U.S. Alert – USCIS Now Accepting Copies Of Negative O Visa Consultations Directly From Labor Unions
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has begun
accepting copies of negative consultation letters directly from
labor unions relating to a current or future O nonimmigrant visa
petition request.
A consultation letter from a U.S. peer group, labor
organization, and/or management organization is generally required
for petitions in the O visa classification.
USCIS explained that typically, a petitioner submits the
necessary O visa consultation with the petition, and that this
process requirement remains unchanged.
USCIS Director L. Francis Cissna recently met with several labor
unions to discuss concerns they had with the consultation process
for O visa petitions, particularly “that some advisory
opinions may be falsified by petitioners and submitted to USCIS as
no-objections or favorable consultations, when in fact these were
negative,” the agency said.
The labor unions will now be able to send a copy of a negative
consultation letter to USCIS so it can be compared to the
consultation letter submitted to USCIS by the petitioner.
USCIS said labor unions should send copies of negative O
nonimmigrant consultation letters to
UnionConsultationMailbox@uscis.dhs.gov.
To make sure USCIS matches the letters to the correct petitions,
labor unions should include the last five digits of each
beneficiary’s passport number in the consultation letters.
After six months, USCIS will analyze the data collected “to
identify areas for improvement in the consultation
process.”
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