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Best Practices For Your Immigration Interview and Green Card Medical Examination

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Hi this is Kaushik Ranchod here from The Ranchod Law Group with Brian and you can call us at (916) 613-3553 . Today we’re going to talk about some green card updates and interview updates. So, one of the basic requirements for applying for green card is that you need a medical examination done by a United States CIS designated civil physician. Because the government has been slowing down so long with their applications, the issue that has been there for a lot of people who are applying for the green card is that their medical examination validity expires: so what do you do about this? So there’s some good news and there’s some bad news:

  • the good news is now United States CIS states that the medical will be valid for two years instead of one year which is great because they’re taking longer than a year at least in Sacramento and also in many other parts of the country to adjudicate a green card application;
  • the bad news is that normally it’s easier to just submit the medical examination documents with the green card application but the medical cannot have occurred more than 60 days before you submit the application otherwise United States CIS will consider it invalid

Moving on to a different topic, about the interviews specifically, the interviews here in Sacramento where you go in for a green card interview (but this could be anywhere as well), it’s really important to make sure that if you have an issue either during your immigration interview (or even getting in to the interview), that if you feel like you’re getting an erroneous decision by the person that’s letting you in to the interview (that they’re not letting you in and you have a valid ID), then bring it up and ask for a supervisor because, it’s important that you make sure that you maintain your rights and this is why it’s also important you have an attorney at the interview as well to represent you one so you have another witness there in case they deny a decision. We’ve had a client in this situation coming in for a parole in place interview and they didn’t want to let them in with the valid passport, which is a valid form of ID, and what was brought to their attention is that this is not something that should prevent from entering because, they didn’t want to let the person enter because they said they needed a driver’s license or some kind of United States ID which was incorrect.We’ve had situations where sometimes the officer may state something that never happened or misconstrue what happened and so by having an attorney there, that’s another witness to the actual events that happen and what that actual testimony that occurred and then second if the officer is asking inappropriate questions the attorney can step in and attempt to rectify that situation as well. Alright well we want to thank you for joining us live you can post your questions below and you can call us at (916) 613-3553 if you have questions thank you and have an awesome day.

Related Information and videos you’ll find interesting

An Update on Trump’s Border Closing Plan, What is going on?

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Hi this is Kaushik Ranchod here, Immigration Attorney with Brian and we’re here with our weekly “get your immigration questions answered” with the Ranchod Law Group with offices in Sacramento and Stockton .I’m going to talk about the craziness that’s going on with President Trump talking about closing the border and if you have questions you can call us at (916) 613-3553 .The latest news is basically he is delaying it and you know the question is: would you really close the border? Because it would have huge economic impact and we get so many goods from Mexico such as avocados for instance that it would create a huge negative impact on the United States economy, so you know if just from a practical standpoint it doesn’t make sense to close the border.At the same time we live in unprecedented times we don’t know what President Trump could do because some of the things he does aren’t necessarily pragmatic or practical.Alright so I want to thank you for tuning in for our weekly immigration show get your questions answered and tune in next Thursday one o’clock we’ll have a new topic for you, keeping you updated on the latest of what’s going on right now.We talked about the Trump border closing issue then we’ll see what’s going on next week because we never know what we have in store for us with this current administration – thank you and have an awesome day.

Related Information on President Trump, Mexico and Immigration:

The Mistakes You Should Avoid When Applying for a K1 Fiance Visa

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Hi this is Kaushik Ranchod Kaushik Ranchod from Sacramento with Brian and we’re here with our weekly get your immigration questions answered with The Ranchod Law Group . We’re going to talk about mistakes that are made when filing for the Fiancée visa .

The Fiancée visa : some of the biggest mistakes

Mistake number one

On their statement that they are including, they don’t state that they’re gonna get married within 90 days.

