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Immigration Rainbow: Good to Know!

September 5, 2016

Immigration Rainbow: Good to Know! Author: New York Employment Immigration attorney Alena Shautsova

It seems that New York managed to avoid the powerful hurricane Hermine. Quoting a famous singer “after a hurricane comes a rainbow”…  AILA or American Immigration Lawyers Association published a practice pointer that recommends to use…a  rainbow in dealing with USCIS Nebraska Service Center.

To wit, practitioners (a/k/a lawyers) when dealing with employment based RFEs and NOIDs (depending on the subject of the RFEs and NOIDS) should submit their (timely, always timely) responses using color stripes. For example: when one submits a response to an RFE in connection with regular processing of forms I 129 and I 140, they should use a RED stripe. If the processing was expedited, then they should use a BLUE stripe for I 140, and PURPLE for I 129 forms. If one responds to a NOID, then a GREEN stripe must be used. I guess, a usage of a wrong color may really get  one in trouble…

I must state that there is an ongoing problem with RFEs. And it is not just the latest demand of using  “a rainbow” to respond to them. The problem usually lies in that cases get denied for failure to respond to an RFE when a  person or his/her attorney never received one.  Another issue with RFEs that I have spotted (and I am sure I am not the  only one) is that they contain demands for information/documents that were already provided.

The problem here is that when I get requests like this, it makes me think: 1). maybe they lost the entire file??? or 2). it seems that USCIS is trying to “buy” itself a little more time before moving the case along. Whatever the reason is, the response to such an RFE must be submitted, or the entire case will be denied. I hope that the rainbow codes will help the process to be better organized.  But for some reason, I suspect it will cause even more confusion…