papers was published in the American journal of Public health, and this was recently cited by coauthors from a public health agency and the FDA.

We got 12 letters from renowned people in the field, but they kept picking holes in the letters saying there was no evidence of the impact she has made on her field as at yet-They picked out 2 of the letters and statements that were made and then said that the authors did not mention any impact she has made on her field as a whole.

Overall, asides from the impact which was the recurring theme in the letter, they had a few good words for her, saying that she is an excellent student involved in promising research, but has not provided any documentary evidence that she has made a measurable impact upon her field as of yet.

She has a few awards-Outstanding teaching assistant nominee, Finalist at a conference for podium and poster presentations, continuing Graduate fellowship award from her school, and a NIMHD Grantees' conference travel award to attend a conference on prostate cancer in Jamaica where she was invited to present her work. She is a part of Rho chi, a pharmacy honor society, ISPOR-International society for pharmaceutical outcomes research-served as the president this past year at the student chapter, APHA-American public health association. She was also the only one that made it through to the Texas venture labs(at the Mccomb's business school) from her department to join other selected few graduate students to assist start up companies in Austin to be more profitable.

I hope this information helps give more perspective, and thanks so much!

[Boiler 45,522]

Just wondering what your Lawyer says, your Lawyer would be far more familiar with your case than anyone here.

[Highrise 0]

Well, he says he will go through and get back to me. He says RFEs are very common in the adjudicative process. Since he did not help with drafting the letters which they have poked holes into, I have kind of lost faith in him if he claimed to have reviewed the letters before submission.

[Boiler 45,522]

NIW is not an easy route and RFE's were to be expected.

I remember a Lawyer commenting that he filed a EB1 and an EB2 NIW, EBI sailed through whilst the EB2 was stuck in RFE's.

Not the Lawyer who drafts the evidence, but if you feel you need to switch Lawyers do so.

[Highrise 0]

Thank you Boiler,

I am not sure I can afford to hire another lawyer now, as I do not know how much they would charge for the RFE response. My plan is to work very closely with him to come up with some great response and evidence. As a newbie to this process, I just realized that he did not share the I-140 petition letter with us to review before submitting, so I will correct that now. I meant that he was supposed to guide us with drafting the letters but did not, and he reviewed them before submitting, and I felt he should have picked up the holes that were later picked up my the immigration officer. I was of the opinion that EB-2NIW is a much easier route than EB1a.

[Boiler 45,522]

I just mentioned that anecdote as I have seen many assumptions that may not always work out that way in your particular case.

I have noticed RFE's seem very common, they seem to revolve around past achievements and impact on the field.

[Boiler 45,522]

https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/eoir/legacy/2014/07/25/3363.pdf

This is worth a read.

[Highrise 0]

Thanks Boiler. I will appreciate other comments from any other people with experience with National interest waiver RFE response strategies. Thanks so much!

[nuevo.mrcado 1]

Hello,

I had similar situation, got an RFE for my NIW application about 2-3 years ago. I asked my attorney and among other suggestions was to get independent specialists or authorities who can support/affirm/confirm/verify the work in the field and its impact. What I did was contact the persons and asked whether he/she would give me the recommendation letters. I had about 2 or 3 more recommendation letter from the independent specialists for the RFE.

Hope this help.

[Highrise 0]

Thank you Nuevo, that was helpful! So did you just submit 2-3 independent letters or did you submit the letters along with extra documentation for evidence and the response to the RFE letter?

[nuevo.mrcado 1]

You're welcome. The attorney prepared a 8 pages letter of RFE response along with the recommendation letters from the independent persons.