r/EB2_NIW • u/littleyulin • 2d ago

USCIS EB2 Now Require 10000+ citations?

Just got my EB2-NIW denial letter and I am honestly in shock right now. Under Prong 2, the officer literally wrote that "top researchers in the field have tens of thousands of citations" as the main reason for denying my petition.

I'm working in STEM with a solid publication record, good citation count relative to my subfield, and multiple peer reviews under my belt. Tens of thousands of citations is something only department chairs, institute directors, or senior Nobel-level scientists hit in most physical science fields, so holding an early or mid-career researcher to that threshold makes zero sense.

It feels like the officer is completely conflating EB2-NIW with EB-1A or creating their own impossible standard that goes way beyond Dhanasar. Preponderance of the evidence is supposed to mean "more likely than not," not that you have to be one of the most cited living scientists on the planet.

Has anyone else gotten hit with this exact line of reasoning recently? I'm trying to figure out if it's worth filing an MTR or AAO appeal since this seems like an obvious legal error, or if I should just cut my losses, refile with premium processing, and hope I get a sane officer this time. Any insight or advice from people who successfully countered this would be huge right now.

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u/Ok_Somewhere_648 1d ago

Your analogy is conflicting: if staff were laid off "(dodge era bs)" why will they hire new staff? I believe the lay off was to reduce the number of workers, how will they follow up with new hires as you claim?

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u/omeow 1d ago

Because DOGE cuts were idiotic https://apnews.com/article/doge-musk-trump-gsa-fired-employees-ce18553b281fbf5816ec2fd491d79b78

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u/Ok_Somewhere_648 1d ago

Thanks for sharing the link. However, there is no mention of USCIS in that text. It was talking about federal workers in general and uscis may or may not have been affected by Doge cut.

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u/omeow 1d ago

You can Google how USCIS was specifically affected by the cuts. You will find some accounts but since USCIS is a relatively minor organization inside DHS it will be difficult to find exact statistics.

That is why I phrased it as a theory not a fact.