EB2 NIW cover letter : what it is and how to prepare one

The applicant writes a cover letter to guide the USCIS officer through all the documentation that supports the case. These documents are typically enclosed in the petition as Exhibits. Therefore, the EB2 NIW cover letter should be effective in providing a narrative to support the case for a National Interest Waiver. An effective cover letter should:

• Be easy to understand without being an expert in the field
• Reference all the important documents attached
• Highlight the most critical aspects that support the case
• Be organized according to the requirements for NIW for easy review

How to write an effective EB2 NIW cover letter

Plan before you write

Even before writing anything, as the petitioner, you should think about the case you want to make. In other words, dedicate some time to strategize about your I-140 petition. In the post about EB-2 NIW processing time I mentioned that 1 to 2 weeks is the time to dedicate to this planning stage.

What you want to do first is to update your CV with all your experience and skills. This will help you understand your own profile better. Then, focus on those items you think the I-140 petition should highlight. Consequently, you will understand what evidence you need to gather to support your case. In addition, you will better understand what evidence you need to collect through letters of recommendation. Typically, you leverage those letters to obtain evidence hard to substantiate through other means.

For example, imagine you are a scientist working in a private company and you could not submit papers for publication, so your organization did not lose intellectual property opportunities. In this case, you can have at least one recommender from your company describing in layman’s words what contributions you made.

What language to use in a EB2 NIW cover letter

…and I am not talking about English (duh!). Use very easy language that anyone can understand. You may be a nuclear physicist, an expert in virology, or perhaps a neurosurgeon. It does not matter how complicated your field is. You need to write about your endeavor and your achievements in a way that even your family could understand. Think that the USCIS officer may not an expert in any technical field! (Other than in green card applications, of course).

In addition, remember that the officer has limited time. You should make his or her life easier by going to the point and avoiding unnecessary repetition. Just put yourself in their situation: imagine you are slammed by a multiple hundred-page package to review in a limited time. The EB2 cover letter should really be quick to go through so all the evidence is well articulated and a decision can be made relatively fast. By not helping the officer and making the document too long, you are hurting your own case! He or she may get bored and lose interest, or perhaps think that if you are repeating the same things over and over you do not have the qualifications that you claim to have.

Quotes and Exhibit references

Remember that the cover letter is only a guide for the USCIS to understand your case effectively. You will provide all the evidence as Exhibits. In the cover letter, you will quote excerpts from letters of recommendation, or other documents, as needed.

Structure of EB2 NIW cover letter

The following structure for the cover letter can be helpful to articulate the case in an effective way:

1. Letter Introduction – very short summary of each section in the cover letter
2. Table of Contents – an index with page numbers
3. Chapter 1: Advanced Degree or Exception Ability Section
4. Chapter 2: Substantial Merit and National Importance
5. Chapter 3: I am Well Positioned to advance the proposed endeavor
6. Chapter 4: It would be beneficial to the USA to waive the Labor Certification
7. Petitioner’s nonimmigrant status
8. Petitioner’s dependents status
9. Conclusions

1. Cover Letter Introduction

In this section, you will address the USCIS offer and introduce them to your petition. This section contains basic information on the top, such as:

• Date 
• USCIS address (check the right USCIS address in the official website)
• Subject line, for example “RE: EB-2 Immigrant Petition for Permanent Residency with National Interest Waiver”
• Petitioner name, type of submission (Original submission), classification sought (Immigration and Nationality Act 203(b)(2)(B))

Then, you can write a short letter to the officer introducing yourself. First, you can simply state you are pursuing approval for the Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker (I-140) as a self-petitioner/beneficiary and that you would like to demonstrate your fulfillment of the EB-2 National Interest Waiver requirements and provide evidence to support it.

Next, you can tell the officer that you are eligible for EB-2 classification as either an Advanced Degree Holder, or due to your Exceptional Ability. Here you can cite Section 203(b)(2) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. §1153(b)(2) as the regulation of reference. You can specifically state what Advanced Degree you hold, or what three criteria you fulfill for exceptional ability. You can reference Chapter 1.

In the next paragraph, you can state that you will be providing further evidence to demonstrate that a waiver of the labor certification is in the national interest, pursuant to the precedent case Matter of Dhanasar, 26 I&N Dec. 884 (AAO 2016). Interim Decision #3882. You can reference Chapter 2.

Finally, you can provide three short paragraphs, each one addressing Chapters 3, 4, 5. These are the justifications for why the proposed endeavor has substantial merit and national importance, why you are well-positioned, and why it would be beneficial to waive the labor certification. In each paragraph, you can reference the appropriate Chapter.

You can remind the USCIS officer that there are Exhibits under the letter, and can provide them as a bulleted list.

2. Table of Contents

The table of contents is exactly what the name suggests: and index with Chapter titles and subsections with page numbers.

3. Chapter 1 – Advanced Degree or Exceptional Ability Section

If you are an advanced degree holder this will be a very quick Chapter. You only need to state what type of degree you hold (M.S., or Ph.D., for example), the institution, and reference to the appropriate Exhibit number. It is wise to provide a short explanation of how this degree is related to the endeavor you are going to be discussing later in the document.

If you do not have an advanced degree, you will state that you are a person of exceptional ability and provide the reasons. Then, create subsections to address each of the (at least three) categories that you meet. For each of them, remember to refer to the appropriate Exhibit containing the evidence. This evidence may be Letters of Recommendation, educational degrees, or proof of membership in professional associations, to name a few.

You can finish this Chapter with a statement saying that you qualify for EB-2 classification as either a member of the professions holding an advanced degree or a person who has exceptional ability.

4. Chapter 2 – Substantial Merit and National Importance

In this chapter you will explain in detail what endeavor you will pursue as a worker in the United States. In addition you will specify why this endeavor is of substantial merit and of national importance. First of all, remember that endeavor is not just a general occupation. USCIS restricts the definition as the details of what this occupation involves specifically.

Second, substantial merit is a broad term that could mean multiple things; anything of intrinsic merit. Third, national importance is more restrictive. This is because you need to prove the endeavor is relevant for the US as a whole. In other words, it cannot impact only part of the country! We covered this in a separate blog post about how to qualify for National Interest Waiver.

You should start this chapter by clearly identifying the endeavor and the impacts on the United States. In addition, specify the type of work you do to advance this endeavor. Then, you can break down this chapter into subchapters to explain the benefits of the endeavor for the US. For example, in my case, I used “Bioprocessing to generate biofuels and bioproducts” as my endeavor. Then, I had different subsections:

• Brief introduction to the field
• Impact on Food Safety and Security
• Impact on Energy and National Security
• Summary of benefits to the nation

In each of these sub-sections, I used quotes from the Exhibits to prove substantial merit and national importance. These quotes were taken from the recommendation letters and from documents from the US government. Typically, you want to demonstrate National Importance using published documents from Congress, or the White House, or some government agency. You want to connect the dots between your experience (and endeavor) and what the US government considers strategic. This makes your case very strong! In the post about how to qualify for NIW I gave a few links that may be useful for this. Alternatively, you can also find references in the scientific literature that speak to the dimensions of a certain problem you can help solve. Finally, excerpts from reference letters can help bring these points home.

Example from sample EB2 NIW cover letter