Does a fast biometrics appointment mean a strong case? Hi, I'm Jim Hacking, immigration lawyer practicing law throughout the United States, at our offices in St. Louis, San Diego, and Washington DC. In this week's latest Immigration Answers Show, we had a man come on the show and ask me, "Hey Jim, I got my biometrics notice very, very quickly. Does this mean that my case is a strong one?" And he was very excited about the fact that he'd received his biometrics notice so quickly. And we get a lot of notices from people where the biometrics takes forever and they're wondering if their case has been marked as being weak or not strong, and that is why their biometrics takes so long. And we do not believe that there's a connection between how fast your biometrics notice comes and how strong your case is. We don't see any evidence of that.
And I think that in reality, what's really going on is that USCIS is getting back up to speed after four years of Trump, and getting biometrics notices out the door. Back in, say, 2008, 2012, we would get our biometrics notices a week or two, or even with the receipt notice. And under the Trump administration, they were always attacking legal immigration, and one of the best ways to do that was to not send out the biometrics notice. And the reason that was good is because then if you're doing your biometrics notice, then you can't get your background check completed, and then you won't get your interview. And that of course was by design. So now, we're seeing that USCIS is finally getting some momentum, finally getting those biometrics notices sent out more quickly, and this means that people are getting their cases moving along much faster. And that obviously, from our perspective and the perspective of our clients, is a good thing.
So I don't think this young man or anyone else can read too much into the fact that because my biometrics notice came quickly, that means I have a really strong case that they like, that they're not worried about. Now, the question is, is the converse true? Is it also true that if it takes a long time for me to get my biometrics notice, that it doesn't necessarily mean that my case is bad? Yes, that's also true. You should not put any kind of weight into the interplay between when you get your biometrics notice and when or how strong your case is. So don't make that connection. But the one little caveat to that, the one little exception I'll make is that in certain circumstances, the fact that you don't get your biometrics notice could be a sign that something's wrong. So we've been seeing situations where people get an initial request for evidence, and that slows down everything. That might be a reason why you don't get your biometrics notice.
It might be also that your case was mislabeled and that your address was inputted wrong, or that you put the wrong address on your forms, whatever. In this scenario, we have seen situations where people, there is a little bit of a relationship between the lack of a biometrics notice and a problem with the case. Usually that's a much bigger problem. So in most instances, I'd say 90, 95%, of the connection between biometrics and approvability of a case is very, very low. So hope that makes sense, I hope that puts your mind at ease. And for those of you who filed in 2020 and are still waiting for your biometrics notice, on behalf of the US government, I apologize, it's absolutely ridiculous.
If you have questions about this, give us a call 314-961-8200. Email us [email protected]. Be sure to join us in our Facebook group, which is called Immigrant Home. If you like this video, we asked you to please share it out on social. And don't forget, we're always doing our Immigration Answers Show live, usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays around noon Central. So if you have any questions that I haven't covered in a previous video, we can answer it for you there. Thanks a lot, have a great day.
