sustained EB-2 NIW Case: Polymer Science

U.S. Department of Homeland Security 
20 Mass. Ave., N.W., Rm. A3042 
Washington, DC 20529 
U. S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
FILE: - Office: VERMONT SERVICE CENTER Date: SEP 8 2 2005 
EAC 02 284 53 187 
IN RE: Petitioner: 
Beneficiary: 
PETITION: Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker as a Member of the Professions Holding an Advanced 
Degree or an Alien of Exceptional Ability Pursuant to Section 203(b)(2) of the Immigration 
and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 9 1 153(b)(2) 
ON BEHALF OF PETITIONER: 
INSTRUCTIONS: 
This is the decision of the Administrative Appeals Office in your case. All documents have been returned to 
the office that originally decided your case. Any further inquiry must be made to that ofice. 
u by Robert P. Wiemann, Director 
Administrative Appeals Office 
Page 2 
DISCUSSION: The Director, Vermont Service Center, denied the employment-based immigrant visa petition. 
The matter is now before the Administrative Appeals Office on appeal. The appeal will be sustained and the 
petition will be approved. 
The petitioner seeks classification pursuant to section 203(b)(2) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act), 
8 U.S.C. tj 1153(b)(2), as a member of the professions holding an advanced degree. The petitioner seeks 
employment as a senior research associate at Polytechnic University, New York, New York. The petitioner 
asserts that an exemption from the requirement of a job offer, and thus of a labor certification, is in the national 
interest of the United States. The director found that the petitioner qualifies for classification as a member of the 
professions holding an advanced degree but that the petitioner had not established that an exemption from the 
requirement of a job offer would be in the national interest of the United States. 
Section 203(b) of the Act states in pertinent part that: 
(2) Aliens Who Are Members of the Professions Holding Advanced Degrees or Aliens of Exceptional 
Ability. -- 
(A) In General. -- Visas shall be made available . . . to qualified immigrants who are members of 
the professions holding advanced degrees or their equivalent or who because of their exceptional 
ability in the sciences, arts, or business, will substantially benefit prospectively the national 
economy, cultural or educational interests, or welfare of the United States, and whose services in 
the sciences, arts, professions, or business are sought by an employer in the United States. 
(B) Waiver of Job Offer. 
(i) . . . the Attorney General may, when the Attorney General deems it to be in the 
national interest, waive the requirements of subparagraph (A) that an alien's services in 
the sciences, arts, professions, or business be sought by an employer in the United 
States. 
The director did not dispute that the petitioner qualifies as a member of the professions holding an advanced 
degree. The sole issue in contention is whether the petitioner has established that a waiver of the job offer 
requirement, and thus a labor certification, is in the national interest. 
Neither the statute nor the pertinent regulations define the term "national interest." Additionally, Congress did 
not provide a specific definition of "in the national interest." The Committee on the Judiciary merely noted in its 
report to the Senate that the committee had "focused on national interest by increasing the number and proportion 
of visas for immigrants who would benefit the United States economically and otherwise. . . ." S. Rep. No. 55, 
101 st Cong., 1st Sess., 11 (1989). 
Supplementary information to the regulations implementing the Immigration Act of 1990 (IMMACT), published 
at 56 Fed. Reg. 60897,60900 (November 29, 1991), states: 
The Service [now Citizenship and Immigration Services] believes it appropriate to leave the 
application of this test as flexible as possible, although clearly an alien seeking to meet the 
[national interest] standard must make a showing significantly above that necessary to prove the 
"prospective national benefit" [required of aliens seeking to qualify as "exceptional."] The 
burden will rest with the alien to establish that exemption from, or waiver of, the job offer will be 
in the national interest. Each case is to be judged on its own merits. 
Matter of New York State Dept. of Transportation, 22 I&N Dec. 2 15 (Comm. 1998), has set forth several factors 
which must be considered when evaluating a request for a national interest waiver. First, it must be shown that 
the alien seeks employment in an area of substantial intrinsic merit. Next, it must be shown that the proposed 
benefit will be national in scope. Finally, the petitioner seeking the waiver must establish that the alien will serve 
the national interest to a substantially greater degree than would an available U.S. worker having the same 
minimum qualifications. 
It must be noted that, while the national interest waiver hinges on prospective national benefit, it clearly must be 
established that the alien's past record justifies projections of future benefit to the national interest. The 
petitioner's subjective assurance that the alien will, in the future, serve the national interest cannot suffice to 
establish prospective national benefit. The inclusion of the term "prospective" is used here to require future 
contributions by the alien, rather than to facilitate the entry of an alien with no demonstrable prior achievements, 
and whose benefit to the national interest would thus be entirely speculative. 
The petitioner describes his work: 
My research work at Polytechnic University is focused on new material synthesis, process 
and use. 
