Putting family-based petitioners under the microscope

Putting family-based petitioners under the microscope | Daily Tribune

A biometrics notice, as the name implies, involves being instructed to report to a designated Application Support Center (ASC) location to capture a person’s fingerprints and photographs for identity verification purposes, and to have the fingerprints run through the official databases of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other federal and state agencies for possible criminal records and outstanding warrants.

It may also trigger an IBIS (Interagency Border Inspection System) name check for any derogatory information, criminal or otherwise, that could potentially disqualify a person from petitioning a relative.

Given its highly intrusive nature, many I-130 petitioners feel unavoidably anxious upon receiving a biometrics notice. To some, the experience feels no different from being booked for a minor transgression at a local police station.

Although the scrutiny of family-based petitioners had its genesis in the passage of a federal juvenile protection law decades ago — the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 — the law only covers certain types of offenses against a minor.

Moreover, while the law bars any person convicted of a “specified offense against a minor” from filing any type of immigration benefit application (unless proof beyond reasonable doubt of the offender’s rehabilitation is established), by and large, petitioners have been immune from intensive record checks in the vast majority of cases.

Among the crimes covered by the Adam Walsh Act are the kidnapping and imprisonment of a minor, solicitation to engage in sexual conduct or prostitution, child pornography, video voyeurism, and other offenses involving underage victims.

As to why the law did not require mandatory biometrics for family-based petitioners, it is assumed that privacy and liberty concerns played an inhibitory role.

In February 2017, the first Trump administration revised Form I-130 to include additional questions about the petitioner. Among the new information required were the petitioner’s prior addresses, five-year employment history, parentage, marital history, and other identifying personal information such as ethnicity, height, hair color, among other things.

The form’s instructions have also been revised to include a warning, for the very first time, that the petitioner could be required to appear for fingerprints, photograph, or signature appointment to verify their identity and for an FBI background check.

Still, a biometrics notice was rare for I-130 petitioners during this period. It was only during the second Trump term that biometrics appointments for family-based petitioners became more prevalent.

Unfortunately for this group, a November 2025 proposal from the DHS has sought to expand the scope of immigration biometrics collection to include a person’s voice print, iris scan, palm prints, and DNA — private biological data the intrusive harvesting of which has historically been reserved only for the gravest of security threats.

Nowadays, petitioning for a relative is no longer a harmless undertaking.