Deferred inspection

Deferred inspection is a procedure in immigration enforcement in the United States for Arriving Aliens. Here, the final decision on whether to admit the Arriving Alien, instead of being conducted at the port of entry where the alien arrived, is deferred to be carried out later at a deferred inspection site, while the alien is paroled into the United States. The guidelines followed at the deferred inspection site are largely the same as those followed by the officers at the port of entry, and are described in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Inspector's Field Manual. Aliens do not accrue unlawful presence between the time of arrival and the date of deferred inspection, but they do begin to accrue unlawful presence after their parole ends, if they are not successfully admitted at the deferred inspection site by then. The officers at both the port of entry and the deferred inspection site are part of the CBP Office of Field Operations.
Decision at the port of entry to use deferred inspection.
Conditions under which the officer at the port of entry may choose deferred inspection.
Deferred inspection is used in cases where the officer at the port of entry (such as an airport or a sea port) has doubts about the arriving alien's admissibility to the United States, and believes these doubts cannot be satisfactorily resolved at the port of entry but can be resolved through one or more of these:
Deferred inspection should not be used merely with the goal of transferring a difficult case to another office, but rather should be accompanied by clear reasons for deferral. Moreover, the option is generally intended for use only in cases where it is believed that the case is likely to be resolved in the alien's favor, and not in cases where the alien is likely to be established inadmissible.
The officer at the port of entry should consider the following when making a decision to defer inspection:
Common reasons for deferred inspection include situations where a Lawful Permanent Resident is believed to have been outside the United States for over 180 days, or cases where the alien is believed to have committed a crime that makes the alien inadmissible or removable.
Procedure at the port of entry.
The following procedures are followed for deferred inspection:
Processing before and at the onward office.
Preparation for the deferred inspection.
The alien needs to work to acquire all the relevant documentation that needs to be presented to demonstrate admissibility, to show at the onward office.
On CBP's side, the port of entry forwards the alien's file, including a copy of the Form I-546, to the onward office. The onward office may need to do additional processing to evaluate te alien's admissibility.
Conduct of the deferred inspection.
When the alien appears for the deferred inspection at the onward office, the officer here inspects the alien using the same rules that the officer at the port of entry would, but now armed with the additional documentation available. There are two possibilities:
The CBP officer conducting the deferred inspection at the onward office may allow the applicant's attorney to be present. However, the attorney's role is limited to that of observer and consultant for the applicant, and the attorney does not have legal authority to represent the applicant.
Dealing with no shows.
It is the onward office's responsibility to monitor the progress of cases referred for a deferred inspection. Cases should not be pending longer than 30 days after the expiration of the scheduled appointment unless the applicant requested an extension. If the alien fails to appear for his or her deferred inspection, then the alien starts accruing unlawful presence and receives a Form I-862 Notice to Appear, indicating the beginning of removal proceedings against the alien. At this point, regardless of the issue of the alien's original admissibility, the alien's subsequent unlawful presence can hurt his or her immigration record.
Other actions.
Corrections to Form I-94.
Deferred inspection sites also be used by aliens seeking to fix problems with the documents issued to them at the port of entry (specifically, the Form I-94). For instance, if an alien entered lawfully but was not issued a Form I-94, or was issued a Form I-94 with incorrect information. In addition, if some information was not entered correctly on the Form I-94, this can be fixed at a deferred inspection site.
Changes to the expiration date on Form I-94 are not handled at deferred inspection site.
Deferred inspection sites are only intended for correcting errors at the port of entry, rather than extending the expiration date of a correctly filled Form I-94. To extend the validity of Form I-94, the extension needs to be made with the appropriate government agency. In particular: