Surviving the New USCIS: RFE Response Strategies, Enhanced-Vetting Delays, and Denials Without Notice in Employment-Based Adjudications

Kate Kalmykov, Shareholder and Co-Chair, Global Immigration & Compliance Practice | Greenberg Traurig, LLP

Kate Kalmykov is a Shareholder in the New York and New Jersey offices of Greenberg Traurig, LLP and Co-Chair of the firm’s Global Immigration & Compliance Practice, one of the largest business immigration groups in the world. Ranked by Chambers USA every year since 2013 and named one of the Lawdragon 100 Leading Immigration Lawyers, Kate represents multinational corporations, executives, investors, and technology professionals across the full range of employment-based immigration matters. She is a nationally recognized authority on USCIS adjudication trends, and her work guiding employers through complex petitions, agency scrutiny, and compliance audits places her at the center of the challenges this program addresses.

• Education & Credentials

Kate earned her J.D. from American University Washington College of Law (2005), where she also received an M.A. in International Affairs, and her B.A. in International Studies, magna cum laude, from American University (2002). She is admitted to practice in New York and New Jersey and before the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. She is fluent in Russian.

• Recognition & Leadership

Kate has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America for Immigration Law every year from 2019 through 2027, ranked by Chambers USA from 2013 through 2026, named to the Lawdragon 100 Leading Immigration Lawyers (2023–2026), and selected to New York Metro Super Lawyers (2021–2025). She was honored by the New Jersey Law Journal as a “Woman Attorney of the Year” in 2024 and by the National Law Journal as an Immigration “Trailblazer” in 2018. Her commentary has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and The Real Deal, and she has published in the New York Law Journal, the New Jersey Law Journal, USA Today, and multiple ABA handbooks, including as co-author of “What Every Lawyer Needs to Know About Immigration Law.”

• Professional Involvement

Since 2011, Kate has served as Co-Chair of the American Bar Association’s Committee on Immigration and Naturalization within the Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, where she engages directly with the administrative-law principles — notice, reasoned decision-making, and procedural fairness — that govern USCIS adjudications. She is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the International Bar Association, and the New York and New Jersey State Bar Associations. She has served as President of the Council of Jewish Émigré Community Organizations since 2016 and sits on the boards of the New Jersey Symphony, Helping Hands for Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Habitat Fund.

• Experience

Kate advises multinational employers on temporary and permanent residency strategies for executives, managers, and high-skilled professionals, and counsels companies on I-9 employment eligibility verification, Department of Labor compliance, and government audits. She is one of the country’s leading EB-5 practitioners, having represented thousands of immigrant investors and structured more than $12 billion in EB-5 offerings, including the largest in the program’s history — work that routinely involves responding to extensive Requests for Evidence, managing prolonged adjudication timelines, and contesting adverse agency action. Her breadth of experience across employment-based categories and her administrative-law leadership make her uniquely positioned to break down RFE response strategy and the practitioner’s options when USCIS delays or denies without proper notice.

Dagmar Butte, Shareholder | Parker, Butte & Lane, PC

Dagmar Butte is a Shareholder at Parker, Butte & Lane, PC in Portland, Oregon, and one of the nation’s most respected authorities on employment-based immigration and USCIS adjudications. Ranked Band 1 for Immigration in Oregon and Band 2 nationwide by Chambers USA, Dagmar has spent more than three decades representing employers, universities, hospitals, and technology companies before USCIS — and, through her long-standing leadership on the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s USCIS liaison committees, has been at the table with the agency itself as it reshaped its Request for Evidence practices, service center operations, and vetting protocols. Few practitioners in the country bring a more informed view of how USCIS actually adjudicates, and how to respond when it does not follow its own rules.

• Education & Credentials

Dagmar earned her J.D. from Lewis & Clark Law School (1991) and her B.A., cum laude, from Carleton College (1987). She is admitted to the Oregon Supreme Court, the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She speaks German and Spanish.

• Recognition & Leadership

Dagmar is ranked by Chambers USA at Band 1 for Immigration in Oregon and Band 2 for Immigration nationwide, has been selected to Super Lawyers every year since 2008, and is listed in Who’s Who Among Business Immigration Lawyers. In 2018, AILA presented her with the Susan D. Quarles AILA Service Excellence Award in recognition of her outstanding service, over a period of years, in advancing the association’s mission. She has also received two AILA Presidential Commendations, including the 2011 President’s Commendation for Outstanding Leadership, and the Oregon AILA Chapter’s Gerald H. Robinson Excellence in Immigration Advocacy Award (2009). She serves as a member of the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers (ABIL), an invitation-only network of the nation’s leading corporate immigration attorneys.

