When USCIS will accept a question about your case, what each type of inquiry is for, and what you need before you start.
An e-Request is the official way to ask USCIS about a case that is outside normal processing time, a notice or card that never arrived, or a mistake on a document USCIS issued. It is free, you submit it on the USCIS website, and it is not an appeal and not a way to speed up a decision.
USCIS accepts specific categories. Choosing the right one matters, because an inquiry outside these is returned without an answer.
Available only once your receipt date is earlier than the case inquiry date USCIS publishes for your form and office. Submitting before that point will simply be returned.
USCIS shows a notice as mailed but it never arrived. Worth checking your address on file first, since mail sent to an old address is the usual cause.
A green card or employment authorization document that was produced and mailed but never reached you. USCIS tracks these separately from notices.
A typographic error on a card or notice USCIS issued. Whether USCIS corrects it for free depends on whether the error was theirs or came from the original application.
USCIS reviews the inquiry and responds, usually by email and sometimes by mail. An inquiry does not change your place in line and does not make a decision come faster — it asks USCIS to look at a specific problem. USCIS does not publish a guaranteed response time, so we do not quote one here.
Most returned inquiries are returned for one reason: the case was not actually outside normal processing time yet. The USCIS tool publishes the exact receipt date that decides it.
How to read USCIS processing timesSource and date: written from the official government pages linked on this page, last read on September 18, 2026. If that date looks old to you, treat the government page as current and this page as out of date.
An Imigrar attorney can look at your notices, tell you whether USCIS will accept an inquiry yet, and say what else is available if it will not.
