U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that effective November 1, 2018, it has revised policy guidance for the validity period of Form I-693, Report of Medical Examination and Vaccination Record.
The updated policy requires applicants to submit a Form I-693 that is signed by a civil surgeon no more than 60 days before filing the underlying application for an immigration benefit. The Form I-693 would remain valid for a two-year period following the date the civil surgeon signed it. As such, USCIS is retaining the current maximum two-year validity period of Form I-693 but “calculating it in a different manner to both enhance operational efficiencies and reduce the number of requests to applicants for an updated Form I-693.”
USCIS officers use the form to determine whether an applicant for an immigration benefit in the United States is inadmissible under the health-related grounds of inadmissibility. By specifying that the I-693 must be signed no more than 60 days before the applicant files the underlying application for which the I-693 is required, the validity of the form “is more closely tied to the timing of the underlying application,” USCIS said.
Additionally, requiring submission of an I-693 that was signed no more than 60 days before the date the underlying application was filed may, in some cases, maximize the period of time the
I-693 will be valid while the underlying application is under USCIS review, the agency said. “Officers will still have the discretion, as they have always had, to request a new Form I-693 if they have reason to believe an applicant may be inadmissible on the health-related grounds. Delays in adjudicating the underlying application will also be reduced if fewer requests for updated Forms I-693 are necessary,” USCIS noted.
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