Well, guess what? Certain applicants are seeing their green card interviews being waived due
to the Coronavirus and also the Department of Labor is making some concessions for applicants
going through the Green Card labor certification process. Watch this video and I give you a
full update. Hello, everybody. My name is Jacob Sapochnick and I'm an immigration attorney
located in San Diego, California. I've been doing, in the past few weeks, lots of videos
about immigration and the impact of COVID-19 on the whole situation. In this video, we're
going to talk about some applicants that are seeing their green card interviews being waived.
And also about some flexibility from the Labor Department for people going through the Green
Card process. As well as a quick update on family-based Green Card immigration. Before
that, if you’re here for the first time, make sure to click that bell and be notified.
Subscribe to our channel. We do videos every single week. And especially now it's so important.
Also, follow me on Instagram and on TikTok to see other content that we do. I enjoy making
videos and provide content for our viewers. So in this video, I want to provide a quick
update on something that I've seen happening to some of our clients, and also to other
attorney clients, as well as people that reported this to us. So, recently, just a few days
ago, some clients are seeing their interviews being waived, and they're just getting their
green card in the mail. This is particularly common right now in an employment-based green
card. But just to give a little bit background, as you know, USCIS offices shut down for in-person
appointments on March 18th. They were supposed to open on April 1st, and then it was extended
all the way through May 4th. What that means is that they don't see… they're not seeing
any people in-person for interviews, biometrics, or Infopasses. And as a result, all these
interviews were rescheduled. And so, we were wondering, what's going to happen? Is there
going to be a backlog? What will happen to those interviews? So, as of now, we still
know that they're going to be rescheduling interviews. However, in the past few days,
we've seen people that are basically getting their interviews waived. They're getting their
green cards in the mail, without an interview. Some people are getting requests for evidence
to produce more information and to send over their medical, which makes me believe that
they're also going to be approving those cases and sending them their green cards. Again,
there is no policy right now. There's no official policy from USCIS saying that they'll be waiving
interviews, all we can say is that we see a report, all we can see is a report of what
we see from clients and also from other people that are going through that same process.
So, that's huge. So, I think that immigration, the USCIS is trying to predict that if they’re
not going to do something proactive right now, remember that before they made the change
about a year ago, the employment-based green cards never had an interview. They're receiving
their green cards in the mail or a request for evidence asking for more information.
But for years and years, we never had an interview for an employment-based green card. When they
started doing those, it created an even more significant backlog on adjudication. So now,
I think they're going to start waiving more of these interviews for employment-based.
But guess what, we even had a person that is a family-based case, it's a green card
based on marriage. And that person wasn't a client of mine, but I heard it from another
attorney, that that person also got the green card in the mail without an in-person interview.
Now, I don't believe that's going to be the norm. I cannot find this reasonable to happen
for them to determine if there's a fraud in the case. So, they still need to see people
for interviews but I know that for employment cases, I think they're going to start waiving
those. And hopefully, they will because that's going to obviously eliminate the backlog once
they're going to resume operations and see more people in person. Another thing that
we want to report is that the Labor Department is also speeding up their processing, speeding
up adjudications. And also, instead of sending their labor certification approvals by mail,
they've been sending them via email, just to make it easier for people to get notifications.
But remember, when you're going to file your I-140s and you file your green card based
on employment, you still need to send an original labor certification. That's kind of important
to know that as well, that we don't have any update on that yet. But when it comes to USCIS
forms and you file 45, they did announce that they will accept electronic signatures or
reproduction of signatures. You don't need to send original signatures as of now. If
you recall, on March 30th, they announced that people who are going through EAD extensions,
work permit extensions, they do not need to do another biometrics, they're going to be
using the older metrics and work permits should not be delayed significantly. So, these are
major, major updates. First of all, we know that some interviews have been waived. There's
no official policy, but we see it happening. What I believe is it’s going to happen mostly
for employment-based but we see that some family-based are also being waived. I don't
think it's going to be a common practice. Labor certifications are being emailed right
now. And USCIS is accepting, not original, but reproduced signatures copies via mail
for forms. So, these are some of the updates I wanted to update today. Some hope to know
that when they lift this lockdown, at least some people are not going to have to attend
interviews, and the ones that really need to, will not have to wait that long. So again,
thanks for watching. Subscribe to the channel, share this video with somebody who may need
it. And also, we'll see you in our next video. Let me know in the comments what are your
concerns with the question at the beginning. So many questions in the past two weeks. I'm
humbled with your support. And we'll continue to make videos every single day. If you like
this video and you want to receive more updates like this, join our new Facebook group, I
created a group just for updates on immigration and COVID-19 issues. So, here's the link.
Join the group, and I'll see you on the other side.