• Professional Involvement

Dagmar was the first Oregon attorney elected to AILA’s national Board of Governors and is a former Chair of the AILA Oregon Chapter. At the national level, she has chaired AILA’s USCIS Service Center Operations Liaison Committee and its Nebraska Service Center Liaison Committee, chaired the National Removal, Detention and Due Process Committee, and served on the USCIS Headquarters Liaison Committee and the Business Immigration Response Taskforce — roles that placed her in direct dialogue with the agency on RFE templates, processing delays, adjudication standards, and notice practices. She is an Adjunct Professor at Lewis & Clark Law School, where she teaches immigration and international law, and is an editor and author of immigration law books and articles and a regular speaker at AILA national and regional conferences.

• Experience

Dagmar’s practice focuses on employment-based nonimmigrant and immigrant visa matters for employers in the technology, higher education, healthcare, and nonprofit sectors, and she serves as outside immigration counsel to institutions including Oregon Health & Science University, Oregon State University, George Fox University, and Mercy Corps. She has decades of hands-on experience preparing and responding to Requests for Evidence and Notices of Intent to Deny, navigating administrative processing and security-check delays, and challenging erroneous denials through motions, appeals, and federal court litigation. That combination of high-volume practice experience and years of direct agency liaison work makes her uniquely positioned to explain how the “new USCIS” operates — and how practitioners can protect their clients against RFE overreach, enhanced-vetting delays, and denials issued without notice.

Lauren Berkowitz, Associate, Global Immigration & Compliance Practice | Greenberg Traurig, LLP

Lauren Berkowitz is an Associate in the Philadelphia office of Greenberg Traurig, LLP, where she practices in the firm’s Global Immigration & Compliance Practice. A Pennsylvania Super Lawyers “Rising Star” every year since 2023, Lauren represents employers and foreign national professionals across the full spectrum of employment-based immigration — from H-1B, L-1, O-1, and TN nonimmigrant petitions to EB-1, EB-2 National Interest Waiver, and PERM-based permanent residence — and has extensive day-to-day experience preparing filings and responding to Requests for Evidence in the current heightened-scrutiny environment.

• Education & Credentials

Lauren earned her J.D. from Temple University Beasley School of Law (2016) and her B.A., with distinction, from the University of Virginia (2010). She is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania and before the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

• Recognition & Leadership

Lauren has been recognized by Super Lawyers magazine as a Pennsylvania “Rising Star” in immigration law each year from 2023 through 2026, a distinction awarded to no more than 2.5 percent of attorneys in the state. She is an active member of the Philadelphia legal community through the Pennsylvania Bar Association and the Philadelphia Bar Association, both since 2020.

• Professional Involvement

Lauren has been a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association since 2016, including its Philadelphia Chapter, where she stays at the forefront of USCIS policy shifts, adjudication trends, and liaison developments affecting employment-based practice. She regularly counsels human resources and legal teams on building corporate immigration policies and compliance programs that anticipate agency scrutiny rather than react to it.

• Experience

At Greenberg Traurig, Lauren advises business leaders on visa sponsorship strategies for executives, managers, and investors (L-1A, EB-1C, E-1/E-2), high-skilled talent (H-1B, L-1B, TN, E-3, H-1B1), and individuals of extraordinary ability (O-1, EB-1, EB-2 NIW), and guides students and recent graduates through CPT/OPT, STEM extension, and PERM pathways. She also conducts I-9 and E-Verify compliance audits for employers across a range of industries. Her hands-on work assembling petitions, drafting RFE responses, and managing cases through administrative processing and enhanced-vetting delays gives her a practical, in-the-trenches perspective on what USCIS is asking for today — and how to build a record that withstands it.

SESSION 1 – Inside the New Adjudication Regime: Why Cases Stall, Draw RFEs, or Die Without Warning | 12:00pm – 1:00pm

This session maps what has actually changed inside USCIS and why. Drawing on adjudication data, current agency policy, and the speaker’s liaison work as chair of AILA’s USCIS Service Center Operations Committee, it explains the restored deny-without-RFE authority, the anatomy of the new RFE wave, the enhanced-vetting and biometrics bottlenecks freezing cases, and the fee and policy overlay reshaping employment-based filing decisions — so attorneys can see a problem coming before it arrives in the mail.

BREAK | 1:00pm – 1:10pm

SESSION 2 – Keeping Cases and Clients Alive: Filing, Response, and Escalation Strategies That Work | 1:10pm – 2:10pm

The second hour is pure practice strategy. It works through building petitions that survive first-touch review, constructing RFE and NOID responses calibrated to the new templates, protecting the human being behind the file — work authorization, status bridges, and travel — while adjudications drag, and the full escalation ladder for stalled cases. It closes with the counseling conversation: setting employer and employee expectations, documenting decisions, and managing risk when the timeline is out of everyone’s control.