What happens if I didn't file my AR-11 on time?
Hi, I'm Jim Hacking, immigration lawyer, practicing law throughout the United States at our office here in St. Louis, Missouri. The AR-11 is a form that you file at USCIS to notify the agency of an address change by you or a family member. And the AR-11 is required to be filed within 10 days of a move.
Now, a lot of people sometimes forget to file the AR-11 or they think they're clever and they want to leave their old home address as their official USCIS address. And I wanted to shoot this video to talk to you about why that's probably a bad idea and why you want to file your AR-11 update form right away.
I also want to explain what happens if you forget and don't do it on time. So it's very important as a non-citizen.
So this rule applies for anybody who's a lawful permanent resident, an H-1B visa holder, an F1 student. If you are moving around the United States, you need to notify the federal government where your address is. This may seem intrusive. This may seem like a pain, but it's the law.
So you have to notify them within 10 days of moving that you have indeed moved. And if you've moved, you can just go online. If you do a search for AR, the letter A, the letter R, dash 11, USCIS, if you type that in, it'll take you to the online form. You can fill that out and notify them.
Now, you want to make sure that you keep proof that your AR 11 has been filed electronically. So if you get a confirmation email, print it out, get a screenshot. you want to make sure that you can prove it because there may come a time where you get some kind of notice, and there's an issue as to whether or not USCIS sent it to the right address.
So you're going to want to have proof that you updated your address. Now, if months or weeks or years have gone by and you moved and you didn't fill out your AR-11 and notify them that you moved, just go ahead and do it right away, as soon as you realize it.
So you're always going to want to have them using your most current address so that your green card goes to the right address or your interview notice goes to the right address or whatever other mail you might be expecting from USCIS gets to you.
And so it is better to file it within the first 10 days, but if you haven't, it's better to do it right away. So you're going to want to protect yourself, and that's what the AR-11 really is about.
And keeping that proof that you filed it is about defending you against the claim later on that you received a notice and then didn't follow up. So we've seen plenty of cases where people get their cases denied because they request for evidence was sent out. They had not updated their address with USCIS where they had, and there then becomes a dispute with the agency as to whether or not you properly notified them of the address changed.
And then when you pull out the proof, the electronic confirmation, then you're usually going to be in a whole lot better shape than if you don't have that proof.
So the long and the shorter of it is file the AR-11 as soon as you move.
And I don't want you using some uncle's address. Always use the address where you sleep at night and make sure that you do it within 10 days. If you haven't done that within 10 days, then just go ahead and withdraw.
Go ahead and update it as soon as you can. I hope you found this video helpful. If you did, give us a call 314-961-8200.
You can email us at [email protected]. Be sure to join us in our Facebook group, which is called Immigrant Home. And if you like this video, we ask that you subscribe to our YouTube channel and that you share it out on social. Thanks a lot. Have a great day.
