Combat Sport Industry Immigration Update re: USCIS Inconsistent Decisions
Our Law Firm is one of the national leaders in applications for athletes that compete in combat sports related competitions. Doing so many visas, with so many different clients, gives us a unique perspective on the quality of adjudications received from USCIS.
Over the past few years, USCIS has steadily grown more inconsistent in adjudicating the itinerary portion of P-1 visas for these athletes. This itinerary portion asks for the athlete to prove, more likely than not, that they will be participating in events that require the participation of internationally recognized athletes. While we have adjusted our templates, arguments, and supporting evidence to explain how the combat sports industry works, things have finally reached a point where certain USCIS officers are asking for evidence that is beyond common sense and/or impossible.
USCIS officers are demanding evidence that combat sports athletes give dates, locations & names of opponents for the full validity date of the P-1 visa.
We all know that this is not only impractical but also impossible. Furthermore, we know that this is not required of other sports because no one knows their opponents’ names and venues of their competitions three to five years in advance.
For this reason, we are approaching the combat sports community for support letters to help explain to USCIS how the combat sports industry works. If you are interested in supplying a support letter, please feel free to contact us directly.
About Agent Directed Careers in Combat Sports
To assist USCIS with making consistent adjudications of combat sports petitions. We have collected statements and letters from combat sports industry leaders from around the world to help USCIS understand how the industry works. Also, these letters contain information about combat sports industry stakeholders of both promoters, managers, and regulatory bodies that confirms the industry requires a ready pool of internationally ranked athletes to fill fight cards.
Specifically, these letters of support all explain and confirm the following about industry standard practices and requirements for combat sports itineraries.
It is the industry standard for fighters to be tasked with obtaining their own visas. Thus, the fighter would have to use projected itineraries to obtain the visas to actually get the bouts.
It is the industry standard for the athlete, especially agent-directed athletes, to use the projected schedules of promotions (using the previous year’s schedule as predicting the current schedule).
The combat sports promotions not only have no issue with fighter’s using their projected to schedule to obtain P-1 visas, but the industry absolutely depends on fighters receiving these P-1 visas with the promoter’s contemplated in the itinerary, so they have the proper authorization to compete in the bouts
It is impossible to know exact dates and locations of fighters in combat sports. This is the industry standard because this is a fast moving sport. It is an industry standard to base the forthcoming schedule based on the events from the previous year.
In general, fighters that are ranked at least 650th in the world and have proper work authorization are always highly coveted to fill fight cards. In fact, domestic fighters suffer if there is not a ready pool of talent to compete against to raise their own rankings.
Agent Directed Athletes choose the best opportunity at the time to compete. So they could, and should, have multiple options on the table of where to compete so that the best matchup, compensation, and leverage can be utilized at THAT POINT in time. There is no requirement for athletes to compete in every single event that is listed on their itineraries. This is the industry standard for Agent Directed Athletes to have multiple options contemplated on their itinerary so that the Agent can direct them to compete for the best opportunity on any given day. This is standard and makes common sense.
To support USCIS understanding of these combat sports industry practices, we will present letters of explanation in forthcoming petitions to USCIS.