CASE: I-140 / National Interest Waiver
CLIENT: Nepalese Nuclear Scientist
LOCATION: Cleveland, OH
Our client contacted us in April 2014 regarding the possibility of doing a National Interest Waiver self-petition for him. He is a post-doctorate researcher and scientist in the field of Physics and Nuclear research, and is currently working as a post-doctorate researcher in an academic institution in Kent, OH.
His significant contributions have placed him at the pinnacle of the field of physics and nuclear science. He is a leading scientist with an excellent reputation in his field of endeavor and his research work involved a very complex, simultaneous, and constrained analysis of partial-wave amplitudes for multiple channels produced in pion-nucleon scattering. His work has confirmed the state of low-lying states involving S- and P- wave amplitudes and has also predicted some new states. Overall, his research has yielded important information about excited states of nucleons thereby producing a clearer picture of the baryon spectrum.
Upon review of his credentials and qualifications, our office determined that he has a good chance of meeting the National Interest Waiver (NIW) category. Being qualified for NIW is beneficial since you would not need an employer nor family member to petition for you for green card purposes. You’d be eligible for a self-petition and unless you are from China or India, in which case you’d still have to wait for priority dates to be current, you would be eligible to apply for adjustment of status (green card) immediately without any lag in priority dates.
As a primer, NIW applicants must have a master’s or higher degree. The landmark immigration case that discusses the standards for NIWs is Matter of New York State Department of Transportation, 22 I&N Dec. 215 (Comm.1998). This case held that the qualifying applicant must show the following elements in his or her I-140 NIW petition: First, it must be shown that the alien seeks employment in an area of substantial intrinsic merit. Next, it must be shown that the proposed benefit will be national in scope. Finally, the petitioner seeking the waiver must establish that the alien will serve the national interest to a substantially greater degree than would an available U. S. worker having the same minimum qualifications.
Our office prepared a 14-page brief for our client’s NIW filing. Our client also obtained 6 letters of recommendation from his colleagues and internationally-recognized scientists. Our office also included his publication records, presentation records, and conference materials in the NIW application. We demonstrated the intrinsic merit of our client’s research in the United States, the national scope of his research, and asserted that our client would serve the national interest to a substantially greater degree than would an available U.S. worker having the same minimum qualifications. His NIW application contained 19 exhibits.
Our office filed his I-140(NIW) petition to the USCIS Nebraska Service Center on June 4, 2014. However, on October 6, 2014, the USCIS issued a Request for Evidence for his I-140 petition. In response to the RFE request, our office prepared a brief which included notes from scientists in the field regarding updates of his work and the importance of his past work in nuclear and physics research. We also emphasized our client’s past accomplishments and the benefits of his work. Our Response to RFE was filed on December 5, 2014. Eventually, on December 24, 2014, the USCIS Nebraska Service Center approved our client’s I-140 petition.