Mistake number two

Then mistake number two is not providing evidence of meeting within the last two years, because that’s one of the requirements: you have had to met your Fiancée within the last two years. If you have questions you can post your question below or you can call us at (916) 613-3553 I’m going to move on to the third biggest mistake that I see when trying to reunite your Fiancée :

Mistake number three

The third mistake (that is this isn’t necessarily only with the Fiancée visa ) is trying to enter the United States on a visitor visa and then filing for a green card in the United States : that could be interpreted as Visa Fraud . In that situation the best thing to do would be the Fiancée visa , rather than to try to come into the United States on a visitor visa and marry your spouse and then try to get a green card with your spouse admission.I also have a question I received from Brian:

What happens if someone enters the United States with a tourist visa but didn’t have the intention to get married… something that just happened randomly?

Ok so that’s a really good question! If you enter with a tourist visa and you didn’t have the intent prior to entering, because what is looked at is the intent prior to entering the United States and then you get married after the fact – depending upon the timing of when you actually got married, you may be able to adjust status and get a green card : there’s something called the 90-day rule.

I advise you, if you’re in that situation, to contact an immigration attorney in order to get things right and if you have any questions you can contact us at (916) 613-3553 or you can post your question below.Alright so I want to thank you for tuning in for our weekly immigration show – get your questions answered by The Ranchod Law Group – and tune in next Thursday one o’clock we’ll have a new topic for you, keeping you updated on the latest of what’s going on right now.We’re going to talk about the mistakes of fiancée visa s and we’ll see what’s going on next week because we never know what we have in store with us with this current administration.Thank you and have an awesome day.

Related Information on K-1 and K-3 Visas

What you can do if your Hardship Waiver gets denied?

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So we do get people that come in and ask us:

What do you do if your hardship waiver filed by another attorney or notario is denied?

They filed their hardship waiver with another attorney or they did it with a notario and they got their case denied – what should they do? There are two options:

  1. They can file an I-290B appeal
  2. We could refile

We’re gonna go into detail about that a little bit. One option is filing an appeal. If you feel like the officer made some errors in their decision then you can appeal and it’ll go to the AAO (Administrative Appeals Office) and another set of eyes will look at the decision. Now it’s important to contact an immigration attorney as soon as possible because you have very limited time to file the appeal so you want to do that immediately. In that situation you can address the erroneous reasons that were made in the denial so in this situation what we normally do is we prepare a detailed legal brief addressing the reasons for the denial and why we think those reasons are not accurate. Another option is to refile a case if some new facts came out – so for instance let’s say you’re a United States citizen and you have a new United States citizen child: that would be a new factor of exceptional hardship. You can refile the case and include that new factor there to try to get an approval based off of the new additional factor that your new child being born and the hardship that would create with having a child in the picture.If you are going to refile I would recommend having some new factors of exceptional hardship to discuss.If you’re going to spend this significant amount of time because you have to go through the whole filing process again and of course the money that it’s going to take to refile as well, you don’t want to just refile based off of the same situation. Now every case is unique so that would be up for your attorney to decide by evaluating the facts of your case. Sometimes it might even make sense to refile, it’s just important to get this evaluated by an immigration attorney as soon as possible, as soon as you get a denial, that way you are able to have time on your side rather than against you. I want to thank you for tuning in to get your questions answered – thank you and have an awesome day!

Related Links to other Videos and posts on Hardship Waiver Denials

Trump Administration Seeks To Close International Immigration Offices

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USCIS

The current administration is moving to close USCIS‘ field offices around the world.

Clients should note that USCIS and the Department of Homeland security are set to coordinate in order to avoid any delays in the processing of applications. However, clients should anticipate that there may be delays in the scheduling of their interviews, processing of their visa, etc.

It is important to remember that this does not mean closure of embassies/consulates altogether.

