It comes as no surprise that the issuance of USCIS receipt notices from multiple service centers is delayed significantly. Worse still, USCIS has been agonizingly slow to complete the filing fee withdrawal, which was once a sure indicator that your petition was timely filed. This is an alternative we use when USCIS regularly fails to send receipt notices. USCIS recently acknowledged and explained the delay for one service center¹, but any immigration office will tell you that the delays are widespread and have been to varying degrees since the Covid-19 pandemic began.

We are left scratching our heads. We can’t follow up with USCIS on the status of the receipt notice without the receipt number, and we can’t check our bank accounts for an image of the receipt number stamped on the voided check. We can only bide our time.

ILBSG can’t do anything to help USCIS’ long wait times, but we do have advice on how to best handle the lag and protect yourself and your employees in the interim.

The best thing you can do is monitor your bank account until you see the withdrawal (or you get the receipt notice) to ensure that there are available funds. If USCIS tries to deposit the check with insufficient funds, the case will be rejected and returned. Given that substantial time will have passed already, this could create an immigration disaster.

Although it is unlikely, it is also possible for the check to expire by the time USCIS goes to deposit the fee. As checks typically have a validity period of six months from the time it was signed and dated – sometimes 3 months – it may be prudent to issue the check as close to the actual filing date as possible. If the check was written in April, but the case was not filed until July, the check could expire by the time USCIS tries to deposit it in September, for example.

Avoid the hassle and pay the fees online² with the invoice ILBSG will send to you when we draft your forms for signature. These can be printed, signed, scanned, and returned to ILBSG electronically, so you won’t need to mail a thing to our offices. You can relax knowing that our accounting department will generate the check in the appropriate amount and attorneys will sign it once the case is ready to go out.

If you have questions about your immigration-related issue, contact us. We are with you through it all.