Immigration Inside Scoop With Gabriella Agostinelli and Douglas S. Pierce

TLDR: USCIS, CBP, and the Department of State often have access to far more information than applicants realize, including prior filings, visa applications, border interactions, biometrics, background checks, criminal history, and potential inconsistencies across records. In this Immigration Inside Scoop conversation, Gabriella Agostinelli speaks with former USCIS supervisor Douglas Pierce about what officers may see before an interview, why honesty is critical, and how applicants can better prepare. The biggest takeaway: be truthful, stay consistent, keep copies of everything, document past issues carefully, and work with an experienced immigration attorney when your case involves complications.

Transcript:

Gabriella Agostinelli: All right. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today with Variety Immigration Law’s webinar. And we have a wonderful guest back again, Douglas Pierce, a former USCIS supervisor and a huge wealth of information. Doug and I were just speaking. As an immigration lawyer, Douglas, I have often joked with my clients that one of my greatest fantasies is to be able to see what USCIS and CBP and DOS officers see on their screens. And I, throughout the years, have been asked more times than I can count Will they know when I go to my interview? Will they know about this? Or should I assume that they have that information? I tell them every time, assume they know things about you that you don’t even know about yourself. Absolutely. That’s kind of the topic that I wanted to broach today with you. So thank you for agreeing to speak with us. We appreciate this opportunity. And I want to make a plug for Douglas right now. If anybody listening is not already following this man on LinkedIn, please do so now. I’ve been doing this a very long time. And I have already learned so many interesting little nooks and crannies with you from the behind the scenes perspective of how USCIS operates and what they look at. And I appreciate that opportunity to keep learning from you. So absolutely keep it up, Doug. It’s awesome.

Douglas Pierce: I will do as long as there’s an interest in it and people want to know more. I’ll be happy to share what I can. Obviously can’t share everything, but what I can, I freely share. And yeah, I love sharing the information because I think it’s super important for applicants, practitioners, accredited representatives to know as much as they can about how the agency actually works and what they see and what they know, because that helps to inform how applicants are going to respond to questions. I mean, it’s literally, I have seen so many people hurt themselves far worse by lying about something that we know about. If they had just said, yes, this is what happened. This is what I did. I’m sorry. These are the steps I took to fix it. And then they, if they had just done that, they would have been fine. And it’s, you know, there’s an old axiom. It’s the, the lie is worse than the, than the act itself. Right. And, and that’s one of the things that whenever you’re in a USCIS interview or a department of state interview or a CBP inspection, you’re under oath. And the fact that you’re being asked or demanded that you tell us the truth. And if you don’t, Um, there’s consequences on top of the consequences for whatever your past actions were. So, yeah.

Gabriella Agostinelli: Yeah. Yeah. I tell my clients all the time, you know, nobody’s perfect, but what they want is candor show them that you’re a trustworthy person. You know, as long as whatever has transpired in your past is not legally render you inadmissible to the United States. The best thing you can do is to be open and honest. And communicate to them that you’ve thought about this, you care about this, and you want to be open about what has transpired so that they can have enough trust to issue you whatever benefit it is that you’re looking for.

Douglas Pierce: And I would add, even if what you did makes you inadmissible in the moment, it’s better to be truthful about it and to see what possible steps there might be to eventually overcome that than it is to lie about it and just hope that we don’t know about it.

Gabriella Agostinelli: That’s great. So today I really want to, in line with this, we want to really focus on screening procedures. So it would be really interesting. And I’ve learned a little bit about this from what you’ve been posting online. But if you could take us through, how does the case cycle work now? When do you get to work on a Monday morning and you see a list of names that you’re going to interview that day? Have you already previously reviewed their case? Has somebody else from the government already pre-screened a national security assessment for an individual? How does that work?

