A caller to the Immigration Answer Show described a two-hour Stokes interview on his marriage green card in which seven answers did not match his wife’s. USCIS then issued a notice of intent to deny, he responded two months ago, and he called believing the case was easy and the officer biased. Founding attorney Jim Hacking pushed back hard on the “easy” part.
mic What the Attorney Says
“I would say that most times when I see a notice of intent to deny because answers don’t match that 85 90% of the time those cases end up in a denial.”
Not every inconsistency is equal. The caller thought the strongest example helped him: both spouses testified they had no life insurance, but the evidence they had already uploaded showed the wife had named him as a beneficiary on a policy. Hacking called that worse than a simple mismatch, because it is not two people remembering a date differently. It is a couple submitting evidence they did not know they had submitted.
mic What the Attorney Says
“I think it’s worse that you and she uploaded evidence that you had life insurance wherein she named you as the beneficiary. I think it’s worse that the two of you didn’t know that when asked when you submitted evidence contrary to what your testimony was.”
The second example hurt too. Asked how much was in their joint account, the spouses gave different numbers, and the explanation was that the wife sends the caller money by Zelle rather than pooling funds. To an officer testing whether a marriage is real, that reads the wrong way. Hacking said money moving by Zelle between spouses “sounds like roommates, not like spouses, to USCIS.” A mismatched grocery store (Costco versus 7-Eleven) and a guessed birth year for a sibling, by contrast, he waved off as minor.
The caller’s question was what happens if the case is denied. That is the part most people underestimate: a denial does not just end the green card, it can put the immigrant into removal.
mic What the Attorney Says
“Worst case scenario is they send you a denial and with the denial they send you notice to appear in immigration court.”
An immigration judge cannot save the marriage on his own. Without an approved I-130, there is no path for the judge to grant, so a refiling has to run through USCIS first and beat the clock in court. That is why Hacking put the odds near even, better than the raw NOID statistics because the couple dated for two years and has real documentation, but nowhere near the sure thing the caller assumed.
There is one concrete move available while the green card sits. The caller has a job offer and wants work authorization. He cannot sue over the green card itself yet, because it has not been pending long enough, but the (c)(9) EAD tied to the pending adjustment is a different matter.
mic What the Attorney Says
“You could sue them on the EAD or you could ask Congress to help you with EAD, but I think the lawsuit would be better.”
For anyone facing the same interview, the preparation is what changes the odds before the NOID ever lands. The questions USCIS now leans on are increasingly scripted around the same three memo topics, and treating a Stokes as a full dress rehearsal beats explaining inconsistencies after the fact. On the work card, the EAD-delay lawsuits already moving through the courts are the realistic lever while the marriage case is decided.
Sources
- 8 C.F.R. § 103.2(b)(8) — Requests for Evidence and Notices of Intent to Deny (Cornell LII) open_in_new
- 8 U.S.C. § 1255 — Adjustment of Status (Cornell LII) open_in_new
- USCIS — Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative open_in_new
- USCIS — Form I-765, Application for Employment Authorization open_in_new
- Immigration Answer Show — live broadcast (July 10, 2026) open_in_new