Changing the Game – Mixed Martial Arts Immigration

The curious case of the Askhabov twins - By Sherrod Seward, Esq.

Sherrod Sports Visas is proud to announce a game-changing stream of approvals for mixed martial artists (“MMA”) who have a desire to compete in the Ultimate Fighting Championships but are not yet signed to the promotion.

There is an increase in figures for martial artists looking for P-1 visas to be available for short notice opportunities in the UFC, Dana White’s Contender’s Series, Bellator MMA, Combates Americas and more.

It is getting more difficult for the promotions to obtain P-1 visa for fighters as USCIS tightens its adjudication of P-1 visa petitions. Even if approved, the petitions are more often only covering the period when a fighter already has a bout, which would cover less than three months. This is a huge issue for fighters who also train in the United States.

Early this year we were able to successfully petition for two fighters based on an itinerary of competing for the UFC using an agency as the petitioner without issue. This is even before the fighters were officially signed to the UFC.

Sherrod Sports Visas successfully petitioned for Alan Baudot of Fight Factory USA and Ilia Topuria of First Round Management. Each fighter was fighting on UFC Fight Island within two weeks of receiving approval of a three year P-1 visa.

We then proceeded to petition for several more cases and we received the paperwork we were anticipating. In fact, we received four requests for evidence from both the California and Vermont Service Center making the same argument: how can we approve a case for a UFC itinerary when the beneficiary does not have any evidence of being scheduled for an MMA event?

This argument is a big deal to our immigration law firm because we need consistent results for our MMA management clients and that would not be possible without defeating this argument for good. Our first responses would come for the Chechen twins, Khasan and Khuseign Askhakov.

We proceeded to prepare one of the most aggressive and well thought out responses to a request for evidence in the history of our law firm. This was on behalf of our entire mixed martial arts immigration practice because every case for a fighter not already signed in the UFC could be denied. We decided to respond to Khasan’s case first and then apply for Khusein second because he had more time left on his visitor visa status (both brothers were currently in the USA on B-1 visitor visas).

While we will not divulge the details of this response, we can share that we included a copy of Khusien’s response as proof that this argument presented by USCIS is common.

On the 15th day of processing the RFE, we received the approval notice for Khasan Askhabov’s change of status for a three-year P-1A visa. The very next day, I submitted a request for evidence for his twin using the very same arguments used for his brother’s approval. I shared the news with his management team, First Round Management in Miami, Florida, and everyone was ecstatic.

Expecting this adjudication of Khusein’s case to take two weeks, I went about my business of filing new P-1A cases for more mixed martial artists hoping to compete in the UFC. Then my day was shattered by a denial letter in my mailbox for Khusien. I was frustrated and started to prepare my clients for a conversation about an appeal or litigation. Filing a new case would have been a steep endeavor because the filing fees had just gone up to almost three thousand dollars overnight.

However, I noticed that the case was denied on the same day that his twin brother’s case was approved. I had not even sent a response to Khusien’s case by that time.

USCIS HAD TAKEN THE KHUSIEN’S REQUEST FOR EVIDENCE FILE OUT OF HIS BROTHER’S RESPONSE AND ADJUDICATED IT AS ITS RESPONSE!

I was even more upset than for the denial after learning of this. The cover letter for the file clearly explained that the response for evidence was included for Khasan’s case, Khasan’s receipt number was on the cover letter, and we know the officer looked at the cover letter because of information mentioned in the denial letter.

We immediately sent an email to the California Service Center to ask how on earth did an adjudicating officer pull part of our argument on another case out of our filing and choose to adjudicate it? The officer could have chosen to send an intent to deny the case but chose not to go that route. Our email to the California Service Center included shipping information on our responses, copies of both responses, and a demand for the case to be reopened.

We would like to announce that our request was granted after the tremendous service of Officer Andrew who pulled the files and was able to get the case approved based on the information we sent after the case was denied on the Khuseins’ case. Our firm extends an expression of gratitude to Officer Andrew at California Service Center for getting a speedy resolution to this situation and Khusein has now changed status for P-1 and can compete at the highest levels of mixed martial arts.

These two approvals solidify our law firm as one of the nation’s best options for mixed martial artists looking to compete in the most prestigious promotions in the world. That means a lot to us and we are only going to get better.