UPDATE: On March 23, 2023, USCIS announced that the COVID-19 related flexibilities originally introduced in March 2020 had ended. Applicants must now respond to any requests or notices from USCIS (such as Requests for Evidence) dated after March 23 by the deadlines indicated in correspondence from USCIS.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is once again extending response deadline flexibility to applicants and petitioners responding to Requests for Evidence (RFEs), Notices of Intent to Deny (NOIDs), and certain other requests by USCIS.
To help applicants and petitioners who may be experiencing difficult and unprecedented circumstances during the pandemic, USCIS will consider a response to a RFE to be received “timely,” or before the deadline, if it is received by USCIS within 60 calendar days of the due date given by USCIS in the original notice. This policy applies to RFEs and other requests from USCIS that are dated between March 1, 2020, and July 25, 2022, inclusive.
USCIS anticipates that this will be the final extension of the RFE response deadline flexibility, as the government seeks to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind them.
The agency first announced RFE, NOID, and other response request flexibility on March 24, 2020, when borders and businesses began to close as the coronavirus started to take hold in the United States. The flexibilities have been extended repeatedly since that time.