hi everyone this is Joseph Tsang today we'll be talking about an f-4 success story now this
is actually a motion to reopen success story as well so it's super unique now an f-4 is a
u.s citizen petitioning a sibling to come to the U.S. and get a green card it's a
fairly straightforward case but there's a lot of complications which you will see later
our client just became a citizen super happy and excited and filed the i-130 petition for
mom dad brother sister the whole family everyone of course is gonna have to wait a long time but
one by one their case started getting approved mom's sister brother well no the brothers case
didn't get approved they got a request for evidence because USCIS didn't think that the
two siblings were in fact related now reading the request for evidence it's understandable
the mom changed names the dad's changed name the birth certificate wasn't recorded immediately
the marriage certificate wasn't recorded immediately so it's quite confusing and USCIS just
wanted a lot of documentation to prove these two siblings were in fact siblings and it was not some
immigration fraud somebody just tagging along and getting a green card the family provided
everything possible tax income statements when they were young their pictures school ids
the only thing they didn't provide was a DNA test now if you don't know getting a DNA test is
extremely complicated especially if one person's here the other person's overseas and what you have
to do is you have to go and get a DNA packet get tested the DNA center will send it to the embassy
overseas then the foreign national the the sibling in this case will have to go to the embassy
and then take it and then the u.s embassy will have to send it back to the u.s give it to the
DNA center they have to run a test and then they have to in the sealed envelope send the results to
USCIS and then they will review it and then they'll provide a response right so it's expensive
it's long it's time consuming and is it really needed to prove that your sibling is your sibling
right so in this case they chose not to do a DNA test they provided everything else including all
the approvals that just happened right the moms was approved same documentation the sisters was
approved same documentation how come the brother in this situation was having such a difficult time
we understand of course there's different officers reviewing different things and if maybe it's just
this officer put everything together send it and the case was denied now what's the big deal just
file again right well the problem is the case has been waiting for four years it was filed some
somewhere around 2012 13 and then it took up to 2017 before the case was ultimately denied
if they were to refile again of course there's all the filing fees that they have to pay and
second is you have to re-wait this entire time and on top of that the priority date has
significantly reversed so they have to wait even longer so it's actually a very difficult
situation for them to be in and what can they do what the additional documents they have they
already provided everything in the request for evidence stage so they were freaking out
the only thing that could possibly be done to save the day is to file a motion to reopen
and that's what we did we pleaded with the officer officer officer please reopen the case here's
additional documentation additional letters of support explaining that they are in fact related
and just in case you don't find these additional documents convincing and along with all the prior
documents that were provided please just issue a new request for evidence to request the DNA now
they know that that's the only thing you want and they will go get it no matter how difficult and
how expensive it is very luckily USCIS understood the situation reopened the case issued the request
for evidence requesting the DNA they went got the DNA the DNA center mailed it back to USCIS
confirming that the two in fact were related and the case was approved
and now they didn't have to spend additional money the case was reopened and they could
keep the original priory date huge win and now the family is actually going to be reunited very soon
so the reason we're talking about the success story is because typically an i-130 sibling
petition should be super straightforward somebody is your sibling birth certificate couple pictures
maybe a statement and that will be totally sufficient but in any case there's tons of
complicated situations uh maybe they were born but they were separated at birth maybe there weren't a
lot of documentation when you're in royal India maybe in this case um the parents were switched
names and documents were lost and how do you prove somebody is indeed your sibling and now
that they are entitled to this benefit because if this didn't work then the whole family would be
here and then that one sibling would still remain in India and that sucks but it worked and
ultimately it's just you gotta plead with USCIS they are very understanding people
you gotta just document everything and if there's a way to prove it and if you
have a weak case definitely get the DNA i'm not recommending any one particular DNA agency but
definitely worth doing especially very complicated case if you have any of the other questions feel
free to reach out to us we'd love to sit down with you in the strategy session grab coffee my treat
and let's get to know each other thank you take care bye