This is immigration attorney, Parviz Malakouti, and in this video, I want to go over what
should be your final checklist when you're going through your immigration application
package before you send it into USCIS. Now, a quick word. First thing I want to say is,
if you're doing an application on your own, hopefully it's something just simple like a
DACA renewal or perhaps a basic naturalization request or maybe an I-30. If you have a process
that's a little bit more complicated or if there's some sort of issue with your situation,
if you've been undocumented before, if you've ever been convicted of a crime, you want to think very,
very carefully about possibly contacting a lawyer, my office or another competent immigration
attorney for a consultation. But in any case, if you're submitting the application on your own,
you want to make sure that right before you submit that application to USCSIS,
you go through a quick checklist of items to make sure that your application doesn't get
rejected for a silly reason, like having the wrong filing fee or for example,
having left a box blank in one of the fields. So before I get into that, I just want to
say what this video is not. This video is not going to show people how to apply for
different immigration applications. This video does not talk about who qualifies for different
immigration applications or even all of the things you need to check. Those are topics that are much,
much more complicated. There's no way to deal with them in just one video.
This video is what should be the final checklist when you have all of your documents, everything
ready, what's the final checklist you should go through before you actually seal that envelope and
take it to USPS or UPS to send off to USCIS. So without any further ado, let's get right into it.
In order to go over this checklist, I print out the checklist that I use for my firm, actually.
I'm going to go over these ones one by one. So first thing is, if you can have an immigration
application, at least among immigration attorneys and among some people who do it on their own,
you want to have a cover letter. A cover letter is super simple, super basic. All it does is
basically tell USCIS, "Hey, this is what to expect in this package." So, boom, if you're doing, let's
say, a marriage-based adjustment of status, you want to say, "Please find the attached documents,"
I-130, I-45, I-864, et cetera, et cetera and you just list those documents. So that goes in a cover
letter. So the first thing you want to check is to make sure that all of the documents that you
mention in the cover letter actually are in the package. This happens often. Sometimes people,
especially with the more complicated packages that have a bunch of forums,
they list off a bunch of forms and they forget to put one or two of those forms in there.
So number one, are all the documents mentioned in the cover letter actually present in the package.
You're about to submit? Number two, are all the applications in your package the most
current version on the USCIS website? Extremely important. USCIS updates its
application forms every roughly year and a half, two years, maybe two and a half years.
You want to make sure, you have to make sure that when you submit an application to USCIS, it's the
most current version. Now, if you download the application from USCIS, you might be thinking,
"Well, heck why do I have to check to make sure it's the most current? I already downloaded it?"
Let me tell you a common situation, which this happens. Oftentimes, somebody downloads an
application from USCIS and then they're missing a piece of information from something else
that delays them. So that form, they download it, they fill it out, it sits for two, three,
four, five months and then they get the piece of information and they're ready to submit.
They don't check to make sure that that application is the most current version
and sometimes in that two, three, four, five month period, USCIS has updated the application. So you
always want to make sure that you check are all the applications in your package the most current
version on the USCIS website? Number three, are all the fields filled out in the documents
and are the blanks filled out with either a none or an N/A? Let me explain. So this is a
more common, recent issue. Just this year or so, early 2020, USCIS started rejecting applications
that had blank fields in them. Now why would an application have a blank field?
Because plenty of questions in a USCS application are not going to apply to you. They're not going
to apply to the applicant or if there's boxes left there for your children's names and you
have no children, people think, "Oh, I don't have any children. I'm going to leave them blank."
Previously, that was okay. Now it's not really okay anymore with USCIS. USCIS is rejecting those
applications. They're sending them back. So what do you do then with those boxes that don't apply
to you? You need to do one of two things. You need to fill out, fill them out with either the word,
none, N-O-N-E, or N/A which stands for not applicable. You want to make sure
as a final check before you're sending in this application that every single box in every one
of your USCIS applications is filled out, either with information that USCIS is requesting or if it
doesn't apply, you want to put the none or the N/A. That's number three. Number four, another
important one. Does the cover letter and the package address match USCIS's website instruction?
So I think most people understand that you can't just fill out an immigration application and then
just slap the word to immigration, Washington, DC. It doesn't work like that. USCIS has multiple
sub-entities which receive documents depending on where you live in the United States and the type
of application it is that you're applying for. So USCIS website has detailed instructions on
exactly where to send your application depending on those two factors. Make sure you check them,
double check them. Make sure you're sending your application off to the correct address. Very,
very important. That's number four. Number five, are all your documents signed? Are they
all signed? Anytime you submitted an application to USCIS, whether it be an I-130, I-130A, I-45,
whatever, it has to be signed. Now, when you're dealing with a bunch of applications, especially,
sometimes people forget to sign their documents. It's a silly mistake. It's an honest mistake,
but that's not going to stop USCIS from rejecting that, sending it back to you and
making you waste a lot of time and money. So make sure you check, are all the documents signed,
all of your USCIS forms? Number six, and we only have one more after this,
we're going to do seven total. Number six, are the correct number of passport photos
included in the packet? Now not every single USCIS immigration application asks for passport photos,
but the majority of immigration benefits, most benefits, if you apply for them with USCIS,
they're going to require a certain number of passport photos. Now you
got to make sure that you send the proper numbers. Sometimes USCIS can be lax on this,
to be honest. Sometimes if they're short one or two, it's not a big deal, but sometimes
they'll reject it, not worth taking the risk. It's too much trouble. It's too much hassle to
fill out these forms, send them in and then have to redo them. So make sure
that you're double checking the instructions for every application that you're sending in
and that you're sending the appropriate number of passport photos in there. That's number six.
Number seven, did you scan the entire package, including payment and the passport photos? Did
you scan it for yourself before you seal up that package and take it to the post office and send
it off? You have to do this. This is extremely, extremely important. You need to know exactly
what you submitted to USCIS. This is important for record keeping purposes. This is important in case
you go to a lawyer later. This is important in case your case goes sideways. It's important for
so many reasons. So you want to get a scanner. Obviously, you scan all of the forms through,
but you scan everything. You also put the passport photos on the scanning bed,
scan the passport photos. You also put the payment, if you have a check on the scanning bed,
scan the check as well. You also put the envelope. I put the envelope that it's in on the scanning
bed as well to make sure you have everything that can possibly be scanned so you have a complete
record. If you run into trouble later, you're going to be really thankful that you have exactly
a record of what you submitted to USCIS. One other thing that I just thought about right now that I
want to add on, important checklist. Did you make sure to address your payment, if you're writing a
check or money order, to the proper entity? So if you're submitting an application with USCIS,
you want to submit, you want to make your payment out to US Department of Homeland Security.
You don't make it out to USCIS as the recipient. You don't make it to US DHS. You don't make it to
Immigration. You write the check or money order to US Department of Homeland Security. Now,
sometimes people slide on this. People have submitted applications sometimes
with the incorrect address and it's cashed, but we want to make sure that you do it right so
you don't even take that risk. Anyway, that's my checklist. That's the final checklist for sending
out an application. I hope that helps. If you have a more complicated immigration application
or if you're confused about what to do or what you qualify for and you need a consultation,
feel free to contact my office. I do charge for consultations. If you're interested in consult,
just click on the link below. Otherwise, I hope this helps and I wish you the best of luck.