Surprisingly, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has again extended its “flexibility” allowing an additional 60 days to respond to most deadline-oriented Service requests.  The additional 60-day response time now applies to qualifying USCIS communications issued up through January 24, 2023.

We say surprising because USCIS had last spring stated an intent to end the added flexibility for responses with regard to qualifying USCIS correspondence issued after July 25, 2022.  At the last possible minute – right on July 25 – the agency changed course and allowed an additional extension to qualifying agency communications issued up through October 23, 2022.  Having come so close to ending this additional 60-day allowance, we didn’t think they would extend once again.

Yet they have extended this one more time, again at the last minute, and without much fanfare.

You may remember that the original pronouncement from early 2020 allowed 60 additional days to respond to Requests for Evidence, Notices of Intent to Deny, Notices of Intent to Revoke, and several other types of communications issued from March 1 to May 1, 2020.

We note once more that the 60-day additional response period, on top of the 30- or 87-day period normally granted, isn’t what’s being extended here; all impacted communications are still getting only an additional 60 days.

It’s the period during which these communications are issued – and so are getting the additional 60-day response time – that’s being extended to January 24, 2023.