Orangepants

I have an Indian friend working in NY on a H1b and his company is submitting his GC application.
He has been told that his degree is not equal to a US degree though he managed to get the H1b with it! Different lawyer I guess.
As he has several years experience, 10 I think, can he just put aside the degree and submit the GC application on his experience or would this cause a problem? There would then be a discrepancy between his H1b data and his GC information - does this matter? Thanks

He has another meeting with the lawyer in 2 weeks and doesn't want to be laughed at for suggesting it as he's supposed to be real smart!!

cathy22w

When he applied for his H1B, didn't he have to have his credentials evaluated by an evaluation agency accredited by immigration? I thought this was less to do with lawyers, and more to do with the agency evaluating the credentials in this respect. The agency would have assessed the qualifications/experience and made their conclusions based on that.

dbj1000

I didn't have to have my qualifications evaluated by a 3rd party agency when I got my H1B - it wasn't until I started the adjustment of status process that I was asked to get my degree and other qualifications evaluated.

dbj1000

He shouldn't "put aside" his degree, but he should add his 10 years of experience to the equation. Although he probably hasn't had his degree assessed by a 3rd party accreditation company, he should suggest to his lawyer that this is needed in order to properly assess his level of qualifications - certainly his lawyer shouldn't be the one telling him his degree "isn't worth" a US one.

Orangepants

Thanks dbj1000 - any ideas how the accreditation company goes about it's task - would they contact the university and ask for transcripts etc? Do they ask you for stuff? Do you know if it's a formality that qualifications have to be evaluated or was it because you were applying as EB1 or EB2 and are highly educated? This usually happens right at the end of the GC process - the 1485 stage unless the lawyer has doubts whilst preparing the first submission?

I ask this also, as my OH is going through PERM at the moment, he has a degree from a UK university and we haven't really read much further than PERM for now and his lawyer never mentioned assessing his qualifications.

Thanks again.

ian-mstm

They will either ask you to supply official transcripts, or they will ask for your written permission to request them from the university.

Ian