SOURCE: NPR

What You Really Need To Know About the USCIS Interview

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Hi this is Kaushik Ranchod from The Ranchod Law Group!So today what we’re going to talk about are some “nuts and bolts” of the USCIS interview.So first of all as I’m talking today on March the 12th. When you have the USCIS interview, before you would put the notice in the box and they would call you – now you put the notice in another room and then you’ll get transitioned to the main waiting room and then called for the interview.So that’s one of the “nuts and bolts”, so you’re prepared when you go in and you know what’s going on, so you feel a little bit more comfortable at the interview: give us a call at (916) 613-3553 or post your question below!Alright, and then what other questions are we getting? About having an interpreter – people want to know who can go, like if they can bring children or a sibling to the interview as an interpreter for the person that is going to be interviewed. Alright, so if you do not speak English fluently, you can bring an interpreter but it’s important to note that you can’t bring a family member like a brother or a sister a spouse a parent, so you have to have someone who won’t be biased at the interview to interpret for you.And even if you bring an interpreter and the officer speaks Spanish you may not need to bring that interpreter to the interview, the officer may state that they’ll go ahead and translate. And then, when you go to the interview, you want to make sure you’re there at least 30 minutes ahead of time because you never know how long the line could be and of course if you miss the interview your case could be denied, so it’s important, very important, to take the interview very seriously and also dress respectfully for the interview because you are before the USCIS and you want to show your respect.Alright so that the nuts and bolts that we wanted to share with you today’s recent happenings of what’s going on.I want to thank you for tuning in to our immigration update and we look forward to seeing you next week. Thank you and have an awesome day!

Other information related to USCIS Interviews

I-601 Waiver Approval – Client from Southeast Asia

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I-601 hardship Waiver Approval Notice Feb. 2019

I-601 waiver approval notice for Client from Southeast Asia




Filed: 03/13/2018
Approved: 02/22/2019

Waiver approval for client found inadmissible to U.S. because of criminal convictions

The Facts of this Success Story

  • Client lives in a country in Southeast Asia;
  • is engaged to a U.S. citizen;
  • The U.S. citizen filed for her visa to come into the U.S.
  • she was denied her visa and found inadmissible for “a crime involving moral turpitude.”

Our Client had two prior criminal convictions.

In order to win the case we had to prove client’s U.S. citizen fiancé would suffer extreme hardship if her Waiver were denied. In order to prove exceptional hardship The Ranchod Law Group argued that due to his ties to the U.S., his career, his medical needs, and the country conditions abroad, relocation would result in exceptional hardship.

We are so happy and honored to have been able to help this couple begin this new stage of their life together in the U.S.

Related Information on Other information on I601 Waiver

What kinds of I601 Waivers are getting approved?

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Hi it’s Kaushik Ranchod here with Brian. So today we’re going to talk about what are we getting approved now? On I601 Waivers with the President Trump administration because as you know with the President Trump administration it is getting much more difficult for cases to get approved. Overall there is a 40% denial rate increase.Our firm is still above 90% of overall approvals. But what is getting approved now (and of course I have to say that even if our cases are getting approved) doesn’t mean that all of our cases will be approved in the future: it’s on a case by case basis and that’s why it’s really important to evaluate each specific unique factor and you can call us at (916) 613-3553 if you have questions.So in the I-601A Waiver that we just got approved, what we talked about for this situation is you have to show, for an exceptional hardship I-601A Waiver, exceptional hardship to the United States citizen if they were separated or if the United States citizen were to go to the spouse’s home country. One thing we showed was the history of psychological trauma that the United States citizen had and how that could continue to occur or even increase significantly because of the separation.So that’s known as psychological hardship. Second – we talked about financial hardship, the fact that the couple had a home and they could very well lose that home if the spouse had to go to Mexico.Additionally then the childcare as well would become so expensive that the household would not be able to afford the childcare: that’s another argument that we made.And then we tie all of these factors together to show the extreme hardship. So in a lot of our cases there’s not just ONE factor in and of itself that constitutes extreme hardship, but when we combine all of these factors BOOM! We’re able to show exceptional hardship!There’s one important factor that I left out – there is the spouse’s health condition as well that played a significant factor in the exceptional hardship as well.What’s very important to remember when presenting an exceptional hardship Waivers case:

  • Provide a lot of medical records documenting all of this because you cannot just make stuff up you have to substantiate it with evidence.
  • Create a very extensive legal brief with attention to detail, outlining all of these factors as well and tying it into a legal argument demonstrating the exceptional hardship and how, through the totality of circumstances, all of these factors create exceptional hardship.

