JULY 2014
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Immigration

Medical Reports (I-693) Now Valid for Only 1 Year But Can be Submitted After Initial Filing

Dilip Patel

By DILIP PATEL

As of June 1, medical examination reports (I-693) submitted by applicants in support of a benefit application will be only valid for one year from the time of the civil surgeon’s signature and submission to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). In other words, the report must be submitted to USCIS within one year of the complete examination and the application must be adjudicated within one year after the date the report was submitted to USCIS. Medical exam reports are most commonly submitted in support of I-485 adjustment of status applications. Previously, since about 2002, USCIS had agreed to extend the validity of the civil surgeon’s I-693 endorsement until the time of adjudication, because of backlogs in certain preference categories. While the new policy means that some applicants must undergo another medical exam before their case is adjudicated, the good news is that medical examination forms will no longer be required as initial evidence and may be submitted at any time after filing the immigration benefit application but prior to adjudication. If the medical examination form is not filed concurrently, USCIS encourages applicants to wait until the medical examination form is requested by USCIS, either through the issuance of a Request for Evidence (RFE) or through a notice to bring a completed medical examination form to the interview. This policy change was made in response to concerns raised by the Centers for Disease Control.

In the meantime, and in anticipation of this policy change, USCIS has been sending RFEs to applicants notifying them that their medical reports filed in support of their adjustment applications are about to exceed the validity period. Moving forward, RFEs for new medical examinations will only be issued shortly before it is anticipated that the case can be adjudicated to completion.

DHS Proposes Rules Affecting Some Highly Skilled Workers and Spouses

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued two proposed rules that affect the highly skilled. Both rules provide benefits, but in the grand scheme of immigration reform, the benefits are very limited and affect a limited class of foreign nationals.

The first DHS proposal would extend the availability of work authorization to H-4 dependent spouses of principal H-1B nonimmigrants. The extension would be limited, however, to H-4 dependent spouses of principal H-1B nonimmigrants who are in the process of seeking lawful permanent resident status through employment and who already have passed some of the hurdles. This includes those H-1Bs who are either the beneficiaries of an approved I-140 immigrant visa petition or whose stay in the U.S. has been extended under the American Competitiveness in the 21st Century Act (AC21), which allows H-1B workers seeking lawful permanent residence to stay and work in the U.S. beyond the normal six-year limit. Some 97,000 spouses are expected to become eligible for work authorization in the first year after the rule is finalized, with about 30,000 eligible annually. This still leaves, however, many H-1B visa holders’ spouses unable to work.

The second proposed rule would update existing regulations to include professional specialty workers from Chile and Singapore (H-1B1) and from Australia (E-3) in the list of classes of foreign national visa holders authorized for employment incident to status with a specific employer — in other words, not required to apply separately to DHS for work authorization — and permitting H-1B1 and E-3 workers up to 240 days of continued work authorization while they await approval of their status extension requests. The proposal also includes Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands–only transitional workers (CW-1). These rules currently apply to H-1B nonimmigrants. The rule would also permit foreign nationals applying for EB-1 visas to prove their academic achievements through evidence that does not appear in the current list of acceptable evidence. Instead, evidence that is “comparable” to the types of evidence listed in the regulations would be acceptable.

According to DHS, it is proposing these changes to benefit these highly skilled workers and CW-1 transitional workers by removing unnecessary hurdles that place such workers at a disadvantage when compared to similarly situated workers in other visa classifications.

The comment period ends in July, after which DHS must issue final rules before the proposals go into effect.

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