The project [on] which 1 am currently working is "Grade Index (GI) - Plastic Optical Fiber," 
funded by Japan Science Technology (JST). . . . My current project is to design and 
synthesize a new kind of deuterated or fluorinated monomer, and then to polymerize the 
monomer making Grade-Index fiber. This photonics polymer materials [sic] will be used in 
telecommunications such as optical cable, thermo-optic switches, optical attenuators, tunable 
filters, waveguide lasers and amplifiers. . . . 
Fiber-optics lines have a number of advantages over copper twist pairs cables or coaxial 
cables. Most important thing is that a fiber can carry data at a much higher rate - millions of 
megabits per second. However, it is very expensive to install an optical fiber network linking 
many homes. Plastic Optical Fiber can afford a low-cost network. Step-Index Plastic optical 
fiber (POF) . . . have [sic] several advantages over traditional glass fibers. . . . POF offers the 
prospect of cheap mass production. POF is not only more flexible than glass fiber, but also 
thicker. It is easy to install and connect. Low-cost networks with POF will combine, 
amplify, switch, and restore optical signals without converting them to an electronic 
transmission for processing. No doubt that the optical laser and amplifier based on POF for 
the home network will be the most important development in the future of ALL-OPTICAL 
NETWORKS.. . . 
My research work is focused on new POF materials. . . . Now Cytop, a perfluoropolymer, 
synthesized by Co. afford [sic] the attenuation of 40 dB/km at 1.3-pm 
wavelength as a POF material. However, the free-radical polymerization of this monomer is 
difficult. The rate of the polymerization is very slow.. And also the synthesis of this 
monomer is very difficult requires more steps reaction [sic] and each step gave a lower yield, 
resulting [in] this monomer [being] very expensive. Now we are synthesizing a partially 
fluorinated and partially deuterated monomer by one or two steps using a cheap starting 
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material. It is heartening to note that this approach has been recognized to be at the very top 
level of this field. . . . 
I am a well-known young scientific researcher, and renowned for my pioneering research in 
polymer science. 
The petitioner repeatedly states that his expertise makes him "indispensable" to the research project currently 
underway. 
The petitioner submits letters from eight witnesses, all of whom have demonstrable ties to the petitioner. Five 
of the witnesses have taught, worked, or studied at Polytechnic University. Two further witnesses taught the 
petitioner at Nagoya University, and the remaining witness was the petitioner's graduate advisor at the 
Chinese Academy of Sciences. 
Professor who supervises the petitioner's present research at Polytechnic University, 
a couple of important developments in the preparation of plastic optical 
fibers materials and we now intend to publish and patent his work. . . . I evaluate him about top 5% among my 
associated scientists." 
Before working fo the petitioner had worked in the laboratory of profess- at 
the same that the petitioner had "discovered how to accomplish difficult tasks" 
monomer that was optically active via stereospecific substitution of a 
deuterium for one of the methyl groups of an isopropyl group." Prof. Green states: "We hope that [the 
petitioner's] work will lead to important insight about the nature of polymer crystallization." While im 
Green's laboratory, the petitioner collaborated with of the Federico I1 University 
of Naples, Italy. states that the petitioner "has received sustained international acclaim" in 
his research specialty, and that the petitioner "is going to make significant research contributions to this 
cutting-edge field." 
Another professor at was also president of the American Chemical 
Society at the time of filing. "has worked very effectively on several 
quite varied problems and discovered how to accomplish difficult tasks"; for example, the petitioner "devised 
an advanced method to determine the diad tacticity of poly(N,N-dimethylacrylamide). This assay is an 
essential step in the stereocontrol of the polymerization of N,N-dimethylacrylamide." He concludes: "I 
believe that [the petitioner's] potential and contribution to this field will be significant." 
who worked with the petitioner at Nagoya University, calls the petitioner "a 
regulation of macromolecules," whose "significant 
followed by peers in the polymer research community." Nagoya University Professor 
deems the petitioner "a very bright scientist and one of the key researchers in the 
He has contributed in a very significant way to a better understanding of the mechanism of stereocontrolled 
polymerization and the structure-property relationship." 
Professor Fu Xi, the petitioner's graduate advisor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Chemistry, 
calls the petitioner "an outstanding young chemist" who "has contributed to the scientific community through 
his cutting edge work." 
The petitioner claims that his published research has been widely cited in the field. The petitioner submits 
copies of ten articles that contain citations of the petitioner's work. Two of the articles were written by the 
petitioner's collaborators, and these citations amount to self-citations. Thus, the petitioner's initial 
submission includes eight articles that independently cite his work. 
