Clients often ask if there are any options when it comes to visa denial, an approval notice that has never been received, or a missing advance parole document.

In these situations, one of the options is to seek congressional help from the offices of either your congressional representative or your Senators. Filing an inquiry is free, but please choose your congressperson carefully, as you cannot have multiple inquiries with different congressional representatives regarding the same case at the same time. Please keep in mind that the person seeking assistance is usually a religious organization representative (employer) in the United States, typically a Bishop or a Superior. However, religious workers already here in the United States may also seek congressional help.

Typically, a Senator’s office will have a person dedicated to immigration issues. You can find the information on how to contact them on the congressional website and usually there is an inquiry form that you will be asked to fill out to give information about your case. Then the congressional representative’s office will let you know what they will be doing about it and how soon you can expect to hear from them.

Sometimes, you get a response from the congressperson’s office explaining that they tried to contact the U.S. Embassy or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to help you out but were unsuccessful. Other times, a visa applicant may get a call from a U.S. Embassy asking them to come in for another interview and the visa is typically approved. It all depends on who your congressional member is and how much they want to invest in this inquiry. So please do your research and choose the best member of congress that represents you. Also, other religious organizations in your area might have tried to do this before and may be a good source of information for you.

We have had situations in the past when a foreign religious worker had bought their return ticket to their home country because their R-1 time was up and the I-360 had been pending for a long time. Their congressman called the USCIS California Service Center on their behalf and the I-360 was approved the day after the call and a copy of the approval was emailed to the congressman. The religious worker was then able to file the I-485 application, cancel her plane ticket, stay in the United States, and is now a permanent resident.

Another time, there was a case filed with the USCIS Premium Processing Unit for a religious worker who spent one year abroad. However, USCIS did not count that year abroad for the purposes of the new 5 year period available to religious workers with an R-1 after spending a year abroad. As a result, the I-129 approval notice was issued with wrong validity dates (shortening her stay to only use what was left of her 5 years from her previous R-1 time) and the original approval notice was never received by the religious organization. Multiple inquiries with the USCIS Premium Processing Unit did not bring positive results. The congressman was not only able to have the approval notice issued and sent to the petitioner, but also resolved the issue with the validity dates. There have also been successful inquiries recently about long pending advance parole applications.

While the results may vary, it is worth discussing this option with your RIS attorney and seeing if it can be helpful in your situation.