In March 2008, I finally received my green card from USCIS. Looking back on the whole process, I realized that I made many mistakes. The following is the summary, which might be helpful to some readers by offering lessons leaned from defeat than nuggets of wisdom.
In 1993 I came to the US for graduate studies in a Midwest university. I was a lab rat for the first three years, published three papers in decent journals. In addition, I met a sweet and smart Chinese girl, whom I married in 1997. One of my best friends told me that she got her green card through a category call National Interest Waiver (NIW). When my wife learned about this, she persistently asked me to file my own petition using my friend’s strategy and hiring a lawyer. I wish I had listened to her advice back then. But I was so stubborn and silly at the time that I insisted on doing the application in my final year at my school, which turned out to be the year of 1998. At that time I didn’t have the wherewithal or the confidence to do these things.
Finally in 1998 I contacted a few immigration lawyers and picked a lady in New York. She sent me a package after receiving my first check. Then I started writing recommendation letters. My English was better than most Chinese students that I knew at the time, but not good enough to write letter in distinctive styles. Another problem was that I only knew professors at my school, who were very conservative. When they looked at the category of NIW, they bluntly told me that no way they would vouch for my “superior ability” simply because the few papers I published and the research I was doing. Through a tug of war, I secured five letters and submitted my application in August, 1998. Then I was caught flat-footed when INS changed their criteria for NIW. I met my Waterloo when my application was rejected. Up to today, I still lament on the fact that I was short-sighted in 1997 by turning deaf ear to my wife’s plea to start the immigration engine.
Lesson #1: Always listen to your wife! No exception what-so-ever.
After graduating with a Ph.D. degree in 1998, I moved to Southern California for my postdoctoral training. I got my H-1B visa in November 1999. In 2001 I joined a startup company and restart my green card application. The HR manager at my company is a neophyte, who had no idea of how the immigration process was running. I spent quite some time to convince her that I need to start the green card application ASAP. Eventually she agreed and hooked me up a local immigration law firm. The attorney on my case was fresh graduate, young, charming, quite talkative. In November 2001, my application was ready and I signed on the paper without checking the content therein. I was told that my company only sponsors EB3 application (fast track), which meant that I had to go through the labor certification path. A bit disappointed, I understood that the company wants to retain foreign scientist as long as possible and the EB3 route was a tactic for locking me up.
Every quarter, I will check with my lawyer for progress of my case. I was told it went through the local labor department office in San Francisco smoothly, and then it entered a queue at the regional office of INS. Then I waited, waited, and waited. Finally in 2004, I received a notice saying my case in the final decision stage. I was pretty excited and hoping the big day will come pretty soon. In March 2004, I received a letter INS which told me that my case was denied since my supporting evidence was not sufficient. Shocked and puzzled, I scheduled an appointment with my lawyer. He assured me that everything was under control. But I got suspicious and insisted on getting all my application files and the lawyer’s correspondence with INS. By browsing through the materials, I quickly figured out what went wrong. In the original labor certificate application, my lawyer wrote a wrong job title for me. All the job advertisements were geared toward that job title, which didn’t match my background. What’s worse, the local labor office sent a request for more supporting evidence to my case, and my lawyer simply copied the old files and faxed over. That might have been the only chance to fix my application. But the genie could not be put back into the bottle after that. Being a lawyer, he denied any wrongdoing. But eventually he got his comeuppance when he was let go a few month later by his employer.
Lesson #2: Never trust a lawyer to file your application without checking the content by yourself.
Back to square one, I sit down with the HR manager and convinced her to let me go via the EB1b route. With no time to waste, I browsed the internet and bought a DIY kit online for EB1b application. Then I sat down and gave a reality check on my credentials. At that time, I already published 5 papers and had 2 poster presentations. All of my papers were cited, ranging from 20 to over 100 times. Moreover, each paper was cited by at least one review paper or book. I wasn’t on any review panel of a journal. But I volunteered for a local professional organization and was a program chair for a local conference in 2004. No news report discussed my research. My only membership was not an invitation-only type. The bottom line: my case was not a strong one in substance. After assessing the strengths and weaknesses of my case, I focused on one aspect that might boost the stock of my application: soliciting strong reference letters from renowned strangers in my field!
