Hello, everybody. In this video, I'm going to provide the most up
to date information about USCIS case processing updates, the new requirements
for the COVID vaccine as of October 1, we'll talk about
new issues with requests for evidence, as well as everything else that you need to know
when it comes to your case with USCIS. So what are you waiting for? I'll see you on the other side.
Hello, everybody. And welcome back to our Immigration channel. This is a place where you get
the most up-to-date immigration news, integration information, and everything else that you need to
make your immigration journey less stressful. My name is Jacob Sapochnick. And I am an immigration
attorney located in San Diego, California, and we help clients in all 50 states. And in this video,
I'm going to give you the most recent update on what's happening with USCIS specifically based on
information that was obtained for the Ombudsman's office. This is an office that helps individuals
with their cases. If you want to inquire about a new case, if you want to expedite your case,
the Ombudsman's office is there to help you. And there's some data that they provided that
I can share with you. They'll make it easier for you to understand what's happening with USCIS at
the moment, some of the upcoming changes, and what you can do if you're worried about your case. So,
first of all, let's talk about the most recent update that came from USCIS. This is about the
requirement of the COVID-19 vaccination for all applicants applying for permanent residency and
refugee status as of October 1, 2021. So the announcement from USCIS specifically states the
following that all applicants that are applying for permanent residency as of October 1, 2021. Or
if you need to administer your medical exam on or after October 1, 2021, you're going to
be required to take the COVID vaccine as part of the vaccination requirement to become a permanent
resident. Now there are certain exceptions, and waivers available for applicants who are
too young to receive the vaccination, applicants that have a special reaction to the vaccination,
that are not supposed to get the vaccination, they can get a waiver and certain waivers based on
religious or moral convictions. So it's important to know if you are planning to get a vaccination,
you should be okay. If you think about not getting it, they need to plan that
based on that October 1 deadline. So let's move on to further updates from USCIS, specifically
from the Ombudsman's office. For those of you that don't know, the Ombudsman's office
is in charge of helping you with your case assistance. If your case is stuck,
if you need more information, if something's not working with USCIS, you can use a form to inquire
with the Ombudsman's office about your case. In the description of this video, I'm gonna put a
link to the form inquiry to the Ombudsman's office to make it easier for you to check on your case,
using that method. So currently, based on a recent report from the Ombudsman's office,
there are about 3500 case inquiries in the backlog that people are filing to check on their cases.
And they're trying to go through the backlog every single day. Currently, there's been a
lot of complaints about the USCIS customer support phone system. We've done a video before explaining
how to use that system and how to contact them. But the problem is that it's virtually impossible
to get a hold of a live person. And sometimes you need a live person, to be able to schedule your
appointment, to schedule an in-person appointment, to get a green card stamp on your passport,
or emergency parole. So USCIS is going to work on improving that and creating a way to be able to
speak to a live person, to be able to schedule those emergency appointments that you need an
answer or service right away. Instead of waiting for that callback that takes some time seven days
or longer. And by then that help is useless. Definitely working on improving that and I will
update you once we have more information about how they're going to utilize their new system,
allowing people to actually get a live agent faster instead of just waiting for their callback.
Remember, if your case is stuck, and you don't have any answers from USCIS,
you can use the Ombudsman's office to try to help you make an inquiry and even sometimes expedite
your case. But one thing you have to remember is that you can't contact them if your case is not
outside of normal processing. So what you have to do is monitor your case every single week to see
if you're within processing times or outside. If you're outside of normal processing times,
then you can contact the Ombudsman's office and initiate an inquiry on your case and see what's
happening. And hopefully, they can help you but remember, don't contact them if your case
is not outside of normal processing times. You just add to delay, and they're not going to be
able to help you at the end of the day. It also previously done a video about how to expand your
case specifically with USCIS. Once again, we're going to link this video in the description here.