Alright, so we want to thank you for tuning in, you can leave your comments below and we will respond in our next show or we can respond below to your questions or call us at (916) 613-3553. Thank you and have an awesome day!

Discussing Crimes at USCIS Interviews

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Welcome back to the Crimmigration blogpost series by The Ranchod Law Group. This week, we are tackling a very important subject: discussing crimes at USCIS interviews!

The very first tip is one that will avoid delays at immigration interviews – to always make sure USCIS has received a certified copy of all your criminal cases. Not only will this simplify the questions you are asked but it will avoid USCIS needing to ask for more evidence afterward! A certified copy should include, at the very least:

  • the complaint;
  • plea;
  • sentencing.

For any immigration agency, you must always tell the truth about every criminal incident

But that doesn’t mean you have to guess.

A common example is when USCIS asks how much alcohol was consumed during a DUI arrest. Most individuals, particularly for crimes occurring years earlier, do not recall the exact amount. Any attempt to answer this question would be a guess. Here, the best answer is the truth “I do not remember exactly how much.”

The same is true of jail sentences, especially if the crime is so old that the court records no longer exist. For immigration purposes, there can be different consequences if a sentence in criminal court exceeds 90 days, six months or 12 months, depending on the type of application. So if the court records no longer exist but you remember whether a crime was more or less than these thresholds, the key is to let the officer know in a manner that is honest, composed, and believable.

Another tip:

Every applicant should express remorse for the crime or crimes committed, even when not prompted

You do not have to deliver a soapbox special – it is enough to state calmly why you regret the incident and what you learned about its impact on your life. This is especially true for applicants of U.S.citizenship, who must show present good moral character despite any past criminal incident.

Applications involving a criminal history should include letters of good moral character

Even if these were not submitted with the original application, they can be added at the time of interview. These letters demonstrate initiative and also reflect the fact that members of the applicant’s community consider this person someone worthy of taking the time to write a letter about and reflect positively on.

Overall, the easiest way to lose when discussing crimes with USCIS is to become defensive or combative. Cases, especially in court, can also be won or lost in whether an applicant shows remorse rather than attempts to blame everyone else for their problems. USCIS does not require applicants to be perfect at all times in their lives. But if they cannot be honest today about what they have learned from their mistakes, it becomes more difficult to win any case on discretion.

Next month, we will be kicking off a three-part series titled “What does it mean for me?” The topic for next month: DUI’s.

H-1B cap season 2019

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H1-B cap season is upon us again! That means employers and their skilled workers are seeking one of the coveted numbers in this year’s lottery. (For the basis of the H1-B program, please see our previous post on this topic.)

The current administration has proposed some changes that will affect how USCIS process H1-B petitions that are subject to the cap.

Employers and employees should note that these changes will not affect how H1-B petitions are filed this year. But, it is important to note that USCIS will change its lottery system.

Before, USCIS put all petitions in a lottery system; first, it selected the statutory 20,000 slots earmarked for individuals with a U.S. master’s degree or higher, then placed all petitions–including those with an advanced U.S. degree–in a regular pool.

This year, USCIS will include all advanced-degree petitions in the general lottery first, then conduct a second lottery to exempt 20,000 advanced-degree slots until the annual statutory limit is met.

The new regulation, inline with the current administration’s desire to bring more high-skilled foreign nationals to the U.S., will definitely favor those with a U.S. master’s degree or higher.

USCIS proposed another change this year, but will not apply to this year’s cap petitions: the employer registration system.

Next year, for FY 2021 petitions, employers will be required to register online in order to submit an H1-B petition.

USCIS states that “the electronic registration requirement will require petitioners seeking to file H-1B cap petitions, including those that may be eligible for the advanced degree exemption, to first electronically register with USCIS during a designated registration period. Only those whose registrations are selected will be eligible to file an H-1B cap-subject petition.”

Have questions? Contact our office today at (916) 613-3553 or email us at info@ranchodlaw.com.