In response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that it is adopting a measure to assist applicants and petitioners who are responding to requests for evidence (RFEs) and notices of intent to deny (NOIDs) dated between March 1 and May 1, 2020.   

For applicants and petitioners who receive an RFE or NOID dated between March 1 and May 1, 2020, any responses submitted within 60 calendar days after the response deadline set forth in the RFE or NOID will be considered by USCIS before any action is taken. 

USCIS is adopting several measures to protect our workforce and community, and to minimize the immigration consequences for those seeking immigration benefits during this time. 

USCIS will provide further updates as the situation develops and will continue to follow CDC guidance. Education and precautions are the strongest tools against COVID-19 infection. Please visit uscis.gov/coronavirus for latest facts and other USCIS updates

On March 18, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services temporarily suspended in-person services at its field offices, asylum offices, and Application Support Centers (ASCs) to help slow the spread of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). USCIS offices will reopen on April 7 unless the public closures are extended further. Employees in these offices are continuing to perform mission-essential services that do not require face-to-face contact with the public.

USCIS will continue to provide limited emergency services. Please call the Contact Center for assistance with emergency services.

USCIS field offices will send notices to applicants and petitioners with scheduled appointments and naturalization ceremonies impacted by the extended closure. USCIS asylum offices will send interview cancellation notices and automatically reschedule asylum interviews. When the interview is rescheduled, asylum applicants will receive a new interview notice with the new time, date and location of the interview. When USCIS again resumes normal operations, USCIS will automatically reschedule ASC appointments due to the office closure. You will receive a new appointment letter in the mail. Individuals who had InfoPass or other appointments must reschedule through the USCIS Contact Center once field offices are open to the public again. Please check to see if your field office has been reopened before reaching out to the USCIS Contact Center.   

Education and precautions are the strongest tools against infection. Get the latest facts by visiting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 website. Continue to practice good health habits, refrain from handshakes or hugs as greetings, and wash hands and clean surfaces appropriately.

USCIS will provide further updates as the situation develops and will continue to follow CDC guidance. Please also visit uscis.gov/coronavirus for updates.

We are OPEN and here for you, even while Ohio is under orders to stay at home.

Our office is positioned to help clients from around the US and around the world, and you do not need to come to our office in person for us to walk you through your immigration journey. 

Our team is all working remotely at this time and practicing safe social distancing. Though there are a few changes for our local clients, our operations have always allowed for us to represent clients without ever coming to our office in person.

In fact, new USCIS policies just issued now even allow for us to file cases without any original documents from you at all. All you will need is access to your email and phone, and we will take care of the rest.

Stay safe. Stay home if you can. Be kind. 

The Pogue Immigration Law Team

Ohio's new Shelter in Place Order will run longer than the current USCIS closure to the public. 

While some scheduled appointments will automatically will be scheduled, some will not. You reschedule any USCIS in person appointment that is not approved and scheduled for an Emergency by the USCIS Customer Service that is scheduled for after April 1, 2020. 

At it's basic concept, Ohioans should all stay at home. Nonessential workers should work from home.

It does permit exceptions to staying home. Commonsense exceptions are leaving for health and safety, for necessary supplies and services, and for outdoor activity (walking your dog, going to a park), although DeWine said that playgrounds will be closed.

You can leave home to take care of others. You can take care of your neighbor, your family and your friends.

The second part of the Stay Home Ohio order talks about essential workers and businesses. The state used the Homeland Security guidelines. These are the accepted businesses that are essential for us to continue to live, such as grocery stores, gas stations, hospitals, etc.

Here is a full list of what is deemed an essential business. Each business that stays open must follow good protocol in regard to health.

In addition, only essential travel is permitted across the state. People riding public transit must comply with social distancing requirements "to the greatest extent feasible," the order states. The order allows travel into or out of the state to maintain essential business or for operations and minimum basic operations.

Leaving the home is permitted, and no one is required to stay cooped up in their homes, the order states. Walking outside is allowed, but maintaining safe social distancing requirements is required.

So what will remain open? The obvious will remain open, like first responders services, health care workers, transportation and essential infrastructure.

