Application denied - please help!

[Yodrak 7]

susanhull

Which USCIS facility is the "them" that you informed by mail? AR-11 only, or did you also mail an address change to the facilities that were involved with your I-485 application?

Which USCIS facility sent you the confirmation letter?

Agreed, USCIS does not do a good job of getting new information into case files.

Yodrak

Have you changed your address while in the AOS process and notified USCIS about that? If so, they more likely mixed up the addresses. If not and you are still living at the same address, then USCIS is mixed up itself. Wish you the best of luck.

USCIS is definitely completely mixed up. We moved back in January and informed them by mail and phone, and got a confirmation letter back then confirming the address change. We got the denial letter to the correct address, but it seems more than likely that they sent the interview letter either to the old address or never sent it at all. If only they knew how much they affected people's lives they may be a little more careful about processing.....

[lisa71 0]

susan, the exact same thing happened to us in June. I received a letter from USCIS, thinking it was the notice for the interview I was thrilled to open the letter. WRONG! It was a notice denying our AOS. I was devastated when I read the letter, especially the part about having to leave the country immediately. Here's what we did:

1. Made an Infopass appointment.

2. Had a very frustrating 6 hours in the San Frnacisco district office.

3. Filed the motion to re-open that afternoon.

4. About 2 and a half weeks later we received a letter stating that our case had been re-opened. We are still waiting for a letter about our interview.

5. As the district office has stuffed with the interview letter already, we made infopass appointments for two weeks after we received notice that the case had been re-opened. That way if the letter goes missing again, we hope not to miss the interview.

Susan, it's upsetting, scary and bloody frustrating. However, it's not the end of your process and I am pretty sure that once you file the motion, pay more $$$$ ($385) and wait, you will have your case re-opened.

Sorry to hear about your EAD, the same happened with mine. I still don't know if having the case re-opened means that my EAD is now valid again. I plan to ask them later this week at our Infopass appointment.

Good luck!

Lisa

[patti 0]

Susan - at anytime prior to receiving the denial letter were you checking the status of your case online at the USCIS website and if so, had the status ever changed from the original receipt being received?

I ask this because after reading your post I got scared about my own case. Our receipt date is 12/22/05 - we have never received an RFE or an interview letter, but USCIS shows that the Kansas City office is now working on applications with a receipt date of 1/5/06. It seems they skipped our application so now I am paranoid about what if they sent a letter we never received. I have also noted from the timelines that two other people going through the Kansas City office with receipt dates very near ours have already had their interviews back in May and June.

Our status on the USCIS website has never changed - our date last updated is still 12/23/05. I just was wondering if one can assume that if the case status information hasn't changed, no letter of any kind has been sent.

Sorry for your difficulties. This process sure isn't for the faint hearted!

Patti

[lisa71 0]

patti, I don't know about susan, but I checked our online status every single day. I still do. The notice has not changed once since the first time I read it:

"Your I485 Application to Register Permanent Residence or to Adjust Status was received on January 13, 2006. We will mail you a decision as soon as processing is complete. You can use our processing dates to estimate when this case will be done. Follow the the link below for current processing dates."

[ncan 0]

Hi Susan..I'm sorry to hear about your situation but from other cases that I've read/heard about, if you file to re-open, it should be ok. Do this ASAP. It just will unfortunately take more time for your case to be completed.

I do have a question for you pertaining the letter that you received. You said that it basically told you to that you have to leave the country immediately. Did it give you a number of days? or tell you to leave voluntarily? or talk about removal proceedings?

My girlfriend who just divorced received an interview letter and will not go the interview with her soon to be ex-husband and I was wondering about the wording in the denial letter that you received.

thanks and good luck.

[nyc 0]

As far as i remember a similar story happened to Anastasia.

She filed everything again and I think got 2 interview dates...

Don't worry, everything'll be alright, it will just cost you more money unfortunately...

[susanhull 0]

This is the situation now....

On Monday, we tried phoning lawyer after lawyer with no luck. So we decided to go to the Garden City office (in NY) where the denial letter came from, to see if anything could be done there. They told us to fill out an inquiry sheet, and the very helpful lady (unheard of in USCIS!) told us that the time it would take to re-open would depend on where my file was and when it could be intercepted. Apparently it had been sent to the NYC office, and if they could stop it there before it was sent to storage it could be re-opened in 30-90 days.

Then we got in touch with our local congressmans office, who were also very helpful and told us to fax a letter and a copy of the denial letter to their office and they'd follow it up and try and have a response in 6-8 weeks. Eventually got in touch with one of the lawyers I'd been recommended and went to see him on Tuesday.

The lawyer basically said we had 2 options - either to re-file everything (pay all the fees etc but immediately have a pending case and all the benefits that offers, ie advanced parole, EAD) or to file to have it re-opened, kind of what we'd done on Monday already. He suggested we write a letter entitled "service motion to re-open" and submit it at the garden city office and new york city office. He said this was an informal way of asking them to re-open it (as it was their mistake) and there was no fee with it. However, until the case is re-opened I am pretty much illegal here, but apparently once you are married to a US citizen they would never deport you, only tell you that you must apply to adjust status. Unofficially he did also say that i can continue to work here, that it's not illegal for me to work even with a revoked EAD, but the only problem is that if they don't re-open my case by January (when my EAD expires) I won't be able to re-apply then. This was some peace of mind as I was dreading having to give up my job.

So today, we took a letter to Garden City + sent one certified mail to New york city (inc the denial letter and my notice saying they'd received my address change).

USCIS 'touched' my case on the 15 May 06, now I know this must have been when they invited me for interview, but I don't think there would have been any way to find out if I had an interview other than to call the actual office where they'd scheduled it, as the USCIS toll free no certainly didn't know anything about it. I'd assumed that I'd be waiting much longer anyway as the current processing dates for New York City are posted on the internet as processing from cases submitted in Jan 05 (I submitted mine Oct 05).

Sorry about this long post, but hopefully this will help out anyone else who's in this horrible, and unfortunately far too common, situation.

Susan

[Yodrak 7]

susan,

Notice in response to your AR-11?

AR-11 does not update your address for any open cases that may be pending before the USCIS. That must be done by calling the NCSC. And for added (but not guaranteed) assurance that the address will be updated, by notifying the USCIS offices handling the cases directly.

Yodrak

This is the situation now....

....

So today, we took a letter to Garden City + sent one certified mail to New york city (inc the denial letter and my notice saying they'd received my address change).

....

Susan

[susanhull 0]

I'd completed AR11 and telephoned in the change. The confirmation letter for the change was for my active cases. It's not really an issue with my case as they clearly have my current address as that's where the letter of denial was mailed, certified mail!

[TracyTN 237]

Bless your heart, Susan! What a mess (and one not caused by you)! Thanks for the frequent updates - keep them coming and good luck!

[Debby 0]

Susan,

My heart goes out to you and your husband. This immigration process is so hard on everyone going through it. I hope that you are able to get everything sorted out. Best of luck.

Debby

[Yodrak 7]

susanhull,

Got it now, thanks for clearing it up.

Yodrak

I'd completed AR11 and telephoned in the change. The confirmation letter for the change was for my active cases. It's not really an issue with my case as they clearly have my current address as that's where the letter of denial was mailed, certified mail!