They must have been hired for a job that requires a US master’s degree or higher, or a US bachelor’s degree or its equivalent FOLLOWED BY at least five years of progressive work experience in the field.
They must have the education required for the EB-2 qualified job or exceptional ability as clearly proven with a National Interest Waiver.
One of the most common RFEs EB-2 candidates run into is an education issue RFE. Our client came to us with an Indian three-year bachelor’s degree, many years of progressive work experience, and an RFE. He had the years of experience to more than cover the five years of progressive work experience following having earned the bachelor’s degree. The issue arose because with EB-2 educational requirements the bachelor’s degree is required to be a SINGLE SOURCE and CIS does not accept that the Indian three-year degree is the equivalent of the US four-year bachelor’s degree regardless of the number of classroom contact hours. CIS requires the missing fourth year to be accounted for.
With other visas, like H-1B, our client could have included a work experience conversion that converts three years of progressive work experience in a given field of specialization into one year of college education towards that degree to account for the missing year. This does not work for EB-2 because that would not meet the equivalency requirement of a single source bachelor’s degree.
Our solution was to write a credential evaluation fortified by CIS approval precedents and federal case law that took twelve years of our client’s progressive work experience in the field and converted it into the equivalent of a US bachelor’s degree in the field. Then, the next five years of work experience were included to meet EB-2 educational standards requiring a single source US bachelor’s degree FOLLOWED BY five years of work experience in the field. The RFE was overturned.
If you or your employee or client is facing an education RFE for EB-2, let us help you. Even the candidate doesn’t have the years to cover a complete work experience conversion, there are other ways to address the equivalency issue through detailed credential evaluations tailored to your or your employee or client’s unique situation, and through expert opinion letters and National Interest Waiver options. Let us review your case for free. Visit
ccifree.com/. We will respond in 48 hours or less.
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