According to CDC guidelines, the following businesses are considered essential

• Retail fuel centers, such as gas stations and truck stops, and the distribution systems that support them
• Retailers that sell groceries and medicine
• Restaurant carry-out and quick-serve food operations
• Food manufacturer employees and their supplier employees
• Employees and firms supporting food, feed and beverage distribution, including warehouse workers, vendor-managed inventory controllers and blockchain managers
• Farm workers and support service workers to include those who field crops; commodity inspection; fuel ethanol facilities; storage facilities and other agricultural inputs
• Employees supporting or enabling transportation functions, including dispatchers, maintenance and repair technicians, warehouse workers, truck stop and rest area workers and workers who maintain and inspect infrastructure
• Petroleum drilling, extraction, production, processing, refining, terminal operations, transporting and retail for use as end-use fuels or feedstocks for chemical manufacturing
• Truck drivers who haul hazardous and waste materials to support critical infrastructure, capabilities, functions and services
• Workers who are needed to provide consumer access to banking and lending services, including ATMs, and to move currency and payments (e.g., armored cash carriers)

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services today announced that, due to the ongoing COVID-19 National Emergency announced by President Trump on March 13, 2020, we will accept all benefit forms and documents with reproduced original signatures, including the Form I-129, Petition for Nonimmigrant Worker, for submissions dated March 21, 2020, and beyond.  

USCIS already accepts various petitions, applications and other documents bearing an electronically reproduced original signature. This means that a document may be scanned, faxed, photocopied, or similarly reproduced provided that the copy must be of an original document containing an original handwritten signature, unless otherwise specified.[1] For forms that require an original “wet” signature, per form instructions, USCIS will accept electronically reproduced original signatures for the duration of the National Emergency. This temporary change only applies to signatures. All other form instructions should be followed when completing a form.

Individuals or entities that submit documents bearing an electronically reproduced original signature must also retain copies of the original documents containing the “wet” signature.  USCIS may, at any time, request the original documents, which if not produced, could negatively impact the adjudication of the immigration benefit.

The United States and Mexico have reached an agreement for a partial closure of the border, according to Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard.

President Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed the deal at a White House briefing Friday afternoon.

“We are not talking about a closure of the border with the U.S. because it is not that,” Ebrard said early Friday. “It will be restricted; it will be restricted for cases that are related to tourism and recreation.”

Ebrard added that Mexico would continue accepting asylum seekers sent back under the Migrant Protection Protocols, along with Mexican deportees. But it would not allow the United States to return all migrants who cross the border illegally to Mexican territory, as the Trump Administration proposed earlier this week. He insisted the measures would not restrict any economic activity and would “reduce the risk of the virus’s spread.”

Ebrard suggested that the agreement was in Mexico’s best interest, given that the country has fewer cases than the United States.

“For example in El Paso there are more cases than in Ciudad Juárez, so we must be careful; we must have better coordination on health issues,” Ebrard said.

It remains unclear how the two countries will determine which travelers to stop at the border. Roughly one million people cross legally between the countries every day. Ebrard said more details would be provided on Friday afternoon.

Suspension of Routine Visa Services

• In response to worldwide challenges related to the outbreak of COVID-19, the Department of State is suspending routine visa services in most countries worldwide.  Embassies and consulates in these countries will cancel all routine immigrant and nonimmigrant visa appointments as of March 18, 2020.  Check the website of the embassy or consulate for its current operating status.  As resources allow, embassies and consulates will continue to provide urgent and emergency visa services.
   
• These Embassies will resume routine visa services as soon as possible but are unable to provide a specific date at this time.  Although all routine immigrant and nonimmigrant visa appointments are cancelled, the MRV fee is valid and may be used for a visa appointment in the country where it was paid within one year of the date of payment.
   
• This does not affect the visa waiver program. 
   
• Services to U.S. citizens continue to be available. More information is available on the Embassy’s website.
   
• Applicants with an urgent matter and need to travel immediately should follow the guidance provided at the Embassy’s website to request an emergency appointment.

