Are green card interviews being waived? Hi, I'm Jim Hacking, immigration lawyer practicing law throughout the United States at our office here in St. Louis, Missouri. When someone wants to obtain lawful permanent residence in the United States, and when that person is trying to get that green card, that's what they call a card that you receive when you become a lawful permanent resident, there are interviews in the vast majority of cases. Now there have been rumors going around and on YouTube that USCIS is going to start waving these interviews. Now that might be in response to the coronavirus, it might be in response to the furloughs, but in our office's experience, we have not had a single case get waived for an interview. The interviews are still being required, both on the employment side and more importantly, on the family based side. So maybe other lawyers are having different experiences, but right now we have about 150 pending marriage-based cases in our office and none of them have been de-scheduled for an interview or not scheduled for an interview at all.
So I would push back on people who are spreading this issue. I'd like to see actual notices of cases that were approved without an interview. I don't think it's happening, I think they might've said it as a publicity stunt to try to make themselves look like they are being more reasonable. But in fact, interviews for green cards have really gone up in the Trump administration, not gone down. What do I mean by that? Well, they've always had interviews for spouse-based cases, but under President Obama and President Bush, there were not interviews for most green cards based on employment, and for many, they were based on asylum. So we've actually seen an uptick in interviews, so now maybe they are going to stop doing interviews in those cases that they now require. But I'm almost guaranteeing you that on marriage-based cases, you're going to have to have an interview. They want to get a chance to see the foreign national, they want to see the couple interacts. So I wouldn't get your hopes up if you've been crossing your fingers hoping there's not going to be an interview.
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