Navigating the immigration process, with all of USCIS’ requirements and technicalities, can be difficult. In fact, there has been a surge of cases being rejected recently, with 95% of them being incorrect or silly rejections.
This calls for the need to relearn and redo how immigration cases are filed. Especially as the immigration process consistently changes and evolves, everyone filing a case with the USCIS needs to keep updating their knowledge and adopting the latest best practices to avoid case rejections.
Why Cases Are Being Unfairly Rejected by USCIS
Many times, the reason why a case was rejected by the USCIS ends up being incorrect or unfair. They might say that the application was missing paperwork when in fact, it was included in the bundle. Or they might say that there was only one check attached when it should have been two.
One theory for why this happens is because of immigration’s act of hiring contract workers in the mailroom. They now have new people working in their mailrooms who have not been fully trained or do not have extensive experience in the job. So they make silly mistakes that an experienced mailroom worker typically would not make.
Best Practices to Avoid Silly USCIS Case Rejections
While there’s nothing applicants can do about immigration’s hiring decisions, they can abide by these best practices to reduce the chances of silly USCIS case rejections.
Double-Check the Address and Jurisdiction
When it comes to immigration, nothing is set in stone. Protocols, processes, and rules are updated all the time — even their addresses and jurisdiction change.
A field center, lockbox, or service center’s address last year may not be the same this year, or a particular office may not accept cases from a certain region because it’s no longer in their jurisdiction.
There lies the importance of regularly checking the address where a case is being sent. Even if the applicant submitted something to a field office last year, they need to check again to make sure they’re sending their documents to the right place. It’s as easy as going onto Google to check the current filing address.
Follow Immigration’s Current Requests
Despite there being standard protocols for immigration processes, these things can change without prior notice. So it’s very important to be particular when following requests from the immigration service.
If they want the paperwork to be unfastened, the applicant must make sure it’s unfastened. If they ask for separate checks for the filing fee and biometrics fee, then the applicant must issue two checks instead of one.
The point is to follow whatever immigration is asking for. Doing so can really help them scan an application properly and avoid rejection.
Make Sure the Paperwork is Complete
Immigration forms are getting longer and longer, which makes it easier to make a mistake or forget to put in one of the pages. The simple act of going through each form and making sure all the pages are present can go a long way in circumventing a rejection.
Immigration is constantly changing, and with that, every interaction with the USCIS becomes a learning curve. Even if an applicant has a long history of sending documents or applications to USCIS, they should keep updating their knowledge and best practices to help their case get through the mailroom properly and successfully.