USCIS Updates Policy Guidance for Certain Requests for Evidence and Notices of Intent to Deny(merged)

[Naes 12,205]

2 minutes ago, Pennycat said:

Directly above what you've just quoted I said:

 

"His mother lost his baby vaccination book but he did have them all as a child, but he was not in possession of any of his vaccination records. So when he had the overseas medical exam, they gave them to him again (2nd time in his life) I specifically asked him to get a photocopy of the vaccination report just in case this RFE happened (it was already famous when we were still in visa stage) but the doctor refused, claiming to not be allowed.

 

Then he moved here, we applied for AOS and got this stupid RFE. The choice was: go get a new medical exam, which would have required yet-another set of vaccinations (the second time in, sorry, 6 months, between overseas medical and RFE) or fight it. We called the embassy doctor to ask to send a copy (to get the vaccinations transcribed) they claimed to not keep copies. I called 4 different civil surgeons none of whom would do titers instead. So we fought it. And we were right, USCIS was wrong, as we knew all along. "

 

I know it's not great to not have access to your vaccination records. That's why he needed to get the second lifetime set at the embassy doctor. Stuff happens, this isn't terribly uncommon especially in developing countries. 6 months (I was off on the timeline between overseas medical and RFE, it has been years since this happened) after his overseas medical, after we applied for AOS, they sent us an RFE for the medical. We took steps to try to get the vaccination record from the embassy doctor or to work around this with local civil surgeons to no avail. The choice was fight the RFE or get the shots again (and I might add another chest x-ray). If you see another option, be my guest and tell me what we could have done instead. It still doesn't change the fact that they erroneously issued the RFE. I knew it, THEY knew it. This sort of USCIS error could now lead to outright denial, through no fault of an applicant. And I hate to tell you, they make errors ALL the time. This was incredibly common at the time we were going through this process.

I’d like to introduce something called a titer test...

[Unidentified 2,930]

2 minutes ago, RLA said:

I guess there'd have to be a lot of placeholder applications for that to have any significant effect on overall processing times.  Would be interesting to know how many there really are.  Here on VJ they seem to be pretty uncommon. 

Depends on your definition of "placeholder applications". If by that you mean people who just send in the bare minimum and hope they can show the rest of the evidence I'd say it's relatively common. For enough for it to be common practice but enough to be noticed for sure. 

3 minutes ago, Pennycat said:

Directly above what you've just quoted I said:

 

"His mother lost his baby vaccination book but he did have them all as a child, but he was not in possession of any of his vaccination records. So when he had the overseas medical exam, they gave them to him again (2nd time in his life) I specifically asked him to get a photocopy of the vaccination report just in case this RFE happened (it was already famous when we were still in visa stage) but the doctor refused, claiming to not be allowed.

 

Then he moved here, we applied for AOS and got this stupid RFE. The choice was: go get a new medical exam, which would have required yet-another set of vaccinations (the second time in, sorry, 6 months, between overseas medical and RFE) or fight it. We called the embassy doctor to ask to send a copy (to get the vaccinations transcribed) they claimed to not keep copies. I called 4 different civil surgeons none of whom would do titers instead. So we fought it. And we were right, USCIS was wrong, as we knew all along. "

 

I know it's not great to not have access to your vaccination records. That's why he needed to get the second lifetime set at the embassy doctor. Stuff happens, this isn't terribly uncommon especially in developing countries. 6 months (I was off on the timeline between overseas medical and RFE, it has been years since this happened) after his overseas medical, after we applied for AOS, they sent us an RFE for the medical. We took steps to try to get the vaccination record from the embassy doctor or to work around this with local civil surgeons to no avail. The choice was fight the RFE or get the shots again (and I might add another chest x-ray). If you see another option, be my guest and tell me what we could have done instead. It still doesn't change the fact that they erroneously issued the RFE. I knew it, THEY knew it. This sort of USCIS error could now lead to outright denial, through no fault of an applicant. And I hate to tell you, they make errors ALL the time. This was incredibly common at the time we were going through this process.

why didn't he get tested for antibodies instead of having his vaccines again?

[Jaquelly 1,647]

1 minute ago, Naes said:

I’d like to introduce something called a titer test...

We thought about getting that for the dog to figure out why his allergies are so bad...