So you will be able to go back and reference how exactly you make a regular expedited request with
USCIS. What are the requirements? And if you meet those requirements, then I suggest you
contact the Ombudsman's office and they're going to be able to help you further. So, remember,
first of all, you have to be outside of normal processing times for your case. And then after
you tried the regular processing of expediting your case and it didn't work, you should try to
contact the Ombudsman's office. And you'll see, they're really helpful. They're trying their best
to push those cases ahead. Specific cases that are problematic right now with USCIS. For example, if
you received a request for evidence on your green card case, whether it's employment or marriage,
DACA case, whatever you see in the RFEs, and you're calling the USCIS phone number because you
haven't received the actual request for evidence, you just sent it on the online system. Usually,
when you call them recently, they've been giving false information to applicants USCIS officers
on the phone directed applicants to go back to their my USCIS portal and try to download the
request for evidence from there, what they didn't realize is that in most petition based cases,
there are RFEs are not available online in your account, they have to come directly from USCIS.
And so once again, if that's your problem, if that's something that you've been encountering
issues with that you can also contact the Ombudsman's office, and they should be able to
help you facilitate that, at least force USCIS to send you the request for evidence by mail
so you will be able to have enough time to respond to that. Remember that all clients have
been frustrated, I've received a lot of comments as well about the misinformation that is coming
from the USCIS contact center. If this happens, and you're outside of your processing times,
you can contact the Ombudsman's office, and they'll be able to help you resolve your issue,
and possibly even expedite your case. Also, there have been issues with the premium processing
centers, there's a lot of people that file their cases using premium processing. But they're now
getting answers from the premium processing unit, specifically, the one in Texas, no email response,
no phone call response. So we heard that the Ombudsman’s office is trying to resolve that.
And also, there's been a request from immigration to try to prioritize those I539. So, when you file
a petition to expedite your case, let’s say it’s a work visa H1B or an O1, or E visa, usually the
expedite only works for the primary, you pay the premium processing fee from the primary applicant,
but any of the dependents are stuck months and months to be able to give their
statuses, their dependents status approved. Well, that's not fair because this way families are in
a way being separated. There's been a proposal for USCIS to try to prioritize those I539s. But
it doesn't look like it's going to happen because they said they don't have the resources to try to
locate those individual family members and try to add them to the premium processing process.
What may happen is that if they are going to finally add more premium processing options for
tourist visa extensions, for change of status extensions, for dependent extensions, they're
hoping it's going to happen very soon. Again, it's already been approved by Congress. So once that's
going to happen, then a lot of these dependents are going to be able to get premium processing
applications for their cases as well. And they’re not going to be stuck waiting for the principal to
be approved. So, those are some of the things that are happening. And if you've experienced that,
know that this is just a big problem that USCIS is trying to resolve. Update about biometric
reschedule since they closed the biometrics office in Virginia, it's not possible anymore
to reschedule your biometrics by sending them the notice in writing, you have to call the
USCIS contact center. And they will send you an automatic reschedule within a couple of weeks, but
we hope they're gonna find a better system because it's very stressful, not knowing if they're gonna
reschedule, if they're not gonna reschedule, they're gonna follow up with the phone call.
But for the moment, that's the only way you can do it. If you have a biometrics appointment,
and you can't make it you have to call, you can mail that if you mail that nothing's gonna happen.
So it is a very important update, and hopefully, you'll be able to benefit from that as well.
And finally, we have seen an increase in interview waivers for employment-based
cases. Mostly those applications that are based on employer-sponsored cases EB2s, EB3s,
the only thing that they needed was a medical exam. As soon as you sent the medical exam,
those applicants were receiving their green cards by mail. Very few of our clients were also
receiving interview waivers for K1s and marriages that were over two years, those are also coming in
that are less than before, but it's still coming in. So remember, if you have a medical and you can
submit it with your case, you may save yourself the hassle and maybe your interview will also be
waived. So these are the updates for this week with USCIS. Hopefully, you enjoyed this video.
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