USCIS fraud allegations and EB-1A

Post from a while back (source):

He was accused of fraud back in 2018.

USCIS did not believe that my client’s employer was really his employer so they revoked his L-1. They dropped the fraud charges during the revocation, because it was clear that my client had been transparent and truthful with the government at every stage of the process, but they still revoked his L-1 based on a blatant misunderstanding of the employer-employee relationship.

My client just moved on because he had different career goals, so he never pushed his employer to challenge the wrongful L-1 denial.

Five years later, my client applied for his green card through his own EB-1A approval.

He never heard back after waiting years, so he sued USCIS, only to receive a Notice of Intent to Deny because of the alleged fraud he had committed in 2018. Fraud that was still only an allegation on the record and had never been proven or implicated in a final decision.

We had 30 days to respond and we came back strong, showing evidence that my client had not committed fraud and that USCIS was in the wrong.

The takeaway here? You have to fight back if you believe USCIS was in the wrong when denying your immigration benefit.

Sure, not all cases deserve an appeal, but if you are at any point in time accused of fraud, you need to set the record straight immediately by showing USCIS that their finding was incorrect.

Otherwise, you risk having a black mark on your record that will forever be seen as the truth, even if you did nothing wrong.

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This post is by Amber G. Davis. She started her career working at a boutique immigration firm before moving on to two different large immigration firms (one of which is one of the largest immigration firms in the world). She’s advised numerous high-tech companies of all shapes and sizes, from startups to top ten Fortune 500 companies, and from nonprofits to companies in the IPO process. She now runs Waypoint Immigration USA, representing only individual employees for EB-1A, EB-2 NIW, O-1, etc. and is well-known on LinkedIn with 8k+ followers.

Want to get in touch with Amber? You can reach her at amber.davis@waypointimmigration.org or through a LinkedIn connection note (Amber’s LinkedIn profile).