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Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 14:25:48 -0700
X-Mailer: Lotus Notes Release 6.0.2CF1 June 9, 2003
Nico/all
here's my experience with the green card process in California.
If you go down the 'outstanding researcher' path it will take you quite
some time to collect all information. I was advised by my lawyer to put in
as much information as possible. I went to the extent to get a list of how
many times my publications were cited, by whom and in what journal, what
is the citation index of those journals, etc etc etc. It all helps to
prove one point: you are outstanding and of exceptional quality. I did it
a bit faster than Nico, in about 4 months. After that it took my lawyer 2
months to compile and send it in (I never got an answer why it took her so
long). After that it was just waiting. During the time we already
completed the medical exams, finger printing necessary for the adjustment
of status. According to my lawyer it is possible to file for the
adjustment of status concurrent with the OR petition. That might speed up
things a bit. Yet it took over a year for the OR petition to get approved
(which happened in 2004). After that we got everything quite fast and 2
months later we had the cards and all.
I heard that California the INS, due to the extent of their backlog, has
started shipping applications to the Texas center for processing. That
could explain the shortening of the timelines for approval you see.
With regard to the SSN. Life is a lot easier if you have one, whether you
actually need it or not. The notice of approval for the adjustment of
status is enough. The card is actually nothing but a card that proofs that
your are legally here and allowed to work. So you should get a SSN without
problems. Make sure though that the spelling of the name on the SSN
documents matches the one in your passport and green card. Especially if
your wife uses her maiden name in combination with your name, or might
have some Umlauts in it. Once a mistake is in the system it is difficult
to get corrected. Trust me: Been there, done that
Good luck
Michael
Michael P Rudolf, PhD.
Scientist II, Cancer Therapeutics
Biogen IDEC, Inc.
5200 Research Place
San Diego, CA 92122
Tel: 858-401-8481
e-mail: michael.rudolf_at_biogenidec.com
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Received on Thu May 12 2005 - 17:18:03 PDT
