Case Summary:

When an expert in food technology from Honduras hired our services for her National Interest Waiver application, our team began by first going through her academic and professional documents to determine which facts to use in writing her application. Since the petition needed to show how the applicant’s work is of value to the country, our team made use of the facts collected from her documents to show this. Some of the factors that we counted on are:

• Her proposed endeavor is to work on the development and implementation of novel techniques and processes for decontaminating ready-to-eat foods and leafy greens while maintaining the products’ quality in order to reduce foodborne outbreaks and safeguard public health.
• Her research advancing her proposed endeavor is of great importance because it presents new techniques and processes that help to prevent outbreaks of pathogenic organisms present in products such as Escherichia coli, caused by fecal contamination of growing vegetables from contaminated water sources or untreated fertilizing agents.
• This is why she also got letters of recommendation from 4 experts who saw value in her work. One of them wrote:

“The work of [the client], who is operating at the vanguard of the field of food technology, has developed pioneering methods and materials for investigating these challenges and creating solutions, including novel sanitization processes that sharply reduce the presence of microbes in produce. It is no overstatement to say that her work is removing roadblocks to efforts to improve food safety and human nutrition worldwide.”

• Her proposed endeavor also has broad implications for the United States, where foodborne illness is a persistent issue. According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every year there are around 9.4 million illnesses caused by 31 common pathogenic microorganisms.
• Due to its clear national importance, her research has in fact been supported with funding from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA).
• Additionally, her research has resulted in 9 peer-reviewed journal articles (three of them first-authored), one co-authored published abstract, and one first-authored book chapter. These publications have also been cited a total of 163 times according to Google Scholar.
• When we found that she has pursued research directly related to her proposed endeavor for 9 years, we knew that she was situated to continue this work in the U.S.

These facts woven together made an impressive petition leading to her victory in just 14 days of application. The case approval was also expedited due to the premium processing upgrade.

We are grateful to our client for her trust in us and we thank her for choosing our firm to represent her in this case. We wish her all the best in her future endeavors.