The cut-off date for EB2 (China) was April 2005 and has remained unchanged since October 2006. The EB3 priority date (China) also has not moved forward from April 2002. Only priority date for Eb1 still remains current since July 2006.  There was no prediction of movement of priority dates in the February 2007 Visa Bulletin.

Given the current visa retrogression on EB2 and EB3 categories, EB1 category is the only option for applicants to avoid the lengthy waiting periods associated with filing I-485’s.

We have previously discussed EB1A criteria and its adjudication trends. In this article, we will provide a brief analysis of an EB1A approval.

In October 2006, our immigration professionals helped file an EB1A on behalf of a research scientist working in a small sized pharmaceutical company in Southern California. The I-140 was approved by the Texas Service Center (TSC) in November 2006. No RFE was issued.

The client, Dr. M, received his B. S in Biochemistry and molecular biology in China and subsequently his Ph. D in Biomedical Engineering in the US. He was then employed in a pharmaceutical company in Los Angeles and was engaged in research for biomaterials and drug delivery/formulation research.

Dr. M authored and co-authored five publications, including Biomaterials and Journal of Biomedical Materials Research. Given the fact that Dr. M does not have a large number of publications, we spent substantial efforts and successfully convinced the USCIS those were top-tier peer-reviewed journals which had maintained very rigid peer-review procedures to ensure the quality of the papers submitted for publications. In addition, Dr. M is frequently invited to present his work at various international symposia, including the Society of Biomedical Engineering Meeting, and Annual Meeting of The Orthopedic Research Society. Dr. M is also a member of the Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, and a member of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS). Dr. M is a recipient of two university-level scholarships in China, including QingYing Scholarship, and PanDeng Scholarship, which were awarded to top students as recognition of outstanding academic and research achievements.

Dr. M’s research was clearly referenced by others within the field of his expertise, as the work had been favorably cited more than twenty (20) times by others according to the ISI citation index and expert testimonials.

We further argued that Dr. M had made groundbreaking research discoveries in the area of biomaterials and tissue engineering. As a pioneer who designed a new type of medical device and drug delivery system, Dr. M’s work will help the United States to maintain its leading position in the fields of protein delivery, biomaterials, and tissue engineering.

Dr. M submitted eight expert opinion letters including letters from his current employer, his Ph. D advisors, two letters from other pharmaceutical companies, and one letter from an international expert and one letter from China. No letter from the US government was provided. Together with other compelling documents, those testimonial letters further corroborated our argument that Dr. M will continue work in the area of his expertise and that his work will substantially benefit prospectively the United States.

The I-140 was approved in one month in TSC.