The director instructed the petitioner to submit additional evidence to satisfy the guidelines set forth in Matter 
of New York State Dept. of ~rans~ortation. In response, the petitioner submits back round information about 
POF, as well as new letters from prod prof. Prof.  isc cusses the overall 
importance of POF research, and asserts that the petitioner's "expertise and background give him a crucial 
and indispensable role in this project, which would be interrupted by his absence." Prof. letter 
contains similar language, in some places almost word-for-word. 
The director denied the petition, acknowledging the intrinsic merit of the petitioner's occupation but finding 
that the petitioner's work lacks national scope, and that the petitioner had not shown that he stands out in his 
field to an extent that would warrant a waiver of the job offerflabor certification requirement that normally 
attaches to the immigrant visa classification that the petitioner had chosen to seek. The director noted that 
many witnesses referred to possible or potential future benefits that may eventually arise from the petitioner's 
work, rather than actual, documented advances in the field. 
On appeal, counsel argues that the petitioner's work is national in scope. Scientific research at major 
institutions is inherently national in scope, because the results are disseminated nationally (and 
internationally) through publications and conferences and because the findings of such research tend to apply 
universally rather than only locally. We therefore withdraw the director's finding that the petitioner's work 
lacks national scope. 
Counsel asserts that the petitioner's "publications have been cited about 120 times in total," including 108 
citations by "authors other than himself." Factoring in self-citations by the petitioner's co-authors, the record 
shows about 90 independent citations of the petitioner's work, with the most cited articles showing 26 and 15 
independent citations, respectively. This is a considerably greater number of citations than the eight 
originally documented. We note that the director's request for evidence did not discuss the issue of citations 
or request more evidence thereof, and therefore the appeal marks the petitioner's first opportunity to 
supplement the record with particular attention to citations. 
Referring to a review article in the record, counsel states: "~rsm[sic] from National Research 
Council of Canada enlisted petitioner's work as one of "the kev conce~ts and main svnthetic strategies in 
dendriemer chemistrv [sic]" (counsel's emphasis). This representation is ading. The 
petitioner submits a copy of "Dendrimers and Dendrimer-Polymer Hybrids" by and = 
from Advances in Polymer Science, v. 142. The abstract for that article includes the sentence: 
"This review gives a brief introduction to some of the key concepts and main synthetic strategies in dendrimer 
chemistry." An article by the petitioner is one of at least 152 articles cited in the piece; the citation is one of 
two endnotes appended to the sentence: "These observations on dendrimer carrying methacrylate monomers 
confirm earlier results." The remainder of the paragraph concerns findings reported by a different group of 
researchers. Thus, the review article does not, as counsel appears to imply, single out the petitioner's work. 
Four new letters accompany the appeal. ~rofessoof Polytechnic University states that the 
petitioner has "proposed a series of very innovative and original methods of synthesizing polyfluorinated 
acetals," which "represents a breakthrough in developing an entire series of alternative methods which start 
with readily available precursors and proceeding in a clever way to construct this challenging ring system." 
Page 6 
professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia, states that the petitioner's 
of radically polymerizable fluorinated monomers opens a way to produce low-cost 
and high-performance fluorinated materials. 
of Exfluor Research Corporation states "I am very sure that [the petitioner's] work is 
from all over the world. One of the world-leading companies in [the] electronics 
indust recent1 expressed interest in his work and we will have a business meeting soon." It would appear 
that-must have some connection to the petitioner's work, if "we will have a business meeting" 
regarding a company's interest in the petitioner's work. The record does not reveal the nature of this 
connection, or any indication of the identity of the "world-leading company" or the nature or extent of its 
interest in the petitioner's work. 
I have never worked/collaborated with [the petitioner] before. The significance of [the 
petitioner's] work is evident in light of worldwide citation of his papers. . . . [The 
petitioner's] work represents a breakthrough in the field of fluorinated monomers which are 
used to produce polymer optical fiber. . . . [The petitioner] successfully prepared perfluoro- 
polymer optical fiber with low loss attenuation and low material dispersion which permit data 
transmission with broadbands up to 10 gigabiteslper second [sic]. His work has substantially 
outperformed these of other research groups around the world. 
While not all of the letters in the record are equally persuasive, the best of those letters serve to illustrate the 
significance of the petitioner's work. Heavy citation of the petitioner's published work reinforces the 
conclusion that other researchers are paying close attention to the petitioner's efforts. On balance, the 
preponderance of evidence in the record supports approval of the petition. The benefit of retaining this alien's 
services outweighs the national interest that is inherent in the labor certification process. Therefore, on the 
basis of the evidence submitted, the petitioner has established that a waiver of the requirement of an approved 
labor certification will be in the national interest of the United States. 
The burden of proof in these proceedings rests solely with the petitioner. Section 291 of the Act, 8 U.S.C. tj 1361. 
The petitioner has sustained that burden. Accordingly, the decision of the director denying the petition will be 
withdrawn and the petition will be approved. 
ORDER: The appeal is sustained and the petition is approved.