On April 27, 2021, US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) issued updated guidance in the USCIS Policy Manual effective immediately instructing officers to once again give deference to prior determinations when adjudicating extension of petition validity requests “involving the same parties and facts unless there was a material error, material change, or new material facts.” In doing so, “USCIS is reverting in substance to previous long-standing guidance issued in 2004”, which had been rescinded in 2017.
Read moreOPINION: USCIS Updates Policy for Adjudicating Nonimmigrant Worker Extension Petitions
For over a decade, filing an extension of nonimmigrant status has been fairly routine in most cases. On Monday, October 23, 2017, US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a new policy memorandum that instructs its officers to apply the “same level of scrutiny to both initial petitions and extension requests for certain nonimmigrant visa categories.”
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