With a successful career in Brazil and the United States, engineer and professor Ericson De Paula had the J1 visa, intended for students and international scholars, doing educational or cultural exchange in the United States. For that, he needed to come to Brazil every year to renew his visa. Check out some of its history and how was its process to obtain the Green Card.
“I celebrate 50 years of experience, working in the oil and electricity industries, in international companies and public companies in Brazil. Throughout these years I have always been a professor, teaching evening classes at universities, while working in the industry.
Then I set up an international consulting company, where I worked for 10 years, until 2010, when I went to the University of Miami and started working with research and teaching and developed in an energy integration project in Latin America. At the end of that year, I presented this work as a thesis at the postdoctoral level and the dean invited me to work as his advisor on two fronts: bringing the university closer to the industry and as a professor, where I stayed until December 2019. from then on, I joined Rice University in Houston, teaching at the George R. Brown School of Engineering.
A chance meeting with a former client of Francisco Wykrota changed the perspective of this J1 visa extension process. By looking at my published books, degrees, participation in international conferences, student advising, courses taught, successful career as an executive and participation as a board member, he found that I had all the requirements to apply for a special visa for professionals with extraordinary in my field. It is important to mention that the lawyer who assisted me in the process at the university did not consider this option.
The work with Francisco Wykrota began with the compilation of data from my professional history for the assembly of the process, totaling more than 2500 pages, in a period of 6 months. I was honored with letters of reference from personalities from the industrial world, former ministers, academic intellectuals and officers of the American armed forces. The petition for my qualification as a professional of extraordinary skills was filed in July 2019 and in five calendar days we got approval. Even with the impact of the pandemic, in July 2020 we received the work and travel authorization, employment authorization and parole, which had been requested in January. In August, we received the permanent resident card - greencard
Testimony:
Francisco Wykrota is a lawyer specializing in immigration matters and advising companies seeking the American market. The differential of its assistance to clients in immigration, goes beyond its deep knowledge of the bureaucratic process with the immigration agencies. It follows in detail the progress of the process and the fulfillment of its events through an interesting software program. In addition, understanding the customer's expectation, it provides important tranquility and security during the events of the process.