In a letter to stakeholders released today, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Alejandro Mayorkas announced that the USCIS would return to the practice of sending approval notices to attorney representatives, instead of the petitioner or beneficiary directly. Director Mayorkas stated:
- A year ago, USCIS initiated an internal system change that altered
where we send receipt notices (I-797). Last month, when the change
went into effect, we heard from stakeholders that this change had an
unintended negative external impact. We scheduled a stakeholder meeting,
gained an understanding of the impact, and have decided to return to our
previous practice of sending the original notice to the attorney or
accredited representative's address listed on the Form G-28. A copy
will be sent to the address provided by the applicant or petitioner
in the applicable form. This change will take effect in approximately
six weeks due to the need to re-program our system. We appreciate the
feedback you provided.
The Director's announcement is applauded by the business immigration community. The practice of sending approvals directly to the petitioner or beneficiary in the few weeks that the policy was in effect caused a great deal of confusion, and resulted in numerous lost notices, and additional workload on employees. The announcement is also an encouraging sign of the USCIS' increasing willingness to engage with stakeholders in developing effective policies that balances the interests of the Service with those of employers.
We will provide further information as soon as it becomes available.
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