Douglas Pierce: Sure. So for the average interviewing officer, they know their schedules a few weeks in advance and they know what days they’re scheduled to interview or not. And most offices bundle those interviews up so that, okay, this officer is assigned this bundle of cases on this day so that they have a chance to, on a day when they’re maybe not interviewing, to go through and review it and see what work has already been done on these cases. And to be honest, there’s been a ton of work that’s been done on any case before an officer preps it for the actual interview. Because when an applicant files, say, an N-four-hundred application to the NBC, that starts a whole background regime that is looking for inconsistencies in the information the person has provided, looking for convictions allegations investigations that might be on that person looking for any kind of markers of known fraud you know schemes that we know about and any ties that a person might have to groups of concern you know so there’s a whole series of background checks that begin as soon as the application is filed so when a person goes in for their biometrics appointment you know at the asc they’re getting fingerprinted, but they’re also being biometrically identified. Their fingerprint and their photograph are being affixed to the identity that they’ve provided to get fingerprinted. And so that ties them in with all of their exits and entries using this identity and any other identities they might have used to come into the United States. Their fingerprints are submitted to the FBI and And the FBI interfaces with Interpol, with some other countries as well, and gathers arrest records from all fifty states and almost all the different jurisdictions within the United States. And so those fingerprints are compared with every submitted arrest and conviction that various courts and police agencies and state agencies have done. And then your name and date of birth and country of origin is run through a system called the FBI name check. And that’s where we’re looking at past investigations, any allegations that neighbors or contacts may have made about somebody. Or if your name has come up in an investigation The FBI might have been investigating a place that you visited or frequent a lot and maybe your name has come up as part of that. We’ll get information about that. If you’ve attended certain kinds of protest rallies and maybe they’ve taken photographs and identified who’s showing up at these rallies to protest something now not every rally not every protest it’s usually going to be the really hot button stuff yeah you know affecting exactly you know the really really hot button stuff or um you know or if there’s like rallies or protests that are believed to be incited by foreign countries or governments you know they might be, you know, like if the Iranian government tries to get a bunch of its people to protest here, you know, that might be something they’re gathering information on. In addition, you know, the officer is going to do a certain set of checks as well. So like all of this, like the fingerprints and the FBI name check and taxes all run prior to the officer getting the case. And so if there’s anything that’s identified in that is going to be flagged in the file so that the officer can take a look at it and see if it’s anything to be concerned about if they need to resolve that during the interview. But the officer is also going to dig into a couple of systems, one of which is the counselor case database, the State Department’s database that they use at every counselor interview recording whether they approved somebody for a visa or denied somebody for a visa or um so people who may have filed for multiple b-one b-two visas before they ever got the permission to come to the united states all those rejections are listed in that system and the reasons why and what they told the officer that sort of stuff and then you know if there’s any hits on any of that stuff, an FDNS may have taken a look at a case. So all of this may have taken place before the officer starts their review. And then if FDNS has looked at it, they’ll have a report there for the officer to say, OK, this is of concern. You need to resolve these questions or ask these questions in particular. And then, of course, the officer has the file available to them, either electronically or physically, And that gives them access to all the past applications and petitions that were filed on their behalf. So those are all the different tools that, you know, the agency has. to really dig into and stuff.

Gabriella Agostinelli: So that’s fascinating. And you would, and again, but you would say that most of this work is done outside of the physical local field office. It’s by various government agencies are doing this when it’s at the service center level before it hits the local office.

Douglas Pierce: Sure. There are dedicated teams at the national benefit center called the background check unit. That’s do that. you know, certain things are run automatically once an application’s input into the system. And then if there’s a hit, it flags in the system and transfers the case over to the background check unit. Yeah. So it’s a lot of it’s automated. And then, you know, when there’s something of note to take a look at, that’s always going to be looked at by a person. And yeah, You know, and a lot of times the background check unit will result, you know, maybe there’s somebody with a similar name, but it’s not, they determine it’s not the same person. They’ll document that saying it doesn’t appear to relate to this person, but you’ll have the information just in case, maybe during the interview, the applicant says something that says maybe this is the person, you know.

Gabriella Agostinelli: I want to also ask a question. So, you know, we’re along the northern border here in Buffalo, and so much of what we do takes part at at the Northern border where help individuals apply for TN and L visas and other ancillary B one matters. How much of what is said at a port of entry even years in the past or what is provided at a port of entry comes up in a search for green cards for naturalization at a subsequent stage?

Douglas Pierce: Sure. So every time you’re crossing the border and you’re going through what they call primary inspection, which is out there on the auto line, or if there’s a line of people walking in, you know, coming off a bus or something like that, and you’re being run, you know, the officer’s asking a couple of quick questions, and usually the inspection takes thirty seconds or less, you know. Those primary inspections, those aren’t necessarily recorded or documented other than the fact that you appeared on this date and you were admitted or, you know, if you get sent to secondary, which is where they’re going to say, I need you to step over to that office over there and talk to this person. Here’s a slip of paper. Yeah. Now you’re entering into a territory where. the stuff that is going to be documented that you were referred to secondary, and the officer is going to have be taking notes and indicating, okay, well, this was the question, we resolved it, the applicant’s admissible, he was admitted, or the applicant indicated this, that was a problem, he was returned to Canada. So sometimes that if say person said, oh, I’m a US citizen and the officer didn’t believe him and sends them to secondary. Now there’s a documentation of this person made a false claim or potentially false claim to citizenship, which is a big problem now. And so making that claim, you know, then the officers, you know, they have a chance, the applicant has a chance to retract it as a timely retraction, but it’s a, it can be pretty dicey. as to whether they get that recorded in time as a retraction, or it could just be saying, Hey, I misunderstood the question and I answered wrong. I’m sorry. You know, here’s my passport for Canada or whatever. So the yes, the secondary interactions are almost always documented in a way that’s accessible to a USCIS officer doing an interview several years later. Um, So when the question they ask, have you ever lied to gain a benefit for an immigration benefit? We probably know the answer to that question. So if you actually did lie for some reason, you know, indicate that and then, and then provide the context and the narrative that’s going to explain why that happened, why that mistake or why that misjudgment took place. that will allow the officer to consider and determine whether or not you’re still eligible.