[Naes 12,205]

4 minutes ago, RLA said:

I guess there'd have to be a lot of placeholder applications for that to have any significant effect on overall processing times.  Would be interesting to know how many there really are.  Here on VJ they seem to be pretty uncommon. 

Read monthly topics. It’s pretty common to see rfes with a big list. But we don’t bash them because of the long time we spend here together waiting. But it exists and I admit it makes you want to ask (which I did ask) “what did you send?”

 

answer was we didn’t have at the time. Which should have been “we shouldn’t have send it”

[Naes 12,205]

Just now, Jaquelly said:

We thought about getting that for the dog to figure out why his allergies are so bad...

It is more expensive on animals by the way... cat titer test cost me 200, mine only cost me 100 and I was relieved of 3 vaccinations! 

[Pennycat 880]

1 minute ago, Naes said:

I’d like to introduce something called a titer test...

I literally mentioned titer tests in the story you are quoting. None of the civil surgeons I called would do them instead, claiming to not be allowed.  How true that is on their part, I really don't know. In addition, none of this is free. And this was not our fault in the slightest. Why should I/we take time off work to go get and pay for unnecessary medical exams and procedures because some USCIS desk jockey can't read, or thinks it's easier to issue an RFE than to call CPB?

[Jaquelly 1,647]

Just now, Naes said:

It is more expensive on animals by the way... cat titer test cost me 200, mine only cost me 100 and I was relieved of 3 vaccinations! 

$200!? I had to pay $175 to give him some all natural allergy shot this spring. $^@#& animals.

 

Nice to see you <3

 

That being said, there will hopefully be a way to help people from getting deported. However, if you left out something and that's on you, you should face the consequence.

[Naes 12,205]

6 minutes ago, Pennycat said:

I literally mentioned titer tests in the story you are quoting. None of the civil surgeons I called would do them instead, claiming to not be allowed.  How true that is on their part, I really don't know. In addition, none of this is free. And this was not our fault in the slightest. Why should I/we take time off work to go get and pay for unnecessary medical exams and procedures because some USCIS desk jockey can't read, or thinks it's easier to issue an RFE than to call CPB?

I missed the first quote  

 

Btw I was referring to the doctors who didn’t offer, now I see you even asked and they bs-ed... your case is a whole system failure not just uscis but also bunch of doctors who has no clue.

 

on the other hand I do not think these are the situations this policy applies to, as this is not a placeholding situation.

[Ontarkie 14,352]

~~related threads merged. One post and one quoted removed for TOS Violation.~~

[Naes 12,205]

7 minutes ago, Jaquelly said:

$200!? I had to pay $175 to give him some all natural allergy shot this spring. $^@#& animals.

 

Nice to see you <3

 

That being said, there will hopefully be a way to help people from getting deported. However, if you left out something and that's on you, you should face the consequence.

Hi dear! (I’m Still not inUS by the way)

 

I believe leavingout or forgetting one thing is not the case in this policy (although it has too many open endings) what I understand from it is, it affects cases we’ve seen here such as;

 

leaving 5 out of a 6 elements, For example rfes with 4 different things in one (I mean it’s not a shampoo commercial). This is not about forgetting a simple letter of intent, or denying just because of evidence insufficiency.

 

but crucial things that are written even at the instructions page; and even that’s a maybe, like birth certificate, or not sending any evidence of meeting at all.

 

we will all see how this plays out soon, and we will hate it at the same time cause it may also affect people we get to know here (maybe me!) 

[Pennycat 880]

7 minutes ago, Naes said:

I missed the first quote  

 

Btw I was referring to the doctors who didn’t offer, now I see you even asked and they bs-ed... your case is a whole system failure not just uscis but also bunch of doctors who has no clue.

 

on the other hand I do not think these are the situations this policy applies to, as this is not a placeholding situation.

 

You may not think that this policy applies to a case like this but you're not the person who would be making that decision. The person deciding to deny the petition based on lack of initial evidence would be the same person who chose to issue an RFE for a piece of paper that was (a) not required to be submitted and (b) was THEIR responsibility to request from CPB. That's the problem. These people, I am very sorry to say, are not bright. Or if we're being generous, we can say they are extremely overworked and busy and are prone to human error. 

 

We never should have gotten that RFE. But we did. So people never should be denied over something like this.... but someone will. 

