H-1B cap cases denied because of digital signatures? All you need to know

Some immigration law offices that deal with H-1B petitions have raised an alert that they are seeing denials of benefit requests over the validity of signatures. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services intensified their scrutiny of signature compliance in H-1B petitions, they said, which led to a growing number of Notices of Intent to Deny (NOIDs). Going by the rule, all signatures on Form I-129 forms must be valid handwritten signatures and not electronically inserted or duplicated.

What's creating the confusion?

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the USCIS allowed electronically reproduced signatures but now they are canceling forms that do not have handwritten inked signatures or a valid reproduction of the original.

"In recent adjudications, USCIS identified multiple I-129 petitions in which all required signatures appeared identical across pages, suggesting the use of a scanned image or digital copy. USCIS emphasized that such uniformity is inconsistent with the natural variation of genuine ink signatures and determined these signatures were not compliant with applicable regulations and instructions. The agency concluded that the petitions had not been properly signed and therefore could not be adjudicated favorably," Law office of Thomas V Allen said.

The law office said that in one case, the USCIS noted that all three signatures required on Form I-129 were identical, indicating that it was a digital signature. In another case, USCIS rejected newly submitted signature pages where the ink signatures did not match or could not be verified as originating from the original submission.

Steps to avoid rejections

• A valid signature must be handwritten by the signatory.
• A A photocopy or scanned copy of a document containing an original ink signature is acceptable, as long as the original document was physically signed.
• Signatures created by a typewriter, word processor, auto-pen, or pasted as images do not satisfy the requirement.
• USCIS does not provide an opportunity to cure or correct a deficient signature once filed leading to outright denial of such petitions.