Visa and Green Card Applications Can Now Be Denied Without Giving Applicants a Chance to Fix Errors
As President Donald Trump wages a vocal battle against illegal immigration, his administration has been working more quietly to cut down on legal pathways to immigrate to the U.S.
On Tuesday, a new policy kicks in, allowing officers with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to outright deny any visa or green card application that is missing evidence or contains an error. Around 7 million people apply every year.
Previously, officers were required by an Obama-era policy to send notices, giving applicants a chance to correct such problems instead of closing the process. Officers can still choose to do so, but they can also opt to skip that step if the application is deemed frivolous.
Without the notices, applicants wonât have the opportunity to intervene before a decision is made, potentially adding months or years of extra paperwork and thousands of dollars in fees to the already lengthy process. In the case of those trying to renew their visas while theyâre still in the U.S., they could be placed in deportation proceedings the moment their visas expire.
USCIS spokesman Michael Bars said the policy was changed to cut down on frivolous applications. The agency has said applicants sometimes file substantially incomplete placeholder applications, knowing the back-and-forth with the USCIS will buy them time. âUnder the law, the burden of proof is on the applicant,â Bars said, ânot the other way around.â
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But immigration lawyers worry that there is not enough oversight or clear standards to ensure fair handling. USCIS officers will now have near-complete discretion to make complex judgments behind closed doors.
âThey can deny you on the fact that, subjectively, they feel in their mind [the application] is not approvable,â Pierre Bonnefil, an immigration attorney in New York, said.
One reason the lawyers are worried is that theyâve seen a barrage of scrutiny directed at once-standard immigration applications since Trump took office. ProPublica spoke with a dozen lawyers and reviewed documentation for several of these cases.
Many responses cited technicalities: One application was not accepted because the seventh page, usually left blank, was not attached. Another was rejected because it did not have a table of contents and exhibit numbers, even though it had other forms of organization.
âIt seems like they are just making every single submission difficult,â Bonnefil said. âEven the most standard, run-of-the-millâ application.
The lawyers call this minefield of onerous paperwork an âinvisible wall,â designed to make legal immigration as difficult as possible.
âPeople who are here legally, doing everything through proper channels, now feel as unsettled and unwelcome and uncertain about the future as people who donât have documents,â Sandra Feist, an immigration attorney in Minnesota, said.
Under Trump, this has meant that cases drag on for weeks or months as lawyers scramble to address notices. Some lawyers have noticed an uptick in denials recently, but most say that strong cases still eventually make it through.
It remains to be seen how broadly the new policy will be used to outright deny even strong applications. The memo said the new policy is ânot intended to penalize filers for innocent mistakes or misunderstandings of evidentiary requirements.â...
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