 

Their stated purpose is to cut back on placeholders. But there is nothing in my years of experience dealing with USCIS on both a personal and professional level that gives me a glimmer of hope that it will end there. Some slacker trying to keep up with their numbers will find it easier to deny than deal with an RFE. Some mouth-breating idiot who shows up hungover three times/week and sleeps through training will think that they're supposed to deny INSTEAD of RFE when there is initial evidence missing.

As I said, make replying to an RFE $1000 unless you can demonstrate it was USCIS error. That should stop the placeholders, and punish the idiots who don't follow instructions.

[JC&BS 75]

34 minutes ago, florida racer 73 said:

Ho hum...... same old argument

 

And how about the people that play games with the system, Remember for every rule or law there is an idiot that caused it to be created

Wow

[RLA 324]

11 minutes ago, florida racer 73 said:

Ho hum...... same old argument

It's old but still valid.  It's the reason why we have introduced things such as habeas corpus and due process—to give us some protection against bureaucratic ####-ups.

 

12 minutes ago, florida racer 73 said:

And how about the people that play games with the system

That can never be completely avoided.  Any good system will have to consider the trade-off between people gaming the system vs people falling through the cracks.  In this case, people gaming the system causes a somewhat higher workload for USCIS.  People falling through the cracks means people being deported or, in milder cases, being stuck in legal limbo for months.  Personally a higher workload for USCIS seems more acceptable to me. 

 

That being said, I'm not sure whether I'm in favor of the new rule or not because we don't know what the numbers actually are, how much faster USCIS will process applications vs how many cases will be unjustly denied. 

[Pennycat 880]

27 minutes ago, Unidentified said:

 

why didn't he get tested for antibodies instead of having his vaccines again?

That's what a "titer" is. They don't offer that at the embassy doctor in my husband's home country, or at least not for all the required vaccinations. He wound up getting 4 or 5 that day.  I also called civil surgeons in the US and they wouldn't do it, claiming to not be allowed for immigration purposes. I personally think that's a lie (and I personally think that it is a lie about getting more money) but what can I do?

 

And more importantly, and which no one defending USCIS in this matter has been able to answer, as this was *clearly* a USCIS error (they admitted to it!) why should it be my responsibility to fix it? Why should I take time off work and go pay for medial procedures I don't need just because some idiot at USCIS doesn't know how to do their jobs. And why would you trust the people who can't even get RFEs right with the power to outright deny what could/should be an RFE instead?

 

I certainly wouldn't. We're going to apply for ROC before the cutoff so I guess we'll be fine in that regard. And as I suppose this is a "screw you I got mine" sort of situation, that's all I really need to worry about. But in all seriousness people will be erroneously denied over USCIS errors. And fighting it involves reapplication and lawyers, which is all well and good if you've got the money for such things. Not everyone does, and again, *shouldn't need to*, but USCIS's competence level is severely lacking. So of course let's make the consequences of their mistakes even greater. 

[Naes 12,205]

2 minutes ago, Pennycat said:

 

You may not think that this policy applies to a case like this but you're not the person who would be making that decision. The person deciding to deny the petition based on lack of initial evidence would be the same person who chose to issue an RFE for a piece of paper that was (a) not required to be submitted and (b) was THEIR responsibility to request from CPB. That's the problem. These people, I am very sorry to say, are not bright. Or if we're being generous, we can say they are extremely overworked and busy and are prone to human error. 

 

We never should have gotten that RFE. But we did. So people never should be denied over something like this.... but someone will. 

 

Their stated purpose is to cut back on placeholders. But there is nothing in my years of experience dealing with USCIS on both a personal and professional level that gives me a glimmer of hope that it will end there. Some slacker trying to keep up with their numbers will find it easier to deny than deal with an RFE. Some mouth-breating idiot who shows up hungover three times/week and sleeps through training will think that they're supposed to deny INSTEAD of RFE when there is initial evidence missing.

As I said, make replying to an RFE $1000 unless you can demonstrate it was USCIS error. That should stop the placeholders, and punish the idiots who don't follow instructions.

You’re right, and I’m pretty sure we will see some mess due to this. As I personally learnt I should put a copy of my vaccination records with AOS, just in case; because cases like yours; which we wouldn’t even know without vj. (Which sucks for people with less access to info)

 

I can only expect the congressional inquiries to work better from now on cases like this. 

 

The problem with this policy is that it looks like it has an open ending. however once it starts they will put the handbooks and how it works on site so we may need to read and understand that; and hope uscis adjudicators will also do...