USCIS & Immigration I-290B Appeals
By
Dev B. Viswanath, Esq.
You can appeal to the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) if your petition was denied or revoked by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) or by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for very specific student-related issues. The Notice of Appeal or Motion, Form I-290B, is used to make an appeal. If you think that USCIS made a mistake when deciding your case, you can file an appeal. An appeal can be treated by USCIS as a motion to reopen or reconsider, and the agency can decide the case on its own.
If the order was mailed to you, you have 33 days to file an appeal, or 30 days if you were served with the order. You should submit additional evidence and, if possible, a summary of your arguments in addition to Form I-290B. An excellent document to include with the appeal is a brief. The facts, the law, and the evidence in your case should be summarized in the brief.
Appeals are decided by the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO). Two phases comprise the administrative appeals procedure: the initial field evaluation and the AAO appellate evaluation. The office that issued the initial denial or revocation conducts the initial field review; They have 45 days to consider the appeal and decide whether or not to grant it. The office will forward the appeal to the AAO and send you a Notice of Transfer to the AAO if it does not approve the appeal during the initial field review.
The AAO's goal for the appellate review is to be finished within 180 days of receiving a complete case record from the initial field review. If the applicant needs to submit additional documents or the case is more difficult and needs more time to be reviewed, it may take longer for some cases. According to this attorney, the AAO appeal adjudication wait times range from 1.5 to 2 years as of this writing; consequently, this factor should always be taken into account when deciding whether to appeal a matter or simply submit a new application.
Non-precedent decisions are typically published by the AAO. This indicates that they apply the facts of a particular case to existing policy and law. The parties to the case are required to comply with a non-precedent decision, but it does not alter agency policy or guidance. The next option for you may be to file an appeal if you believe that your petition was incorrectly judged.
