USCIS Issues Revised Interview Waiver Criteria for I-485 Applications for Adjustment of Status
USCIS has discretion to interview any Adjustment of Status applicant, but in most cases interviews are waived. Currently interviews are waived if:
The principal applicant is employed by the same petitioner who submitted the approved underlying employment-based (I-140) petition
The principal applicant has been approved as an alien of extraordinary ability or alien of exceptional ability and is otherwise eligible for adjustment of status
The principal applicant has been approved as an outstanding professor or researcher, or a multinational executive/ manager and has a continuing offer of employment from the same petitioner who submitted the underlying approved petition
Adjustment applicants who received national interest waivers based on performing primary medical care to a medically under-served area who demonstrate that they intend to continue according to the terms and conditions of the underlying petition.
USICS issued a memo on January 5, 2005 revising the situations in which cases should be sent to local offices for interviews. Prior to the memo, cases would be automatically transferred if there was a need for validation of identity or legal status; if it was questionable whether the alien was admissible or there was apparent fraud; if there were multiple adjustment of status applications filed, or an A-file could not be located at the time of adjudication. However, the memo advises Service Centers not to send applications to local offices for interviews where there is a need to validate legal status, unless a determination of legal status cannot be obtained through file review and/or by requesting additional evidence from the applicant. In addition, cases should no longer be transferred to local offices for interviews where there have been multiple filings, until USCIS issues an RFE seeking evidence to clear up any issues surrounding the multiple filings. This will give Adjustment of Status applicants a chance to respond to an RFE rather than going for a USCIS interview in many cases. Also, where an A file is lost, officers are now advised to create a temporary file rather than transferring the case to the local office for interview. And finally, the memo advises that not all “hits” in USCIS’s IDENTS database should be referred to local office for review, as many of the hits in the database are for immigration violations that have already been resolved. Instead, officers will only send cases with “questionable” IDENT hits for interviews. In sum, the memo should cut down on the number of applicants called in for Adjustment of Status interviews.
