What should I do if I get a notice of intent to revoke? Hi, I'm Jim Hacking, immigration lawyer practicing law throughout the United States at our office here in Saint Louis, Missouri. Today's question comes from Sourav, and Sourav wants to know, "Jim, what should I do if I get a notice of intent to revoke?" Now, everybody might not know what a notice of intent to revoke is. So, typically in overseas cases, and sometimes in cases for adjustment of status, these are both marriage-based cases, that you might get a notice of intent to revoke. So what that means is that you have filed an I130 petition for an alien relative, probably a husband or a wife, that USCIS has approved that I130 petition for an alien relative, and now at some point at some later date, they are thinking about revoking the I130 and revoking. Revocation means to undo, to take it away, to cancel it. So you had an I130 approval in one hand, but now they're trying to take it away with the other hand. Typically this happens after the visa interview. So, you don't see notices of intent to revoke that often in cases involving adjustment of status. Usually that's because the I130 and the I485 are adjudicated together, they're decided together when the person is adjusting status.
Now, we have had some notices of intent to revoke on I130s that were approved here, and that's where USCIS sat on granting the green card or not, approving or denying the I485, but they went ahead and approve the I130, then they decide to possibly revoke it. So in either instance, whether your spouse is overseas or whether your spouse is here, you might receive this notice of intent to revoke, and typically it'll look like a request for evidence. It'll list all the reasons why USCIS is now considering the possibility of undoing your notice of intent, undoing your U130 petition.
When you receive your notice of intent to revoke, my advice would be to go meet with a competent immigration lawyer. If your case has gotten to that stage where USCIS is actively considering canceling your case, revoking your I130, you're probably going to need some help. You might've done a decent enough job getting it to this point, but if you want to bring your loved one here or get that green card approved, you need that I130 to be upheld. So, we've actually done this a lot in a lot of our lawsuits. Sometimes, the embassies will send the case back to USCIS and then USCIS will either reaffirm the marriage or they'll send it back for a possible revocation, giving you the chance to supplement and demonstrate that the marriage is, in fact, valid. Now, so far, knock on wood, we've overcome most of those notices of intent to revoke and gotten the cases sent back to the embassy.
So, number one thing, Sourav, is that you want to make sure that you talk to an immigration lawyer, and then it's all going to depend on what's in the notice of intent to revoke. At this point, there's something fundamental about your case, some silver bullet, that they think they can deny you or revoke your I130, and you're going to have to work really, really hard to overcome it. So I would say that at this stage, if you've received a notice of intent to revoke, it's a higher standard even than trying to get the original case approved. Now they're sort of watching you and paying attention and you really need to work hard to sort of overwhelm them with evidence. So if they send you a notice of intent to revoke and say, "Hey, we don't really believe this marriage anymore," you need to come in with lots of evidence, which is why it's really important to keep gathering marital evidence, even while your case is pending, even after your I130's been approved because of possible revocation.
So, Sourav, hope this helped. Hopefully you swung into action and got your notice of intent to revoke overcome, and that your I130 got reinstated. If you have questions, 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 in that Facebook group and on our YouTube channel, every Tuesday and Thursday we're going live from 12:00 to 1:00 PM, Central, answering all of your immigration questions. So we hope that you put that on your calendar. If you have a question, you can hop on there from 12:00 to 1:00 Central Time and you can ask us whatever questions you want, and we hope you find that helpful. Also, be sure to connect with us on Instagram, which is @hackinglawpracticellc. Thanks a lot. Have a great day.