Gabriella Agostinelli: And if you, as an adjudicator, you give somebody that opportunity, you can tell that it was a misunderstanding or it was well-intentioned, there was no… There was no immediate objective to why. Maybe, for instance, your lawyer told you to apply as a management consultant, even though you really were doing hands-on work. You didn’t really realize at the time that what was being put in that letter is not really indicative of you know, what you were doing. If you explain, listen, I respect the laws. I was young. I didn’t quite understand, you know, what was being said. It was never my intention to defraud. I want to own up to, you know, anything that did transpire. You could tell that that person has a sense of remorse or, you know, it’s a deviation from who they are is from a character assessment. You would still approve that person.

Douglas Pierce: Well, it depends on what the actual attempt was. And it’s going to, and it’ll probably matter about how long ago that took place and what’s their history since then. But it always is going to help for the applicant to be truthful, honest, forthright, and have contrition in terms of to give the officer the opportunity to to consider now if you just outright lie or try to stonewall and say well you know i i was you know young and dumb okay well you don’t have any real remorse for that now do you right right right so you’re not really giving the officer much to work with.

Gabriella Agostinelli: That makes sense.

Douglas Pierce: I had an individual who reached out to me not too long ago on LinkedIn and was asking some questions and when I explained a lot of this to him, because he wasn’t an attorney or a practitioner and I was just answering questions for him, he came back with a response I found really insightful. He said, you know, it’s pretty clear to me that USCIS is just trying to is just trying to safeguard this country and to guard the resources to make sure that we’re not being taken advantage of, that sort of thing. It was pretty clear he understood, yeah, it’s not a vindictive thing. It’s not where officers are looking to jam somebody, not somebody trying to jam anybody up. We are given a task to protect this country, to make sure that the benefits given are earned and are appropriate. And, you know, not with the goal of, and so, you know, we’re not trying to stop everybody of a certain ethnicity or race or anything like that. It’s only about what does the law, what do the regulations state, let’s enforce it fairly, impartially. And honestly, so.

Gabriella Agostinelli: Yeah, that makes sense. So if you were an applicant who is coming in, well, who’s number one, submitting an employment, like an I-45 and I-140, I-130, I-45, what So your advice to applicants would be in terms of prepping the case, putting it together and attending your interview. You’ve already touched on honesty, but in terms of documentation, that’s helpful for the screening process. You know, I would love to know your thoughts on that. And I’m, you know, thinking of an example of sometimes we have individuals with criminal records, but they happened so long ago, the records don’t exist. Is it still good to go out and get a letter from the courthouse saying, you know, Mr. So and So made in a good faith attempt to obtain these documents, but due to the age of them, they no longer exist? Or is that just like a trash document to you? Is that is that not helpful?

Douglas Pierce: No, it’s actually helpful. And to have that documented that somebody made the effort to try and get the records, but these records no longer exist. And then USCIS can look at that and say, okay, well, you guys can’t get those documents, but you tried. And so that gets documented as such as an honest effort to do so. What I always recommend is to people to keep copies of everything you submit to the Department of State, to USCIS, anything you’re handing off to CBP with the idea of getting admitted. Make sure you have copies of all of that stuff. And if you have an interaction with somebody and there’s an adverse consequence, keep copies of that stuff too, because that tells you what the rules were, what the consequence was and what you shouldn’t do in the future. So keep copies of all that stuff. And then as you move forward, be consistent. Don’t change your… Oh, this didn’t work last time. I need to come up with a new story. No, it’s better to… Then you’re just going to get denied for a new story. So keep copies of any… If you do have a run-in with the law, say in the more current thing, keep copies of all that stuff. Be able to show that you complied with requirements and probations and paid fines and all of that stuff. Keep it like you’re going to need to prove that you resolved this issue. And also, and I know you guys will appreciate this, You know, if you have criminal incidents or if you have stuff that, reasons that you’ve been rejected, hire a good lawyer. Hire somebody who knows how to navigate these systems, right? As an officer, I used to think, you know, people don’t need to have lawyers in all these cases. And probably, you know, fifty to seventy-five percent of most cases don’t need to have a lawyer. Most of these forms are designed to be able to do them on your own. But those that have issues, those that have problems in the past that they’ve needed to overcome, trust me, it’ll serve your interests to hire a good, proficient attorney who knows how to document this stuff, who knows how to present it in a way that will allow you to make your best case.

