What is Matter of New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT)?
In 1998 the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) published a precedent decision restricting the use of national interest waivers (NIWs) as a way to bypass labor certification for individuals in the employment-based second (EB-2) immigrant visa preference category. The petitioner, the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT), filed an immigrant visa petition on behalf of a civil engineer whose expertise is in pre-stressed concrete construction and design of post-tensioning and of curved bridges. Petitioner believes the foreign national qualified for an NIW. The foreign employee had been employed by NYSDOT for five years after he obtained his Masters degree in Civil Engineering from Iowa State University. The employer provided evidence stating that 60% of New York’s bridges contain steel bearings which are susceptible to earthquake damage. As a civil Engineer, he had involved in detailed seismic analysis using state-of the-art seismic analysis software. The ben
