As someone looking to make the United States your permanent home, you may feel anxious about all of the steps involved in the process. Because adjusting your immigration status and pursuing the road to citizenship can often involve many challenges, your feelings of anxiety are not unwarranted. Even simple mistakes can derail an otherwise well put together application.
Due to the complicated nature of pursuing an adjustment of status, you will certainly want to check and double check all of your provided information. Numerous forms will need filing, documents provided and evidence gathered. You could easily feel overwhelmed about potentially making an error while filing or unnecessarily complicating your application. Therefore, you may wish to consider suggestions for organizing your application and forms.
Completing your forms
One of the most important aspects of applying for an adjustment of status relates to providing the correct information and properly completing the necessary forms. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services requires several documents that work as part of your application and will ultimately provide much of the information needed to determine whether you meet eligibility requirements. Therefore, you may wish to avoid making the following mistakes:
- Failing to complete a form in its entirety
- Failing to sign any forms
- Failing to pay the correct filing fee
- Failing to use a fresh form after making a mistake
- Failing to provide correct information
- Failing to use black ink when handwriting information or having illegible handwriting
Any of these mistakes could result in the USCIS rejecting your application.
Organizing your forms
The manner in which you assemble and organize your application could also impact how quickly your process moves forward. The USCIS recommends that you organize your information as follows:
- Payment
- Applicable forms regarding e-Notification requests and legal representation
- Your filing forms
- Supporting documents, such as records and evidence required in the filing forms
When attaching your payment, you should include information on the check or money order that indicates what forms you are filing and other necessary identification information related to your adjustment of status or citizenship application. You should also avoid using folders that may make it difficult for agents and other parties to view your documents.
Gaining assistance
Because applying for an adjustment of status can have its difficulties and you certainly want to make all the right actions when filling out and compiling your forms, you may wish to seek assistance from a knowledgeable legal professional. This individual could help you ensure that you have given the right information, used the right forms and have a solid application file.