Notice of Intent to Deny (NOID) is issued by the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Service), in case the USCIS couldn’t decide on the case with the provided evidences. This is a statement from the USCIS that the candidate cannot be eligible to gain the immigration benefit (ex: status change) requested. The USCIS comes to such decision on a case when the provided evidences are insufficient or when the provided information looks derogatory to the USCIS.

How is NOID different from RFE?

• NOID stands for Notice of Intent to Deny and RFE stands for Request for Evidence
• In case of RFE, USCIS requests for additional information from the applicant, where as in case of NOID, USCIS decides on the ineligibility of approving the case filed due to the evidences provided.
• In case of RFE, USCIS requests for the evidences to be submitted. While in case of NOID, USCIS writes to the candidate’s petitioner on the intent of denial of the petition.

More about RFE at http://h1bwiki.com/rfe-h1b/

In case of NOID, the notice is issued after a preliminary decision has been made on the case to deny due to ineligibility based on the evidences. The petitioner company needs to provide the requested evidences within 30 days. A NOID would provide the petitioner company or the candidate to review the derogatory information they are unaware of and would give them a chance to provide necessary evidences which could cancel the NOID and approve the petition filed.

What to do if you get NOID?

• Check with your petitioner and the attorney to see if the NOID is valid
• If you do have enough evidences to rebut the notice from USCIS, collect all the necessary evidences and make sure the attorney,  your employer and you review it before submitting to the USCIS.
• Try to submit the documents to the USCIS as soon as possible.
• Make sure you also submit the original NOID along with the evidences.
• I would suggest you to update your case to premium processing at this point of time.
• More about premium processing can be found at: http://h1bwiki.com/h-1b-premium-processing/

NOID during H-1B Visa Interview?

There have been cases where the candidate during his/her H-1B interview was issued 221(g) for administrative processing. The case then forwarded to USCIS for reaffirming the H-1B petition. The USCIS then sends a NOID to the petitioner company.

The reason could be that the petitioner didn’t submit all the documents while applying for H-1B. This is an unnecessary hassle. So, I would suggest you to make sure that your petitioner submits all the necessary documents while applying for H-1B.

Did the USCIS issue NOID to you or your friend? H1BWiki would like to hear from you. Comment or write us to [email protected]