EB2-NIW and EB1A green card questions
Blog for Postdocs / Phds, National Interest Waiver, Extraordinary Ability
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Disclaimer: The contents in this web site are only for your information and are not intended to be legal advice. While many of our applicants successfully obtain their I-140 approvals, the information here should not be considered as a guarantee of your green card application outcome.

Green card for PhD / Postdoc Blog

Founders of this site obtained green cards in either EB1A or EB2 NIW (national interest waiver) by self-petitioning. This blog is to answer questions form researchers, PhDs, postdocs (postdoctoral researchers), and advanced degree holders related to green cards by self-petition. Self-petition applicants need to meet extraordinary ability (EB1A)  or exceptional ability or advanced degree professional (EB2NIW) criteria. Our main website (greencardforphd.com) provides right information and do-it-yourself (DIY) packets in the self-petition process.

First I-140 approval

“I am currently a researcher working at a private company. I hold a PhD in Electrical Engineering, graduated in 2003. After my PhD I was a postdoc for four years at a National Lab and then moved to industrial position.

My interest in the immigration topic started when I was feeling highly constricted due to lack of mobility in my job and feeling stuck to an employer with no progress. If you are interested, you can read about my story on this web page. I researched about how a PhD can obtain a Green card and I applied for my permanent residency. My I-140 petition was approved in less than a month after application. After this, I have helped several of researchers in their green card application process. I started this blog and the website greencardforphd.com (which has complete set of example petitions at a nominal cost) to share this process.

Although I maintain this blog and the related website, information on these sites is distilled knowledge, accumulated since 2007, from the lessons learned by working with numerous I-140 applicants and from the feedback from many of these applications which used our original petitions as example. I would like to thank all of them.”

Answers to green card self-petition application questions

This blog has been in existence since 2009 with the main goal of answering self-petition questions. Below are some snippets from recent posts on this blog. You can explore more using the links on the side bar.

Frequent questions

EB1A Questions

EB2-NIW Questions

 

For a Postdoc, PhD or an advanced degree professional, self-petitioning for a green card is relatively easy in EB2NIW (National Interest Waiver) or EB1A (Extraordinary Ability). You can read information on EB1A criteria and NIW criteria, look at some example petitions provided in our DIY packets, approved EB1A or approved NIW cases and judge your chances in EB1A or chances in NIW.