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US Visa Thailand: What is an RFE?

Transcript of the above video:

Briefly I am going to discuss something called the RFE, also known as the Request for Evidence. This is a request for further documentation generally issued by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security.

In any sort of immigration case where a petition is initially filed with USCIS and USCIS approval is necessary before proceeding in the case, USCIS has to make an adjudication and during the course of their adjudication they may or may not decide that further evidence is lacking in the petition and in order to make a fully informed decision, will issue what's called a request for evidence, an RFE.  The RFE may be for something as small as maybe one document or further documentation; in the case of family visas, further documentation showing an underlying relationship, in business or investment visas it may be further documentation related to, you know the investment in the United States or the trail of funds for the investment in the United States. It could be any manner of things. In my experience in the practice of immigration law, the matter of the RFE is oftentimes a source of sort of panic or apprehension on the part of the clients, while perhaps an attorney as well as somebody working at USCIS will view it as something that is not all together common but it's not something that even I myself would consider particularly out of the ordinary course of possibility within a given case. So what is it? It's usually just a request for further documentation. The RFE itself will stipulate what kind of documentation that the officer is looking for in the case and upon said documentation being remitted to USCIS, presumably the case will be approved and moved on to National Visa Center or moved on to whatever agency it needs to move on to. It should be noted that we here do strive to create out immigration petitions with a great deal of care in the hope that we can avoid an RFE but you know, accidents may happen documents may get lost even within USCIS or maybe perhaps one officer just feels for the due diligence is necessary in order to make a final decision in a case. So again, while RFEs are not unheard of, we do try to forestall one being issued. That being said, if it is issued don't panic, see what's in the RFE, what their request is.  As soon as that request is fulfilled presumably an approval will come shortly thereafter. A couple of things to note. An RFE is well somewhat practically similar to what's called a 221-g which is issued buy a consular officer under the auspices of the Department of State, probably at a US Embassy, Specifically here in Thailand, the US Embassy here in Bangkok. A 221-g is not issued by Homeland Security so it is different from the RFE administratively but as far as a practical matter they often times ask for something, they operate similarly to an RFE insofar as it’s oftentimes just a request for further documentation or clarification. In either case, again we strive to go ahead and forestall either one of those eventualities from happening. That being said, I would strongly urge anyone who is interested in 221-g matters which can be markedly different than RFE matters. If you are interested in information about the 221-g please go to our web page on this site which deals with 221gs where there is also a video which specifically discusses the 221-g.