The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) has issued a practice alert based on guidance from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) advising family-based adjustment of status (Green Card) applicants to include Form I-693 (medical exam) results at the time of initial filing for adjustment of status.

 

Over the past few years, many Green Card applicants have chosen not to have their medical exam done at or immediately preceding the time of filing, since USCIS processing is taking so long that they feared their medical exam results might not be valid by the time USCIS processes their case. Form I-693 is only valid for 2 years from the date of the civil surgeon's signature attesting to an individual’s medical history and eligibility for permanent residence; if the Green Card application is not completed within the completed I-693’s 2-year validity, applicants are required to submit a new Form I-693. This takes additional time and also costs an additional fee for the applicant (or applicants, if there are multiple related family members). For this reason, many applicants have been waiting to receive a request for the medical exam results from USCIS, indicating that USCIS is actively in the process of adjudicating their case, before completing this step.

 

However, AILA was recently informed by USCIS that it is expanding potential interview waivers in family-based adjustment of status applications, and that approval might come quicker and/or without an interview for applicants whose I-693 results are already on file when their application for adjustment of status is being adjudicated.

 

For more information on this topic, please contact Elizabeth Klarin; (eklarin@lippes.com, 716.853.5100, ext. 1288) or a member of the Lippes Mathias Immigration practice team.