Inspiring EB2 NIW Case of PhD Student

I always welcome when you get back to me and provide feedback on our EB2 NIW blog and/or our DIY kits. Recently, I got this message from a guy who found an inspiration in our NIW case. Information on our blog helped him to build his EB2 NIW case while still finishing his PhD. Pretty impressive! I hope it will inspire you to take action as well.

Also, it contains some details from his case filed recently which might help too. Thus I am sharing his message with you.

I am very grateful to Veronika for running this blog. My wife and I just received our green cards through my EB2 NIW. We both have Masters degrees from Europe, and PhDs from a major university on the East Coast. I filed my I-140 petition in late 2017, while still completing my PhD on an F1 visa. The application was accepted without any RFEs after about four months. After two months of preparation we filed our I-485s. My wife was a derivative applicant in this process, although she could have successfully petition with her own I-140 NIW. There was just no economic sense for us to file two separate petitions. While waiting for the adjudication process to complete, we moved to the West Coast and started new jobs using EAD cards we received from the pending I-485 applications. Our interview was scheduled about six months after we filled the I-485s. The interview was quick and straightforward. The officer mostly wanted to talk about our work. He was also quite surprised if not impressed by seeing self-petitioners, who were not represented by a layer. We received our Green Cards just a few days later.

The whole process took us about 18 months, which included getting familiar with all the caveats of the immigration law regulating the EB2 NIW category, assembling the petition/application packages, gathering the letters of support, writing the cover letter, and collecting all the extra documentation. Worth noting is that in the meantime I was still finishing my PhD, and we were applying for jobs, and moving across the country.

Veronika’s blog was critical in this process because it inspired me to apply. Her post about the structure of the cover letter, and the letters of support my references wrote for me, were critical to the success of my application. The photograph of Veronika’s vast petition package made me realize that this is a very serious matter, that requires great attention to details, and extensive preparation. I used the same technique of assembling the packages with ACCO fasteners, and annotated the exhibits with paper tags on the bottom of pages as she did.

I did not hire a lawyer because I believe that someone who receives a PhD from a major university in this country, and whose scientific work contributes to the society, should not need one to apply for a Green Card. Veronika’s blog helped me and my wife to prove this statement to be true. Thank you ?

Thanks again for sharing this with us!

If you have any questions please write them below in comments and I will try to get answers from the author.