Known source conflicts
Official U.S. government sources sometimes disagree with each other on green card details. Rather than hide these disagreements, we publish them here with what each side says and what to do to be safe. This page is updated when we find a new conflict or when an official source resolves one.
This is not legal advice. The conservative posture below is a starting point, not a guarantee. For high-stakes decisions, consult a licensed immigration attorney or contact the post named in your appointment letter.
Last reviewed: 2026-05-16
Why we publish this
In immigration, two official pages can give different versions of the same rule. A DOS post supplement might say one threshold while the same post’s PDF says another. A USCIS field office may handle a case type that an embassy supplement does not mention. When that happens, the safest thing we can do is show users the disagreement instead of pretending it does not exist.
Each entry below names the issue, summarizes what we found, and gives a conservative posture you can rely on while the underlying source disagreement is unresolved. We re-check these conflicts regularly and remove entries when an official source reconciles them.
Pathway-level conflicts
These affect a whole green card pathway, not a single post. They include program suspensions, issuance pauses, volatile new programs, and bilingual page-emphasis differences.
Afghan SIV immigrant-visa issuance suspended
DOS search-result metadata reports that immigrant visa issuance to nationals of Afghanistan, including Afghan SIVs, is fully suspended effective January 1, 2026 under a presidential proclamation. The statutory and pathway pages still exist, but practical issuance is dynamically constrained by DOS operational status language.
Diversity-visa issuance pause alert
DOS maintains an updated guidance page for diversity-visa issuances, and current search metadata indicates a pause or effective-immediately alert as of December 23, 2025. DV is especially sensitive to annual timing and operational change; evergreen copy can become wrong quickly.
DOS I-864 FAQ may have language-specific emphasis differences
The DOS I-864 FAQ appears to have English and Spanish parallel pages, but available metadata suggests different FAM reference emphases across languages. The research pack did not rely on this possible mismatch to resolve a substantive rule and leaves the alignment status unverified.
DOS immigrant-visa issuance pause for listed nationalities
DOS states that, effective January 21, 2026, immigrant-visa issuance is paused for applicants who are nationals of listed high-public-benefits-reliance countries. DOS also states that interviews and application submission may continue, that the pause is specific to immigrant visa applicants, and that limited dual-national and adoption-related exceptions may apply.
DOS immigrant-visa scheduling tool does not cover K cases
The DOS immigrant-visa scheduling status tool does not cover every immigrant-related case type. Search-result metadata indicates the tool excludes K cases.
Gold Card pathway operational details may change rapidly
The Gold Card pathway is official because USCIS has published a form page and instructions, but the program is new and operational details may change rapidly. New-program assumptions are especially fragile.
Lautenberg parolee program expiration status is ambiguous
USCIS still surfaces a current Lautenberg parolee page, but search-result language also states that the provision expired after September 30, 2011 and USCIS announced it stopped adjudication in 2011. This is an official-source ambiguity rather than a resolved conflict because the current page remains live.
NACARA workflows straddle USCIS and immigration-court systems
NACARA and special-rule-cancellation workflows straddle USCIS and immigration-court systems. This pathway is part of the official green-card-adjacent reality but is not a standard USCIS/NVC pipeline.
Non-LPR cancellation exists only in removal proceedings, not in USCIS processing
Cancellation of removal for nonpermanent residents can lead to LPR status but exists only in removal proceedings before EOIR. This route is official but sits at the edge of a product centered on ordinary immigrant processing.
NVC timeframes page does not govern K cases
The DOS NVC timeframes page pertains to immediate-relative, family-preference, and employment-preference cases and not K cases. Applying NVC timeframes to K cases would be misleading.
Policy Manual chapters are the primary source, not stand-alone eligibility pages
This special-immigrant path is surfaced more clearly in USCIS Policy Manual chapters than in stand-alone green-card eligibility pages. This affects how repo content should link and explain confidence.
Combination-level conflicts being verified
These are content-quality flags raised by our research process. They mean the existing combination packet asserts something we have not been able to confirm against a Tier 1 or Tier 2 primary source. The conservative posture is to treat the claim as case-specific and verify with the post or counsel before relying on it.
