NIW Approval for Operations Engineer With RFE Overcome

Client, a Master’s degree holder with 15 years of industry experience, specializes in research, development, and improvement for medical device and instrument manufacturing in the United States.

Notably, the client did not have publications or citations. Even so, we were able to argue successfully for their case based on their achievements on the job, certifications, and professional memberships.

Our case strategy proceeded as follows:

• We established the national importance and substantial merit of the client’s work based on their contributions to medical equipment manufacturing. We highlighted the applications of their work for improving diagnosis, reducing hospital stay periods, and improving the ability to monitor health conditions. We also noted its importance for reducing expenditures on healthcare in the United States, as well as the economic importance of the medical device market.
• We demonstrated that the client was strongly positioned to pursue their endeavor based on their academic background, years of experience in the industry, certifications, and memberships in prominent organizations in their field.

Client initially received an RFE. While the USCIS accepted the national importance and substantial merit of the client’s endeavor, they challenged whether they were well-positioned to advance the proposed endeavor as well as if it would be beneficial to waive the labor certification requirement.

Our experienced legal team overcame this RFE by further clarifying the client’s proposed endeavor, providing additional context for the client’s achievements on the job, revising the letters of recommendation to showcase the client’s strong position to advance the endeavor, and providing additional data highlighting the highly specialized nature of the client’s expertise that justified the labor certificate exemption. After submitting our response, the client was approved shortly after.