USCIS To Reissue RFEs for Religious Workers
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has found recently that some requests for evidence (RFEs) were issued to petitioners for special immigrant religious workers that did not take into account the supporting evidence that was included with the petitions. These generic RFEs requested evidence with respect to every eligibility criteria regardless of the evidence submitted initially by the petitioners. On January 29, 2007, USCIS discontinued the use of generic RFEs and, in an announcement on February 16, 2007, the agency said that affected petitioners do not have to respond to these generic RFEs. Affected petitioners may respond if they choose, however, by pointing out the evidence already submitted and submitting any other missing evidence. “Petitions will not be denied for abandonment for failure to respond to these generic RFEs,” USCIS said.
USCIS said that after reviewing each of these petitions, the agency will send a case-specific RFE, if needed, to affected petitioners to request specific additional supporting evidence required for adjudication. After USCIS receives the petitioner’s response to the case-specific RFE within the timeframe specified, it will make a decision on the case.
Click here for the official press release.