ICE says it will make only ‘mission critical’ arrests until the crisis passes.

To ensure the welfare and safety of the general public as well as officers and agents in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic response, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will temporarily adjust its enforcement posture beginning today, March 18, 2020. ICE's highest priorities are to promote life-saving and public safety activities.

ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) will focus enforcement on public safety risks and individuals subject to mandatory detention based on criminal grounds. For those individuals who do not fall into those categories, ERO will exercise discretion to delay enforcement actions until after the crisis or utilize alternatives to detention, as appropriate.

Homeland Security Investigations will continue to carry out mission critical criminal investigations and enforcement operations as determined necessary to maintain public safety and national security. Examples include investigations into child exploitation, gangs, narcotics trafficking, human trafficking, human smuggling, and continued participation on the Joint Terrorism Task Force. This work will be conducted based on ability to coordinate and work with prosecutors from the Department of Justice and intake at both the U.S. Marshals Service and Bureau of Prisons.

Consistent with its sensitive locations policy, during the COVID-19 crisis, ICE will not carry out enforcement operations at or near health care facilities, such as hospitals, doctors' offices, accredited health clinics, and emergent or urgent care facilities, except in the most extraordinary of circumstances. Individuals should not avoid seeking medical care because they fear civil immigration enforcement.

ICE does not conduct enforcement operations at medical facilities, except under extraordinary circumstances. Claims to the contrary are false and create unnecessary fear within communities. Individuals should continue to seek medical care.

The United States and Canada have mutually agreed to close their border to non-essential traffic to stem the flow of the virus, President Trump said Tuesday.

Effective March 18, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is suspending in-person services at its field offices, asylum offices and Application Support Centers (ASCs) to help slow the spread of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). This suspension of services will be effective until at least April 1. In the meantime, USCIS will provide limited emergency services. Please call the Contact Center for assistance with emergency services.

USCIS field offices will send notices to applicants and petitioners with scheduled appointments and naturalization ceremonies impacted by this closure. USCIS asylum offices will send interview cancellation notices and automatically reschedule asylum interviews. When the interview is rescheduled, asylum applicants will receive a new interview notice with the new time, date and location of the interview. When USCIS again resumes normal operations, USCIS will automatically reschedule ASC appointments due to the office closure. You will receive a new appointment letter in the mail. Individuals who had InfoPass or other appointments must reschedule through the USCIS Contact Center once field offices are open to the public again. Please check to see if your field office has been reopened before reaching out to the USCIS Contact Center.   

Education and precautions are the strongest tools against infection. Get the latest facts by visiting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 website. Continue to practice good health habits, refrain from handshakes or hugs as greetings, and wash hands and clean surfaces appropriately.

USCIS will provide further updates as the situation develops and will continue to follow CDC guidance. Please also visit uscis.gov/coronavirus for updates.

Use the following link to access all current USCIS closings for immigration interviews and biometrics appointments.

https://www.uscis.gov/about-us/uscis-office-closings

U.S. Mission India posts, in light of the global COVID-19 pandemic, are cancelling immigrant and nonimmigrant visa appointments from March 16, 2020, onward.

Once Mission India resumes regular consular operations, appointments will be made available and you will be able to reschedule. Please see www.ustraveldocs.com/in  and in.usembassy.gov/covid-19-information/ for further information.

According to the latest update from USCIS:

If you become ill for any reason, regardless of whether you were exposed to COVID-19, please do not come to appointments with any USCIS office. Please follow the instructions on your appointment notice to reschedule your appointment or interview if you:

• Have traveled internationally to any country outside the U.S. within 14 days of your appointment;
• Believe that you may have been exposed to COVID-19 (even if you have not travelled internationally); or
• Are experiencing flu-like symptoms (such as a runny nose, headache, cough, sore throat or fever).

Visit CoronaVirus.gov for a complete list of CDC travel health notices. 

We will help you reschedule your appointment without penalty when you are healthy. See this page for more information: If You Feel Sick, Please Consider Canceling and Rescheduling Your USCIS Appointment.

Learn about the USCIS Response to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and more about the Department of Homeland Security’s response.