Gabriella Agostinelli: That makes sense. And, you know, I’ve gotten the question, obviously, a million times over my career. Do I need a lawyer for this? Does having your letterhead on top of an application help? And I really like to see your honest thoughts. Is it a relief to you when you’re reviewing a case where an attorney is involved? Is it generally an easier process for you? I mean, I’m not going to say, I tell my clients or potential clients, having an attorney doesn’t make you more eligible or not. No, exactly. It’s being prepped the right way. But do you guys feel at least a little sense of internal comfort when you see that attorney’s letterhead come through?

Douglas Pierce: What we see when we see an attorney’s letterhead is that, okay, this person’s case will be presented in a logical, organized way that I can go through and find documentation easier. And if I need something as an officer, being calling an attorney is a lot easier sometimes than calling an applicant or or you know saying hey this is what your case is good i just need this one document you know and reach the number of times i did that in my career both as an officer and as a supervisor reaching out to an attorney say this case is otherwise approvable but we need to resolve this one issue and the attorney’s like hey i’m on it let me get that stuff going you know yeah and so having an you know and most attorneys having all of them gone through law school have been taught a process that’s similar to the process that adjudicators have been taught to go through a case and, and look at it in terms of logically, is this requirement met check? Yes, it is. Is this requirement met? Yes, it is. And so having that, um, information organized and presented in a clean, clear, concise way really helps. Now, there are some attorneys who we knew they only needed to submit this much information, but instead they submit this much information. And we used to call that trying to baffle us with bullshit.

Gabriella Agostinelli: It’s fair. It’s a fair point. It is a fair point for sure. Yeah. Yeah. You know, on that note, and this is the last question and then I’ll let you go. Um, I, one of the posts you had recently that made me stop and think, huh, is this, there’s something I can do to be improving on my own end is how, how your topic of timelines of when you look at a case, all officers are trained to establish a timeline of somebody’s presence in the United States, maybe a relationship timeline. So would you, from an adjudicator’s perspective, think it helpful for anybody preparing a case to write up front, have a one pager explaining how this person came to the United States, what statuses they’ve held and when, when they, if it’s a family based case, met their partner, you know, and the relevant dates of their stay. Would that be helpful?

Douglas Pierce: Absolutely. Timelines are critical because, first of all, if you don’t provide one for the officer, they’re going to make their own. And that might not be, you know, to your benefit if you haven’t done it as well. In creating a timeline, you can almost always immediately see issues pop up here and there. You know, oh, they, you know. they got married or they started living together a year after they got married. So now I need to investigate that. There’s a two-year gap in the work history or an address history. What I need to deal with that now, what’s going on there? Or a child born, not of the couple, but of one of the couple, that’s at an inconvenient time. So those kinds of timelines really, really help. And one of the things that I’ve recommended to attorneys is to create, you know, have two copies of the timeline. One that they’re holding on to in their records and they’re making notes on during the interview and filling in any gaps, you know, leave space between the events in case the officer identifies something that you hadn’t considered. and you can write it in there so you can fill in your timeline later. But you could also have another version of the same events, maybe closer to compressed now, and you present that with your case to the officers so that they have that to work with. if they need it, you know?

Gabriella Agostinelli: So, yeah, I think that’s, I think that’s a great, and you know, it ultimately, in addition to being kind to your adjudicator, I imagine it helps you because it, it makes the review period shorter for the officer. If they have that information, I mean, they still have to do the due diligence of course, but we’ll move the case forward more expeditiously.

Douglas Pierce: Exactly. The less they have to work, the less hard they have to work to put the case together in a way that makes sense. humans we’re all creatures of story right we we live i mean we’re all we’re all the main character in the story of our lives right and so you’re always building on events each day and kind of creating a story out of that now it might be a delusional story for some of us here and there but so with the more the easier it is to understand the story and a timeline really helps to piece together how many books have timelines right at the beginning of the book or at the end so that the reader can piecemeal or figure out these events in relation to each other. And so timelines help us to organize our thoughts and to build that coherent story.

Gabriella Agostinelli: Well, Douglas, I appreciate you so much for your time. You are a wealth of information, as I said earlier, and a fantastic resource. Again, everybody who’s listening to this, please follow Douglas on LinkedIn. And Douglas, you’ve been very open and receptive to questions as far as I understand.

Douglas Pierce: Yeah.

Gabriella Agostinelli: We thank you for your time and we look forward to our next chat together. Thank you so much.

Douglas Pierce: It was nice to meet you today and chat with you. And I’ll look forward to seeing Rosanna again the next time or whoever.

Gabriella Agostinelli: Sounds great. All right. You take care. Have a great day. Goodbye, everyone.