Paperwork & USCIS
The 10 most common US visa application mistakes that trigger RFEs
A Request for Evidence adds months to a case and, handled badly, can lead to denial. The good news is that most RFEs fall into a small number of predictable patterns. This guide collects the ten most common triggers across work and family petitions and explains the underlying problem behind each.
What you’ll learn
- Specialty-occupation and degree-equivalency RFEs on H-1B cases
- Insufficient evidence for O-1/NIW criteria, and how to pre-empt it
- Maintenance-of-status and status-gap problems
- Ability-to-pay issues on employer petitions
- Inconsistent names, dates, and biographical data across forms
- Missing or improperly formatted translations
- How to read an RFE and respond fully within the deadline
For every trigger it gives the fix: the document to include, the inconsistency to resolve, or the argument to strengthen before you file. It also explains how to read an RFE when you do receive one, how the response deadline works, and how to respond completely the first time so the case can move forward.
Educational content only, these guides are not legal advice.Read the full disclaimer →
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