Denied and 2 weeks later RFE!

[madss 0]

My husband has a record of two crimes that happened twenty and thirty years ago, one 'theft from a vehicle' and one Grevious Bodily Harm without intent. These happened in the UK. Our waiver application for an I-601 was turned down because they said that the GBH charge was a crime of violence and we would need extraordinary hardship which we didn't show. Our new attorney believes there is some grey area here, so we were planning on reapplying. Yesterday I received an email saying they have sent me a letter requesting evidence. I checked on the online status and it no longer says decision reached/denied, it now says 'request for evidence!' Has anyone ever heard of this happening before? Our waiver went from Montreal, to Vermont to Nebraska, I believe we were one of the first cases to be looked at in Nebraska, I don't know if that's relevant. We are waiting for that letter! Should be here within a week. Anyone ever heard of a denial followed two weeks later by an RFE?

Thanks,

Madss

[Penguin_ie 5,993]

I have not heard of this, but I have heard of "false rfes", where the online status changed for no reason, and no letter was ever received. So unfortunately, I wouldn't get my hopes up. Call them tomorrow and see if you can find out anything, and also call the lawyer- maybe he filed an appeal rather than re-file?

[madss 0]

Our lawyer says it's a mistake, and the person I spoke to at USCIS says it's not a mistake, that they are reconsidering. She says they sent the letter on the 4th. I tried calling the USCIS back but they closed the phone line half an hour early! And my husband won't be home tomorrow and I need him here for the USCIS to talk to me. This is driving me insane. Who do we think is right, our lawyer who says it's just a mistake, or the USCIS help line who says they are sending an RFE?

[trojam227 18]

It may not be a mistake. Some waivers do get forwarded to DHS for the final say..if they issued an RFE that means they are giving you a chance to submit what they are asking for. I refer to this manual every now & again and it makes reference to transfering cases to DHS in Nebraska...I think you have one last shot but they probably gave you a tight timeframe to work with right?

http://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=22481

Edited June 7, 2012 by trojam227

[madss 0]

Our decision, our denial, came out of Nebraska, that place where they're sending all the I601s these days I think. When I called the USCIS help line, they put me through to the 'second tier' operator. She saw the denial, and she saw the RFE too on the computer. Our lawyer may have thought that only the RFE showed on the record, and that would indicate that someone pushed the wrong button when entering info. We have not received any letter, just the email saying that they sent the RFE on June 4th. The thing is, we got a letter of Denial, flat out no. Our lawyer says that the status would say something like 'mocion' or something like that, indicating it had been reopened.

I was told 7 years ago I could never have children, and I have a beautiful baby boy, 15 months. He was a surprise! So I'm hoping for the impossible here, that we have another chance. If not, we're reapplying. We have lawyered up. But gad, have to get all the court records again.

@trojam227, was your husband from the UK with a GBH charge? Or was that someone else. My husband had a GBH charge, without intent, 22 years ago and that's the kicker here. Thank you so much for writing back, I"m really kinda sweating it out here.

It may not be a mistake. Some waivers do get forwarded to DHS for the final say..if they issued an RFE that means they are giving you a chance to submit what they are asking for. I refer to this manual every now & again and it makes reference to transfering cases to DHS in Nebraska...I think you have one last shot but they probably gave you a tight timeframe to work with right?

http://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=22481

[trojam227 18]

Yes that's us! GBH sec20...12 mos probation. No weapon-misdemeanor (and I have to convince them to use UK caselaw to determine this) Did your husband interview in Montreal?

Congratulations on your baby! I hope you have another shot at this one, but definitely refile if not. We are having trouble diging up the old court records (we got the acpo & moc but the magistrates court said they can't go back any further than 1996 I believe) were your records archived somewhere?

[madss 0]

I got the Acpo but the crimes were in 82 and 92 so I doubt there are any court transcripts as it was also in magistrates court. We did interview in Montreal. We knew we would have to get an I601 so we had our poor not good enough i601 ready to give them. we already had a lawyer, he just wasn't up to doing the i601 and we found out the hard way.

Our new lawyer is positive the RFE is some kinda record keeping accident. She says the help line is a bunch of bull and they don't know anymore than we can see on the online tracking system. I refuse to believe that, but she's been doing these wavers almost exclusively for a long time.

We only submitted the acpo files, no other court docs. I mean, what can you do if it's a million years ago. And if we need to refile I have to get those get official ones all over again, and the police certificate and try again to dig up court records which I'm sure are nowhere to be found. I've read all about what GBH under section 20 implies, and it's not nearly as bad as it sounds.

Do you have a lawyer? Are you in the UK?

