“Thank you for your excellent work during this application… Honestly, it is rare that somebody is not aware of your quality work in our community.”

Case Summary:

It took almost 11 months for a reservoir engineer working in the field of petroleum engineering to receive an approval notification for his NIW (National Interest Waiver) petition. Despite the long timeline, we were confident that our strong presentation of our client’s skills and research would lead to an approval notice. Our client had suitable qualifications to file his I-140 petition under this visa category.

Obtaining petition approval:

As the attorney-on-record, we were tasked with building a strong case for our client. To prove that our client qualified for the national interest waiver, North America Immigration Law Group had to compile a wealth of information pertaining to his research efforts on reservoir modeling, simulation and characterization through history-matching. His work in this area is of great importance as petroleum continues to be one of the world’s most common sources of energy.

Padding the petition with evidence:

To bolster our client’s EB-2 NIW petition, we urged him to contact other influential members in the field who had either worked with him or were familiar with his work. We needed them to sign recommendation letters that confirmed the value of our client’s work. The six experts whom our client contacted all verified that his investigations contribute to the domestic economy. According to one of them: “[Client’s] work is of general importance due to the major role petroleum plays in the global economy. In 2017, exploration, production, and trade in the oil and gas industry made up between 2-3% of all global trade, grossing between $75 and $87.5 US dollars. This industry holds great sway over the health of the global economy and is, therefore, a highly analyzed industry.”

Citations, Publications and Peer-review Experience:

Our client’s publications have been cited a total of 29 times according to Google Scholar, thereby demonstrating that these publications are widely recognized and relied upon in the field of petroleum engineering. Throughout his time working in the field, our client has also built an impressive record of publication. As evidence of his contributions, his work has resulted in 6 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference articles (2 of them first-authored). Our client is also active in the scientific community as a peer reviewer for highly acclaimed journals and has already conducted 33 reviews which further demonstrates his important standing in the field.

Filing an I-485 application while the I-140 petition is pending approval:

Our client retained our services to file I-485 applications for himself and his spouse (this is the final step in the green card process). Instead of waiting for his I-140 EB-2 NIW petition to be approved first, he chose to file his I-485 while the latter was pending approval. The team at North America Immigration Law Group (WeGreened.com) would like to thank our client for working with us, and we congratulate him as he celebrates the fact that his I-485 was recently approved and he is now a US permanent resident.