USCIS Reinstates Deference to Prior Nonimmigrant Petition Adjudications

Scrapping an early Trump administration policy, USCIS has announced that it will return to giving deference to prior approvals on nonimmigrant extension petitions. The Trump administration did away with this policy in 2017, which caused a large uptick in Requests for Evidence and even denials on extension petitions for individuals who have been employed in the US for years, with no material changes in their employment. This policy will likely reduce the amount of RFEs issued and reduce the processing time of nonimmigrant petition extensions.