✅ other: approval
The author shares their experience of receiving approval after an RFE despite a narrow profile and a lack of evidence of plans in the USA. In the response to the RFE, the emphasis was placed on market problems and the author’s expertise.
Case parameters
Category: other
Decision: approval
How it went
Problem 1: The chats were talking, but I didn’t believe them
9 out of 10 people you’d be most confident asking for help will tell you to get lost. Yes, even the nicest ones who know what you need and said they’d help with anything. I was so desperate that I sent “Are you asleep?” to colleagues I hadn’t messaged since 2018.
Problem 2: Narrow profile
If your whole case is built on you being top of the top in growth marketing of “cheese in sausages”, then it makes sense to build your plans around “cheese in sausages”. In theory you could expand to just “sausages”, but including motorboats in the case would look strange.
I’m exaggerating here for clarity 
Companies in the US working with my “cheese”: one monopolist and 3–4 independent players. I reached out to all of them; one independent holding replied and ended up in the case, the rest were zeros.
The officer asked for more evidence of plans in the USA; in plain terms he said “this is not enough,” but I essentially had nothing to answer him with. A week before the deadline I admitted to myself that it was a lost cause. And I decided to beef up things that weren’t what they had asked for. Why? 1. I had material. 2. What did I have to lose?
Response strategy
From the basics: I added proof that the holding with the LOI is a significant player and regularly appears in Forbes.
Then I went on to answer the question of why the US would be interested in my showing up there at all.
The market for my “cheese” and “sausages” is effectively monopolized, and the monopolist was recently sued by the DOJ. The independent players REALLY like doing research and publishing in major media about how they suffer from the monopolist and how awful things are. I pulled about five such articles from the biggest outlets, grabbed the DOJ case, and started relating my niche expertise to how badly that niche is currently doing in the USA (the articles mention “survival” and other useful keywords).
At the same time I found out that my longtime friend had firmly established herself in the “ham” department of our supermarket and could, from her vantage point, describe how bleak things are in sausages. I threw that in as well.
In the end, 90% of my RFE response had nothing to do with what the officer asked. But I had no time and no other options to add more substance to the Plans section. A real all-in.
Outcome
We sent the response, and I prepared for any outcome so much that I managed to move from Moscow to St. Petersburg and change jobs.
On the second evening at my new job I received an approval email It seems it was the third week of review, but I honestly wasn’t tracking.
I stared at that email for hours and couldn’t believe it wasn’t fake and that all those approval stories are real.
Main insight
“Sometimes it’s worth taking a risk and presenting unexpected evidence, even if it doesn’t fully match what the officer requested.”
Yana Shirokova (@yanashirokova)
2026-02-14
Approval received after RFE
Author of the story
Yana Shirokova (@yanashirokova), from the chat @talentvisahelp. Original message in the chat.
Useful on the topic
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