So I have been doing this for a long time.
I have been a practicing immigration lawyer and I've probably filed
close to a thousand marriage cases over the last ten years, if not more.
So when we file some typical applications, we know some of the bare
minimum things that we must include.
And guess what?
We know exactly what we filed because before anything gets sent off in the mail,
we make a full scan of everything that we have filed
in the exact order that it was filed so we can verify for ourselves
whether we were missing something or not when we filed it with USCIS.
Nonetheless, even though we may have included a birth certificate
or a marriage certificate or a filing fee or things like that, sometimes
USCIS has given us RFEs on missing documents such as that.
The more frequent reason people might get a request for evidence
is because of the fact that an immigration officer has determined
that there is not enough evidence in your case to prove eligibility
for one or two things, or even the whole dang application itself.
So what are some of the reasons why this might happen?
Immigration officers are not infallible,
and even less infallible are the file clerks or contractors who process
your application at the very first step at the lockbox and at the service center.
Sometimes mistakes just happen.
So even if you did include your marriage certificate, even if you did
include your birth certificate, they may have shuffled the papers around,
something may have dropped to the floor when they scanned it,
or they were simply not being careful and they issue that RFE.
So if you get an RFE like that, don't lose your $#*%,
just keep responding to the RFE
as soon as you can and kindly remind them that “I've already included this
with my previous application, but here's a copy for you again
anyway!” Because you stand to gain nothing if you don't respond to the RFE
or you just tell them, “Hey,
I already included it.” Never, ever respond to an RFE that way.
If USCIS is asking you for some evidence, just give it to them,
even if you already gave it to them already
because you're not going to lose much but you can stand
to lose your entire filing fee and have to start over from scratch
if you respond in a way that is unresponsive
and does not provide them with what they request.
So even if you get an RFE asking for a document that you already provided,
go ahead and respond to it with a copy of that same exact thing
that you already gave them and wait for your decision.
What happens if you get an RFE from USCIS asking you
to prove eligibility or telling you that you have insufficient evidence?
You know, we just filed a case for a marriage adjustment of status
for a couple who has been together for a long time,
but they are recently married and we filed a case
for adjustment of status,
and even though I have filed cases with even less evidence
than what I filed for this couple, we just got an RFE with USCIS claiming
that we have not submitted sufficient bona fides of a good faith marriage.
This was baffling to me because sometimes couples don't have any joint evidence
until they've been married for quite some time
and until one of, you know, the immigrant wife or husband has been able
to obtain their Social Security card, then be eligible to do things
like open up a bank account, file taxes, so on and so forth.
In this case, we have a lovely couple who have been together for a long time,
own dogs together, have a house out of state together,
all of these things yet USCIS has given us an RFE
saying that we have not proven a sufficient bona fide marriage.
Why would they ever get an RFE like that?
Why would you get an RFE like that?
Let's suppose that you have submitted your marriage application
with hundreds of pages of bank statements, ten years worth of tax returns,
and you just don't even know what else you could show to prove
that your marriage is real.
So in this case, one of the reasons why I believe that this couple
may have received an RFE is because the immigration officer
who got this RFE was just being lazy or suspicious
because something in the application may have set them off.
Some of the reasons that an immigration officer might be suspicious of
the evidence is if they see that the couple has several residences
and there might be more than one place of residence.
Now, as I mentioned, this couple does have a vacation home
and it could be possible that in seeing evidence of a second
vacation home and a second location, a second residential address,
the immigration officer may have gotten suspicious about that.
Another reason for this is even though the couple has lots of bona
fide evidence, they have no tax filings
and only one month's worth of statements of a joint bank account.
In the past, I have never had a problem with any of my cases
requesting evidence because of this, but that’s just what I can guess.
Either way,
even though we have already,
in my opinion, proven that this couple is in a real marriage,
we still have to grit our teeth and just go ahead and respond anyway.
What's another reason why immigration may have decided to get this RFE?
