Did you receive a request for evidence from immigration requesting the same documents that you’ve already submitted and you’re wondering what to do?

The Document Might Have Gotten Lost

The first thing that can happen is that you may have really submitted that item. We see that all the time when we submit a birth certificate or a marriage license and we know that we submitted it. We keep a scan of every application we send but applications for immigration are hundreds of pages long and immigration files are huge.

Immigration has a paper format and an electronic format so things can get lost or misplaced in the shuffle. It might just be you need to send the document again.

The Document Doesn’t Meet the Requirements of Immigration

This is the part that’s really important. It could also be that your document actually doesn’t meet the requirements of immigration.

One example that we see a lot is that immigration might be asking for the birth certificate of the petitioner of the United States citizen and immigration is looking for a specific version; a long-form version of that birth certificate. They might be asking for that birth certificate because you didn’t submit the correct version.

Another example might be that your financial documents are missing pages. An example with financial documents would be your tax return. It has tons and tons of pages but there are certain pages that immigration is looking for. You might be missing your W-2 or there might be pages of your tax return that were missing and that’s why they’re requesting the same item.

It’s very important that you understand which of those two things it is so you can properly address and respond to that request for evidence because the stakes are high. If you don’t respond properly, your case could be denied.