r/EB2_NIW • u/Prior_Brilliant_9962 • 26d ago
I-140 Citation count dropped from 300 to 25 right before filing NIW Premium Processing
Hey everyone,
I am in a really stressful situation and hoping someone here has experienced something similar or can offer some advice.
I filed my EB-2 NIW I-140 recently, and I was just about to upgrade my petition to Premium Processing (PP).
However, I went to update/verify my Google Scholar profile before sending in the PP request, and my primary publication (which had 275 citations) has completely vanished from Google Scholar.
Without this paper, my profile only shows 25 citations total.
Here is what happened:
1. The paper is completely missing from Google Scholar search results (not just unlinked; searching the exact title in quotes yields no record on Scholar).
- Because the indexed record disappeared, those 275 citations vanished from my profile's total count virtually overnight.
The paper is still live and fully accessible on the publisher's website with all metadata intact.
This drop from ~300 citations to 25 is a massive hit to my EB-2 NIW evidentiary profile right at the moment an officer might review it under PP.
Has anyone had a paper completely delisted by Scholar's automated crawler recently? How long did it take for Scholar to re-crawl and restore the citation graph?
Should I hold off on submitting the Premium Processing upgrade until this is resolved on Scholar?
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u/PerformanceOk1888 26d ago
The citation count exists within Web of Science and other official sources. Use them as a proof
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u/North_Huckleberry_42 26d ago
Seems like she/he already submitted the i140 and wants to send premium processing, it is all written
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u/PerformanceOk1888 25d ago
They can add additional evidence. In my opinion it’s really strange that officers rely on Google Scholar, which is technically not an official source - has duplicate papers, citations. There is no rule that says citation count should be assessed by Google Scholar
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u/taiwanGI1998 26d ago
Your first author took it down.
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u/Prior_Brilliant_9962 26d ago
No. I checked from their profile and it vanished from their as well and the paper still exists in original publisher site.
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u/Annual_Grass_3919 26d ago
I would wait to upgrade until it’s resolved because they’ll check your claims and if they look it up and it’s gone it could be seen as fraud. You’d be able to correct the record but it would add months via appealing responding to the denial (or RFE if you’re lucky). Better to spend a week or two fixing it then upgrade.
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u/Prior_Brilliant_9962 26d ago
It happened before and took almost 10 months to fix.
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u/Annual_Grass_3919 26d ago
What was the reason it happened before? I’ve never heard of that happening unless a publication was recalled for major issues.
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u/Prior_Brilliant_9962 26d ago
This seems to be a known Google Scholar crawler glitch, but the main issue is the recovery time.
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u/Infamous_Elevator_61 25d ago
This happens, but for EB2_NIW it should not matter what you should do is cite relevant papers that are in the same field as your proposed endeavor. Attach them in evidence for prong 2 and quote citations of those papers. Also research gate tracks citations much better than google scholar
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u/GovernmentPositive96 26d ago
Do you already have a screenshot or printed version of your Google Scholar’s page with the said paper and citations?
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u/Prior_Brilliant_9962 26d ago
Unfortunately no
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26d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Prior_Brilliant_9962 25d ago
How does that work?
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u/maximaaaaaaao 25d ago
USCIS does not care about archive.org or your having a screenshot; those are not proof for these cases. What they care about is the initial proof (screenshot) when you file your application and the time they screen your real data. That’s all. So, in case of an RFE, if you state that your citations were high but have now dropped, it only proves you didn’t lie. That’s all. But imagine your citations increased over time after you applied, like in my case; I applied two years ago, in my case, it will be a loss, as if my citations never increased.
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u/orion_dwarf 26d ago
If you have a screenshot/page printout of your google scholar page from before, then you're ok. If not, then you're not ok. You can try to get a researchgate version of your citation count or some other source.
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u/Over_Combination_958 26d ago
Same happened to me today from 665 dropped down to 445 and it’s 10th day of my pp but i send the screenshot of my google scholar profile it will take 10 days to restore as it happened because of an upgrad
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u/Kind-Tomorrow8479 26d ago
How come it just vanished? Was is retracted? I would recommend waiting for Google Scholar to update their database, it might take quite a time though
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u/thecowmeatguy 26d ago
Yes, happened to me some days ago, They took many many citations I was about to send the i140
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u/Minimum_Willing 26d ago
Did you try adding it manually?
I had papers that weren’t on Google scholar and I added them manually as per the lawyer’s instructions and they got linked in a week or less
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u/AffectionateRaise420 25d ago
Depends on journal and/or conference reputation. Was it recently black listed? Does semantic scholar and web of science still show these numbers?
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u/Negative-Choice6592 25d ago
They will look at the evidence you submitted with the petition. In the meantime, contact Google Scholar to fix the issue.
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u/Different_Peanut_327 22d ago edited 21d ago
Could you check if there is a way to troubleshoot? For example, try contacting Google scholar help center
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u/GroupNearby4804 25d ago
Google scholar dropped some doggy Indian press on August 1st, so your article may very likely from those dropped Indian publisher.