Yes that's us! GBH sec20...12 mos probation. No weapon-misdemeanor (and I have to convince them to use UK caselaw to determine this) Did your husband interview in Montreal?

Congratulations on your baby! I hope you have another shot at this one, but definitely refile if not. We are having trouble diging up the old court records (we got the acpo & moc but the magistrates court said they can't go back any further than 1996 I believe) were your records archived somewhere?

[trojam227 18]

And that's why an attorney familiar with uk law is so important. They probably hit your husband with an inadmissiblity for violent & dangerous crime in addition to CIMT right? Now your lawyer has to argue both. I am forseeing that happening to us also, but I am arguing that in the waiver backing it up with evidence. Anyone who can google would know that any GBH tried in the Magistrates court on summary conviction holds a max sentence of 6 mos. or a fine/community order. I love they way the INA groups GBH in with offenses like Murder???? It is the equivalent of Assault in the US (in summary cases).

Let us know what happens...I would call the uscis field office that decided your waiver. Insist on speaking to the officer in charge because of the error they made sending out an RFE.

[madss 0]

that's exactly what happened! Our lawyer was in no way up to this, infact he quit on his own when we were denied. We hire Laurel Scott, she seems to be Miss I601, and she will research the charge. I've stayed up nights doing the same thing, I know more about GBH without intent under section 20 than I ever needed too! So now we have to pay a bunch of money, again, and wait probably a year by the time I get all the stuff she needs, she files and we get an answer. I feel really sad about this. I know it could be a lot worse, but I want to go home but I can't if it means leaving my husband and separating my husband from his baby son.

[trojam227 18]

Laurel is supposed to be great! Expensive but worth it from what I have heard. My husband is in london & I'm in NY and we are on our 4th year of living on different continents...I don't really want a 5th. That's good that you guys are together for the baby, but probably makes proving extreme hardship, hard. Did you call the field office?

[madss 0]

I can't find any way to call them. The 800 number folks are useless. Our congressperson's aide got our I601 expedited (nice to get a denied so fast,) and she has emailed them to find out what is going on. Hopefully they'll get back to her. All I've been told is wait two weeks and if you don't get a letter, then it was a mistake. Gad. Yes Laurel isn't cheap, but she feels she has an 80% chance of getting it changed. We were struck down on the hardship thing because it just wasn't put together right, but my mom is over 80 and has had cancer twice, my dad has alzheimers and I'm their only kid. They need help, there's no other family. We had a letter from a psych saying separating the baby from his dad could traumatize the baby. They didn't seem to care about that, they said we didn't have enough hardship. however since we were struck with the violent crime thing it wouldn't matter, we'd never have enough hardship. Laurel thinks it's the crime that's the problem, not the hardship. We'll see. Ugh. ugh ugh ugh. Unfortunately my Dad is now so ill I don't know if he'll be around much longer. when it rains it pours. When did you submit your waiver package? Oh, and Laurel says even though we were told our case was expedite, we got the answer in a month, it was really because we were 'test cases' at the Nebraska center. why don't we do an email exchange. How should we do that?

madeleine

Edited June 8, 2012 by madss

[trojam227 18]

We haven't even had the interview yet. June 29. But I have been working on the waiver for a while now and will have it ready to mail to lock-box directly after. I am not sure how I feel about the new processing because I had heard that London has a high approval rate for urgent medical hardships and that is what our waiver is mainly focused on. Not sure how Nebraska will view our case. I will pm my email to you..

[madss 0]

I've emailed you a couple of time but havent' heard back, which could mean a couple of things. Our lawyer is hiring a UK lawyer to write an opinion on the GBH situation. This leads me to wonder, hope etc. is this british lawyer the right one to hire? She says that GBH is rarely tried in the magistrates court, but I wonder if that is true since you're in the same situation. Have you worked with a UK attorney? Do you have one to recommend.

Madeleine

We haven't even had the interview yet. June 29. But I have been working on the waiver for a while now and will have it ready to mail to lock-box directly after. I am not sure how I feel about the new processing because I had heard that London has a high approval rate for urgent medical hardships and that is what our waiver is mainly focused on. Not sure how Nebraska will view our case. I will pm my email to you..

[madss 0]

Our supposed RFE was just another copy of our letter of denial. So we're refiling with a good attorney, here we go again. We're using Laurel Scott, she says we have a good shot.

[trojam227 18]

Steven Heller is who I emailed you about..if anyone knows a thing about UK Law & US Immigration, he's the one. Laurel Scott is at the top of the waiver expert list so I think you are in good shape using these guys. Keep us posted on your progress and I'll be sharing our experience from interview next week to waiver decision. We have difficult cases so if others can learn something from us then all the better!