A Request for Evidence (RFE) is a request issued by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to petitioners for residency, citizenship, family visas, and employment visas.
It is not intended for use for the adjudicator's reassurance in cases where there is enough evidence to approve the petition.
[citation needed] The following are some key differences between the RFE and the Notice of Intent to Deny (NOID):[1][2] In cases where the USCIS simply needs answers to a few specific questions (such as a complete translation), it simply issues a Request for Clarification instead of a RFE.
If no response is received within the time indicated on the RFE, the USCIS will process the application without considering the additional evidence, which in most cases means a denial (because petitions where there was enough evidence to accept should not have RFEs in the first place).
For petitions that request the Premium Processing Service, the expected processing time to a first response (approval, denial, RFE, or NOID) is 15 days, and the time after receiving a response to the RFE is another 15 days.