The advantages of getting your green card when you are still at school include, but not limited to, the following:

A. Substantial increase in opportunity to find an ideal job. Many governmental research agencies and leading high-tech companies only hire job applicants who already have a green card.

B. CIS regulations provide that all the EB2NIW applicants born in Korea may file their I485: Application for Adjustment of Status with the EB2NIW application at the same time because the visa number is available to them. As an auxiliary benefit, family members can apply for an employment authorization card to work in the United States.

The Basic Legal Requirements of EB2NIW:

1. The applicant shall have an advanced academic degree:

The applicants of EB2NIW shall have an advanced degree. A professional holding an advanced degree is defined by 8 C.F.R. Section 204.5(k)(3) as the following:

Advanced degree means any United States academic or professional degree or a foreign equivalent degree above that of baccalaureate.

Ph.D. students who already obtained a master’s degree from Korea will be qualified as an alien holding an advanced degree. Many Ph.D. students may apply for a master’s degree after they pass the Ph.D. qualify-exam. We highly recommend filing for the master’s degree if there is an opportunity to do so.

2. Alien scientist’s work has practical significance to the national interest of the United States, and the Alien’s research and his or her contributions have direct link to the National Interests.

Ph.D. students have an advantage over the people who already work for a private company in EB2NIW application because they perform research in a not-for-profit organization. Their research projects are normally supported by NIH, DoD, NSF or other national research funding organizations. Therefore, the link between the national interest and the applicants’ work can be clearly established. In comparison, if the applicant already works for a private company, CIS often requests evidence to prove that the applicant’s work is not merely making profit for the private company.

3. The applicant must prove that he or she will serve the national interest to a substantially greater degree than would an available U.S. worker having the same minimum qualifications.

To prove that the applicant will serve the national interest to a substantially greater degree than would an available U.S. worker having the same minimum qualifications, the applicant may submit his or her journal publications, conference presentations, and other evidence.

4. The last legal issue is that an EB2NIW applicant must prove that if a labor certification were required for the alien, the national interest would be adversely affected, or it would be contrary to the national interest to potentially deprive the prospective employer of the services of the alien by making available to U.S. workers the position sought by the alien.

This is a very important but highly technical legal issue.

As an example, one of our clients was a Ph.D. student who studied biomedical engineering. He applied for an EB2NIW successfully.

He was a Korean national / Ph.D. student in the field of biomedical engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). At the time of filing for his EB2NIW green card, he was doing research in NIH-supported projects in the field of biomedical devices and materials, 3-D fabrication and advanced rapid prototyping, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. We advised him to file an EB2NIW and I-485 Adjustment of Status simultaneously.

At the time of filing, he had 4 published journal papers in the United States and 2 research papers in preparation. He was invited to make presentations at 8 international conferences in his field. His research publication had been cited by scientists in the UK, Japan, China, Netherlands, Korea, Thailand, etc. We prepared and filed an I-140 EB2NIW and I-485 Application for Adjustment of Status concurrently for him. Both I-140 case and I-485 case were approved by CIS.

For more information, our website address is: http://www.sunlawfirm.com.
For free case evaluation, please e-mail your updated resume and contact information to alicesun@earthlink.net.

Disclaimer: The above newsletter information is general information. They are NOT legal consultations for any specific case or legal issues.

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