What are the conditions for applying for an American green card?

Many postdoctoral researchers, doctoral students and other professional researchers hope to apply for a green card (NIW) through national interest exemption. The most important advantage of NIW is that you don't need to apply for a perm.

Employers are not required to commit to a permanent job position. The preparation time of NIW application is also relatively short. However, many potential applicants cannot meet the requirements of NIW application. According to our long-term practical experience, if the applicant knows in advance how to prepare and accumulate the hard conditions required for the application, the chances of successful application will be greatly improved.

The approval of NIW application is mainly based on three factors:

First, hard conditions, or the qualifications of the applicant;

The second is soft conditions, such as application letter and recommendation letter;

Third, some luck.

Immigration lawyers overemphasize the importance of soft conditions, because they can't change the applicant's hard conditions in a short time when preparing their applications. Of course, a convincing recommendation letter and a strong application letter can really improve the chances of application being approved, but this solution is only applicable to applicants who are about to apply and have no time to prepare or improve their hard conditions. When preparing an application letter, a simple and vivid application letter is far more convincing than a lengthy and complicated application letter.

However, in the process of hearing the application, the immigration officer should also look at the basic qualifications of the applicant. In other words, the immigration officer will judge whether to approve or reject the application according to the applicant's hard conditions. Immigration officials have clear evaluation criteria to judge whether the applicant meets the requirements of NIW green card application. For example, it is difficult for a first-year graduate student who has no academic achievements to get approval for NIW.

Green card application is a systematic project, and the applicant should actually design the application scheme as soon as possible. If you can seriously implement the plan in your work and study, the process of applying for a green card will become smoother and simpler. As long as you have some basic immigration knowledge and a good plan, applicants can start to accumulate hard conditions for application long before the application begins.

NIW's application requires applicants to prove their academic achievements and contributions to American national interests. NIW applications usually use the following hard materials:

"Master's or doctor's degree.

"The number of journal articles or conference papers

"The number of times the article was cited.

"Comment on other people's works or works.

As the chairman of a professional meeting or branch.

"Honor and reward.

"Members of professional associations.

"Research project funds

If you know these application materials at the beginning of your career, you don't need to spend too much extra time and energy besides doing research or work to significantly enhance your hard conditions for applying for NIW. We suggest that:

1. If you didn't have a master's degree before, you should apply for a master's degree again during your doctoral studies.

NIW belongs to the special category of EB-2 immigrants. EB-2 is suitable for professionals with advanced degrees or special skills in art, science or business. An advanced degree is defined as any degree other than a bachelor's degree Therefore, a master's degree is the minimum requirement for EB-2 applications in a general sense. NIW application must meet the basic EB-2 application requirements. Because it is an extra burden for NIW applicants to prove that they have special skills, and a master's degree can help him/her easily meet the basic requirements of NIW applications.

Many foreign students do not have a master's degree when they enter the doctoral program. Many people think that a master's degree is unnecessary, because you can finally get a doctorate. However, having a master's degree will enable you to successfully apply for a NIW green card before completing your doctorate. Many doctoral programs allow their students to obtain a master's degree by completing necessary courses and short papers, and their master's papers can become part of doctoral research projects. Therefore, if a doctor does not have a master's degree when studying, he should apply for one.

Many doctoral students can publish a certain number of papers during their doctoral studies. Our firm has successfully helped many doctoral students with master's degrees get the approval of NIW applications, and some of them even got green cards before graduation.

2. Publish academic papers as soon as possible-if there are no professional journal papers, conference papers are also very helpful for NIW applications.

Academic papers are very important supporting documents in NIW application. These articles can show the applicant's academic achievements and contributions to national interests. Therefore, the number of articles published by applicants is an important measure for immigration officials when examining their applications. At the same time, the immigration officer will also consider the number of citations of the applicant's article (especially the number of independent citations).

Compared with academic journal papers, many NIW applicants underestimate the importance of conference papers. In some academic fields, it is indeed more difficult to publish articles in academic journals than conference papers, and the review process of contributions in academic journals is relatively long. For example, a professional business journal may need years of consideration before it finally decides to publish an article. Due to this inevitable time delay, in some fields, it may take three to four years to publish articles in professional journals. However, it takes a short time to publish papers at academic conferences. In this case, it is suggested to publish some conference papers first, which can also be a hard condition to support NIW application.

We have helped some customers who have not published articles in professional journals to successfully apply for NIW green cards. For example, we once had a client who only had a master's degree and two conference papers as co-authors when submitting his NIW application. However, less than four months later, his application was approved in early 2007. If you want to know more about this successful case, please read the article on our website.

3. Actively participate in academic activities;

For doctoral students, they have many opportunities to actively participate in various academic activities. For example, professional journals and academic conferences often need reviewers. Doctoral students can also chair a branch of academic conferences, or serve as discussants in group meetings. These activities can not only support your green card application, but also enrich your resume and help you find a job in the future. Many doctoral students have established extensive interpersonal relationships while participating in various academic activities, and later found jobs through these relationships. This kind of interpersonal relationship is also very helpful for you to apply for a green card in the future.

We once had a client who did not publish an article in a professional journal when submitting an immigration application. However, he has reviewed manuscripts for IEEE conferences many times and presided over group meetings. These experiences were very helpful to his immigration application, which was approved in May 2007.

4. Establish your own academic network as early as possible at the beginning of your career;

Letter of recommendation plays a very important role in the NIW application process. According to our accumulated NIW application experience for many years, we think that a NIW application generally needs 5-7.

Letter of recommendation. It is relatively easy for applicants to get letters of recommendation from colleagues, for example, letters of recommendation written by professors working in the same department or research group. In addition, applicants need to obtain 2-3 independent letters of recommendation. The authors of these independent letters of recommendation are people who have never worked with the applicant and have no personal relationship. Therefore, it is also very important for NIW applicants to establish academic networks only from the perspective of obtaining letters of recommendation.

There are many ways to establish academic networks. You can participate in relevant discussions after making a report at an academic conference; You can discuss with people who share your research interests, and then put forward your own new research point of view; You can also ask the experts and scholars you met at the meeting about the intention of cooperative research. These activities are very beneficial to your career and future green card application. If you can establish contact with these researchers, it will be easier to get their letters of recommendation in the future.

Green card application is a long process, but careful preparation can make this process easier. It is very beneficial to start preparing for a green card application early in your career or study. Heaven rewards diligence, the best preparation is to plan ahead and accumulate more hard conditions as soon as possible. All these can make your future NIW application more convincing and more likely to succeed.