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Hello folks, I've read a lot comments from you all in the past few days and I just thought I sign up and ask you guys who had been through it or are in one just like me for some tips and suggestions. Here's my story: - I am a US citizen - Married my wife in September 2012 - Filed I-130 petition in November 2012 - Wife got interviewed in March 2014 and was denied a visa based on INA 221 (g) for fraud and material representation grounds - Received NOIR on November 2014 with a lot discrepancies on their part - Lawyer sent in rebuttal documentations in December 2014 - 2/23/2105 Wife got a call from Embassy directly on her cellphone telling her to bring in all related documents for an interview on 5/11/2015. A surprise for us since there's no communication whatsoever from the USCIS to me (the petitioner) via postal mail or email & text notifications that I signed up for and when checking status on their site, nothing has changed since they sent us the NOIR. What do you guys think on this unusual immigration process?

Hi. This applies to petitioners and beneficiaries whose petitions have been returned to USCIS. It doesn't apply to those petitions still at the consulate. I don't recommend you handle your own revocation. I don't recommend you start slinging cites from these cases at experienced USCIS adjudicators. But these are important cases. I post them NOT as legal advice - but to educate petitioners on their rights. -- I haven't have a lot of time these days. Sorry I haven't posted lately. But as a public service though. I'm going to post some cases on revocation & quotes from those cases. Most NOIR letters will cite both Estime & Ho. Estime stands for the legal standard of "good and sufficient cause", which must be met before a petition's approval can be revoked. However, a lot of people don't know that the Estime case also mentions what fails to meet that legal standard. A. “Good and Sufficient Cause”, Matter of Estime. 19 I&N Dec. 450 (BIA 1987) I've added emphasis. i. “…with respect to a decision to revoke, we ask whether the evidence of record at the time the decision was issued (including any explanation, rebuttal, or evidence submitted by the petitioner pursuant to 8 C.F.R. §§ 103.2(B)(2) or 205.2(B) (1987)) warranted such a denial. Where a notice of intention to revoke is based on an unsupported statement or an unstated presumption, or where the petitioner is unaware and has not been advised of derogatory evidence, revocation of the visa petition cannot be sustained even if the petitioner did not respond to the notice of intention to revoke.” ii. “Pursuant to section 205 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1155 (1982), a notice of intention to revoke approval of a visa petition not properly issued unless there is "good and sufficient cause" and the notice includes a specific statement not only of the facts underlying the proposed action, but also of the supporting evidence.” (Estime) Matter of Arias is a fantastic case. It's the best case of all for Petitioners fighting revocation proceedings. B. Matter of ARIAS 19 I & N Dec. 568 (1) A decision to revoke approval of a visa petition can only be grounded upon, and the petitioner is only obliged to respond to, the factual allegations specified in the notice of intention to revoke. (2). “Specific, concrete facts are meaningful, not unsupported speculation and conjecture.” (3) Observations of the consular officer that are conclusory, speculative, equivocal, or irrelevant to the bona fides of the claimed relationship between the petitioner and the beneficiary do not provide "good and sufficient cause" for the issuance of a notice of intention to revoke approval of a visa petition and cannot serve as the basis for revocation,notwithstanding the petitioner's failure to timely respond to the notice of ntention to revoke Matter of Tawfik really in its facts, was applied to subsequent petitions for the same beneficiary filed within the US. But the legal standard here very much resembles Arias. A District Director (not a consulate) denied an I-130). But the language and holding of Tawfik are important. Tawfik stands for the proposition that reasonable inferences from the record do not constitute "good and sufficient cause" for petition revocation. C. Matter of Tawfik 20 I&N Dec. 166 (BIA 1990) (Reasonable inferences do not constitute “good and sufficient cause) “where the district director concluded that there was evidence in the record from which it could "reasonably be inferred" that a marriage had been entered into for the primary purpose of obtaining immigration benefits, the substantial and probative evidence, requisite to the revocation of a subsequently approved visa petition was not presented.” Matter of Ho is cited in all NOIR letters. It stands for the proposition that the burden of proof in revocation proceedings is NOT on the consulate or USCIS -- it is on petitioner. That means not only must you rebut or give reasonable explanations to the allegations in the consular memorandum (quoted in the NOIR), you must also prove your relationship all over again. D. Matter of HO, Vol. 19: Int. Dec. 2951-3100/#3051 (p. 582) (Ho) The petitioner bears the burden in visa petition revocation proceedings of establishing that the beneficiary qualifies for the benefit sought under the immigration laws.Matter of Cheung, 12 I&N Dec. 715 (BIA 1968), reaffirmed. ---- This next cite is in the FAM. Almost all NOIR letters arise out of #3. So the question is: (1) Is the evidence developed by the consular officer "factual"? Or did the officer get the facts wrong? (2). Is the evidence developed by the consular officer "extensive"? Or is it outweighed by evidence proving the relationship? (3). And even assuming the evidence is factual & extensive, is a sham marriage the most reasonable conclusion one can reach from that factual and extensive evidence developed by the consulate? That is generally the battlefield. E. USCIS Minimum Standards for Instituting Revocation Proceedings on an Approved Petition (1) A written statement from one or both of the parties to the marriage that the marriage was entered into primarily for immigration purposes; (2) Documentary evidence that money changed hands under circumstances such that a reasonable person would conclude the marriage was a paid arrangement for immigration purposes; or (3) Extensive factual evidence developed by the consular officer that would convince a reasonable person that the marriage was a sham marriage entered into to evade immigration laws. (Restated at 9 FAM 42.43 N 2.2) F. 8 C.F.R. §§ 103.2(B) et seq., (A Petitioner’s Right to Inspect the Record) There are two types of revocation: Automatic revocation and: G. 8 CFR 205.2 (Revocation on Notice). Notice of Intent to Revoke letters obviously follow the revocation on notice procedures.

Hi. Someone came to me today with an NOIR letter from CSC. It had sat 20 months. That is fast in my experience. Some observations, the Service Center adjudicator seemed to take the consular officer's observations at face value, even the silly ones. So maybe this case is an anomaly. Or maybe CSC is speeding up on CR-1/IR-1's. From what I can see, K-1's are still a black hole. If it is speeding up, it may be because some USCIS adjudicators may merely be accepting the consulate's conclusions as "legally sufficient" and sending out an NOIR letter, no matter how legally insufficient, or even downright silly, the consulate's conclusions may have been.