This is something
that is going to go against your mind and might even blow your mind right now.
But sometimes when you submit too much evidence, USCIS
may just automatically issue a request for evidence
because they don't want to go through all that paperwork.
And sometimes it's just easier for them to just go into their computer,
pull up the template for the RFE, they may not even update
the last template they used and you might get an RFE
with somebody else's name on it or something
that's totally incorrect in your case, and just mail that off to you.
Because then they've met their quotas or their timeline, production
timeline for sending you a decision by a certain date.
Because let's be honest, they do have that and when you get those RFEs,
those confusing RFEs,
asking you to reprove every single thing in your case—even though
you may have sent 500 pages of documents— well, that's one of the reasons.
A lot of times you may get an RFE directly from the immigration office.
And usually when you see RFEs that actually go towards
the heart of your case—for example, if an immigration officer is saying
that you have not proven the bona fides of your marriage
or that you suffered extreme cruelty and battery
or that you are ineligible for something because you don't have a legal entry
that is not coming from the file clerks—that is actually coming
from a field officer who now has the case
at your local jurisdictional office for USCIS.
So these types of RFEs are a little bit of a different nature.
And it is also at this stage, if you are filing for a adjustment
of status application, you may also get an RFE requesting you for a medical exam.
Now, the good thing about this RFE and the reason why it is actually good
is the fact
that when you get the request for evidence that you need to now mail to them
your medical exam, it's usually a sign that they're going to approve
your green card without an interview and that they've decided to waive it.
So this kind of an RFE is actually a happy RFE.
But what happens
if your interview does not get waived and you show up to your interview?
Your interview may not go that well and the officer starts asking you
all sorts of questions—what are some of the reasons
why they might give you an RFE at the interview or after the interview?
Some of the main reasons for this are the fact that if the officer spots
inconsistencies in your application or inconsistencies
from the things that you say, they may issue you an RFE asking you
to explain the differences and why they are inconsistent.
If the officer also sees that you need to prove legal entry
or you have to prove something else, they may ask you
for an RFE to provide these documents.
So we're going to now go into some of the tips
of how to avoid RFEs and how to respond to RFEs.
My number one tip, as usual, is to make sure that you do keep track
of all the required documentation that you are supposed to give.
So the best and easiest way to understand what your required documentation is is
to go ahead and look at the instructions for the form that you are submitting.
For example, if you are submitting an I-130 and I-485 for
a one-step adjustment of status application,
you want to look at the instructions for both the I-130 and the I-485
and all of these are available to you from USCIS on their own website.
So no need to look around for it on Google,
go ahead and go directly to USCIS.gov to look up these instructions yourself.
And make a list, use a checklist, whatever you have to do.
Double check it.
Make sure you include all of those things.
Number two,
you want to make sure that especially if you are submitting a marriage case
or something else that requires proof
of something that you submit, whatever evidence that you have
that can help you establish that eligibility.
So, for example, if you are filing a marriage adjustment of status, you do
definitely want to include some bona fides of your marriage.
And at this stage you might want to include more than one bank statement,
more than one picture.
You want to submit a good handful of pictures.
You want to submit as many joint financial documents as possible.
But number three, my third tip is do
not over-submit your evidence.
If you give them too much, it will make a tired immigration officer
even more annoyed, and they may just issue you a blanket RFE
because they're done, it's the end of the day,
and they don't want to deal with looking at your 500 page file.
So believe it or not, more is not always better.
You just want to be selectively strong when you are preparing
your immigration application for USCIS.
Regardless, the most important thing to do when you get an RFE is to, number one
check to see what the deadline is, and number two, respond to it!
Even if it's the most silliest RFE that you've ever gotten in your life.
I can say that as a lawyer, I've gotten many, many silly RFEs.
So these are my tips if you get an RFE, why you might have gotten an RFE,
and how to handle responding to an RFE.
My name is Moumita Rahman, and if you would like an evaluation
about your case, you can give our office a call at 212-248-7907.