The immigration lawyer Willy Allen warned this Friday, in a program by CiberCuba hosted by Tania Costa, about a policy change from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), published on August 5, 2026, which eliminates the requirement to provide advance notice before denying an immigration application, thereby removing the so-called "second chances" for those who submit incomplete applications.
The new directive, identified as Policy Alert PA-2026-05, allows USCIS officials to deny a petition outright if they believe the initial documentation is insufficient, without the need to first issue a Request for Evidence (RFE) or a Notice of Intent to Deny (NOID). This measure applies to both pending cases and petitions submitted from its effective date onward.
Allen explained that, under the previous system, when a file arrived incomplete, USCIS would send an RFE (Request for Evidence) that allowed the applicant time to gather and submit additional documentation. "What happened in the past? They would send you a letter that was an RFE, meaning a request for more evidence. You would look for it, you would send it, and cases usually got resolved in a favorable way," the lawyer described.
If the response to the RFE was deemed insufficient, there was a second mechanism: the intent to deny letter. "They weren't denying you outright. They were intending to deny you. But it was meant to give you a chance to submit more comprehensive, stronger information, more evidence of relationships (in the case of marriages)," Allen clarified. Both mechanisms will no longer be a mandatory step under the new policy.
"The request for evidence and the intention to deny will be eliminated. If you don't submit it, they will deny it," warned the lawyer, summarizing the impact of the change.
To illustrate the practical consequences, Allen provided the example of a family petition: although having a child together might seem like sufficient evidence of a genuine marriage, USCIS will require from the very beginning tax returns, birth certificates, vaccination records, school certificates, photographs, health insurance letters, and bank statements. If that documentation is not included from the outset, the case may be denied without further proceedings.
The lawyer also recommended obtaining official confirmation directly from the IRS—the U.S. tax agency—that the taxes were received and processed, rather than simply sending a copy of the tax return. "Because now I know that USCIS officials are going to question everything," he emphasized.
This hardening is not isolated. Allen had been warning since October 2025 about a BIA decision that allowed judges to dismiss incomplete asylum applications. In July 2026, USCIS had already toughened the status adjustment interviews, requiring more documentation and more detailed questions about immigration history. That same month, a rule regarding signatures and errors in documents went into effect, which also allows for direct rejections.
Allen also described a climate of increasing aggression among immigration officers and judges. To illustrate this, he recounted the case of a colleague who attended an interview in Tampa where the officer accused the client of presenting a false parole; when it was verified with a supervisor that it was authentic, the officer never offered an apology and maintained a hostile attitude for the rest of the interview.
Allen himself recounted that on Thursday, an immigration judge dismissed his clients' evidence as false without having examined the originals. "How can you say it's false if you haven't seen it? You're looking at the copies. We have the originals," the lawyer replied. Although the judge denied the case, she could not base her decision on frivolity or false documents.
The new USCIS policy affects family petitions, status adjustments, affirmative asylums, and citizenship applications, and represents, according to Allen, a structural change that requires submitting complete and robust files from the very beginning, leaving no room for later corrections.
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