USCIS Makes COVID Era Signature Policy Permanent

As a response to the ongoing COVID pandemic, USCIS has announced that it will make the COVID-era signature policy permanent. Prior to COVID, all USCIS form signatures required a “wet signature”. This means that the signature must be original and cannot be reproduced through scanning or photocopying. Since the pandemic, to accommodate the stay-at-home orders, USCIS relaxed its signature policy to accept photocopied, faxed, and scanned signature. This means that the forms no longer had to be original versions and instead can be reproduced version of original signatures. This policy originally started as a pandemic response but has now been made permanent.

USCIS still does not accept digital or e-signatures so the reproduced signature must be from an original one, but this policy alleviated much of the need for applicants to mail original documents from their locations to their attorney offices. However, please note that this policy does not apply for all applications. Many applications including those applied for at the border still must contain original, wet signatures.

USCIS has also announced that it is further extending its deadline extension policy through October 23, 2022. This policy provided applicants with an extra 60 days to respond to RFE and NOIDs.