Over the years, I have built a professional network. So I reeled off a list of names based on their ranking. First, I asked a Nobel Laureate whom I used to hobnob with in a small project. He declined. Second, I wrote to a prominent professor in University of Cambridge, who worked on the same area of my graduate work and wrote a review later. He declined as well. Then I sent request to two US professors, who didn’t work in my field but I played tennis with them when I was doing my postdoctoral work. One agreed to be my reference. The other declined. My postdoctoral mentor was a member of US National Academy of Sciences. He agreed. My Ph.D. advisor, also a well-known scholar, agreed as well. Then my supervisor (a Chinese) came to my rescue, and introduced me to two of his contacts: one was a Chinese professor in a Hong Kong university while the other was a Japanese director in a Japanese company. Finally I talked to the chairman of the local chapter of the national professional association with which I was affiliated. He also agreed to be my reference.
Lesson #3: Never underestimate the power of your professional network.
A common theme I found from INS decisions on EB1b filing was that INS preferred “independent opinions” from the reference letters. The lineup of my references was a good mix, with the appearance of impartiality in several references: two international scholars, one US professor, and one chairman of a non-profit organization, all of whom seemed to have no direct collaboration with me! With the intent to add more bones to the reference letters, I began drafting six recommendation letters. First, I shamelessly asked all friends for their copies of recommendation letters, especially written by references themselves. Scotched twice, I could not afford to fail this time or leave any stone unturned. Then I spent countless hours polishing the letters by using layman’s language to describe my research and by seamlessly inserting papers, which cited my research, into the letters. Suffice it to say that my writing was really professional since all of my references used my draft with little or no change at all. Through the process my writing skill was vastly improved as a bonus.
In the end my EB1b application (I-140) was filed in November 2004 by another local law firm. This time I read the whole package before signing on the application form. In January 2005 I filed I-485 (concurrent filing) for my wife and myself. Two month later, I received notice that my I-140 was approved! Both my spouse and I finished the finger print process shortly. Our EAD cards arrived in April 2005.
Then came the long wait due to FBI name check. I asked my lawyer to check the status of my case in 2005, 2006, and 2007. The answer was the same: pending. My wife got worried again and asked me to check if there were ways to expedite the name check process. There were two ways: writing letters to the First Lady or file a lawsuit. Since I learned the lesson to listen to my wife the hard way, I quickly set to work. A letter to the First Lady was written based on the draft circulated online and mailed to the White House in October 2007 (more than 2.5 years after the submission of I-485). No response for 3 months. Then I started working on filing a lawsuit based on the Mandamus Act. In February 2008 I scheduled an appointment with a litigation lawyer with good reputation. During the conversation, he asked about when I did my last finger print. I told him that I did twice and I received a notice for a third one. He looked at me and said that your name check might have been finished! His reasoning was that not long ago FBI stopped issuing new finger print requests unless the name check process was complete. Then my lawyer made a phone call to my immigration lawyer and suggested to call USCIS for an update. A phone call was made and the litigation lawyer’s suspicion was right! In hindsight, although I did not use his service, I would rate the litigation lawyer as one of the best (and honest!) lawyer whom I know. A few days later I received a letter from FBI, informing me that after receiving inquiry from the First Lady, they took a look at my file and wrapped up my name check. An email from USCIS confirmed that my case was under review by an office. I almost heard the fat lady singing!
Lesson #4: A good lawyer can help you in ways more than you expect. So can the First Lady!
I waited for another month. Finally in March 2008 both my wife and I received our green cards. Overall, my journey was the epitome of a feel-good story. It’s also a reminder that an immigrant has to rise above circumstances to be something everybody thought he or she couldn’t be.
Thank you for reading such a long memoir and good luck with your life (and the green card application). I hope a green card can serve as a career catapult for you!