“The team is very professional. I appreciate their great efforts in drafting all the documents and meticulously putting together the thick application package. It’s a relatively long process (it took about a year from the day I started the process to the day my case was approved) for the NIW application, but I always felt confident with the help of the great team. Thank you very much. Looking forward to working with you for the EB1 application.”

Case Summary:

A Chinese postdoctoral associate based in Indiana sought assistance from our firm –– North America Immigration Law Group (NAILG) –– for his EB-2 NIW (National Interest Waiver) petition filing. After evaluating his credentials, we confirmed that he holds a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering obtained from a top rung university in the United States. Moreover, his substantial contributions to the field of geotechnical engineering, specifically focused on conducting large-scale foundation testing and numerical analysis on structure-soil interactions for use in infrastructural foundation design, had been well-received by the American scientific community. Based on the widespread reach of his research, we were convinced that we could help him secure the national interest waiver in reference to the Matter of Dhanasar.

We countersigned the retainer agreement and commenced case preparation. With ample supporting evidence, we built a strong case to prove that our client possesses unique and innovative skills and knowledge that serve the national interest. These are the key points featured in his NIW petition:

– Research that is national in scope: We argued that our client’s research results directly contribute to improving infrastructural resilience to extreme weather events, natural disasters, and overall efficiency that is important to ensuring safety and reliability over the long-term. Additionally, we emphasized that our client’s specific research efforts are of great importance because it has important implications for improving the resilience of important infrastructural elements to withstand the effects of climate change and the increased frequency of extreme weather events predicted as a result of these changes. His work has in fact been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT), and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).

– Important scholarly contributions: In order to showcase the immense benefits of retaining our client in the US, we drew attention to his scholarly contributions that comprised 17 peer-reviewed journal and conference articles (12 of them first-authored), 1 first-authored closure, and 2 technical reports. His published work had already garnered 160 citations at the time of filing, thereby demonstrating that these publications are widely recognized and relied upon in the field of geotechnical engineering. Our client is also active in the scientific community as a peer reviewer for highly acclaimed journals and has already conducted at least 32 reviews.

– Strong recommendation letters: To establish a persuasive case for our client, we incorporated recommendation letters volunteered by four other geotechnical engineering experts. The merits of our client’s research and prospective benefits of granting him the national interest waiver were eloquently expressed in these letters. An excerpt from one of these letters read:

“The need for better and more efficient infrastructure systems across the world is acute, and requires new methods to design and monitor the health of these systems. [Client’s] work is driving innovation and adaptation in the research field and in construction practices and must be allowed to continue.”

Filing the NIW Petition and the Successful Result:

We put together an effective NIW petition and filed it at Nebraska Service Center. Thankfully, our client’s case stayed within the normal processing timeline and he received NIW approval in 7 months and 4 days (usually, 4 to 9 months is the average adjudication timeline for I-140 cases). We congratulate him on his NIW success and wish him the very best in his future endeavors.