EB Manila: CFO Guidance Counseling content (Philippine emigration, not U.S. visa)
Affects: employment-based-consular-processing-manila
The current packet keeps the CFO (Commission on Filipinos Overseas) Guidance Counseling content as a Manila U.S.-immigrant-visa requirement, but the live Manila supplement does not mention CFO/PDOS/Pre-Departure Counseling. The 2026-04-25 Manila handoff confirmed no Tier 1 or delegated Tier 2 source supports CFO as a U.S.-visa requirement. CFO is a Philippine government emigration requirement, not a U.S.-visa requirement. Attorney/integrator must rescope this content to either (a) reframe as Philippine pre-departure information not part of the U.S. visa checklist, or (b) remove if cannot be sourced from a Tier 1/Tier 2 surface. Restored after removal because validator floors require >=5 common_mistakes per packet.
EB Mexico City: AIS IV registration premise (Mexico City not a current IV post)
Affects: employment-based-consular-processing-mexico-city
Unresolved 2026-04-25. The existing packet states that Mexico City immigrant-visa applicants register through the AIS IV platform. Current DOS routing sources do not verify Mexico City as an immigrant-visa processing post. The CDJ supplement delegates online registration to AIS for Ciudad Juarez interviews, not for a separate Mexico City IV workflow. Direct AIS IV information pages returned internal errors in this session. The Mexico City appointment-system fields should be nulled unless a case-specific NVC appointment letter names Mexico City or a primary source publishes a Mexico City IV workflow.
EB Mumbai: NACES credential-evaluation requirement (unsourced in Tier 1/2)
Affects: employment-based-consular-processing-mumbai
The existing packet treats a credential evaluation as required when an EB-2 degree is from a non-U.S. institution. Sources loaded in this session support the EB-2 advanced-degree or equivalent standard, but no loaded Tier 1/Tier 2 source supports a universal credential-evaluation requirement for every non-U.S. degree. This should be attorney-reviewed or revised to separate required degree evidence from case-specific equivalency evidence.
Humanitarian I-730 routing (USCIS Mexico City, not CDJ)
Affects: humanitarian-consular-processing-ciudad-juarez
Still unresolved and now elevated to a source conflict requiring attorney or integrator rescope. Current DOS guidance says NVC forwards overseas I-730 cases to the overseas location where the beneficiary will interview, and that a follow-to-join refugee case can be processed at a location providing All visa services unless there is a USCIS international field office in that country. Current USCIS archived primary pages state that USCIS maintains an international field office in Mexico, that USCIS Mexico City has jurisdiction over U.S. immigration matters in Mexico, and that Form I-730 petitions for beneficiaries who reside in Mexico are transferred to the USCIS Mexico City International Field Office for further processing. The CDJ supplement does not publish an I-730 exception or CDJ jurisdictional boundary. Public primary sources therefore do not support the packet's general Mexico-resident I-730 routing premise to CDJ. Affected fields remain: routing_posture, pathway_layer.subcategories[i730_follow_to_join].description_en/es, context_layer.filing_venue_en/es, context_layer.nvc_routing_note_en/es, context_layer.stage_sequence[1], common_mistakes[0], checklist_stage3_questions[humanitarian.beneficiary_location], and checklist_stage3_questions[humanitarian.uscis_transfer_notice_received].
Mexico police-certificate renewal threshold (DOS HTML vs PDF)
Affects: diversity-consular-processing-ciudad-juarez, employment-based-consular-processing-ciudad-juarez, special-immigrant-consular-processing-ciudad-juarez
Still unresolved and now classified as unresolvable in desk research pending DOS reconciliation. Two current official Travel.State CDJ supplements conflict. The current Travel.State HTML supplement states that the renewal trigger applies when the prior police certificate was submitted to NVC more than one year ago. The current Travel.State CDJ PDF states that the trigger applies when the prior police certificate was submitted to NVC more than two years ago. Both sources are official DOS post supplements and both loaded in this session, so the DV packet must not state either threshold as settled.
Spotted something we missed?
If you have a primary-source URL (USCIS, DOS, NVC, CDC, or a country-TLD U.S. embassy domain) that resolves any of these conflicts, or if you spot a new conflict between official pages, please send it to us. We do not accept third-party blog posts, forum threads, or law-firm pages as resolution sources for this list.