As of August 5, you can no longer count on getting that information.

USCIS issued Policy Alert PA-2026-05, restoring officers' full discretion to deny a benefit request without first issuing an RFE or a Notice of Intent to Deny where required initial evidence is missing or the filing does not establish eligibility. It took effect immediately and applies, with limited exceptions, to petitions already pending as well as new ones.

Two details worth calendaring. The customary twelve weeks to respond to an RFE is no longer a given. Officers now set deadlines case by case, with twelve weeks as the regulatory ceiling. And the extra fourteen days once allowed for notices mailed abroad are gone; only the standard three-day mailing allowance remains. If your beneficiary is overseas, the response window just got materially tighter.

RFEs are not eliminated. Officers still issue them. What changed is the default, and that’s what you plan around.

For extraordinary-ability practice, this lands on a specific weakness, and it isn't missing documents.

Most petitions that draw questions aren't missing evidence. They contain evidence whose significance is never made explicit. What items of evidence relate to which regulatory criterion? The documents are there, but the argument connecting them to the relevant criterion is left for the reader to construct.

That worked, sort of, when an unconvinced officer would ask. The petition got a second pass. Now the same gap can end the case.

The discipline this calls for is not more paper. What matters is addressing each criterion as though the skeptical reader will never ask you a follow-up question, because they may not.

One more thing worth knowing: this is guidance, not regulation. It was issued without notice and comment, it reverses 2021 guidance, and it revives an approach used in 2018. Policies that move with administrations can move again. Build for the standard in front of you, but don't assume it's permanent in either direction.

And if you have views on how this works in practice: USCIS is accepting feedback on the update through September 7.