Change of address fiasco

[LB & PC 0]

My husband (the non-USC) and I sent off our AOS packet on June 17th. We naively assumed that since it was a separate application from the I-129F that we could fill out the application with our new address and all would be fine. We received email notification that our NOA1 was returned back to them. This was on June 30th. We called the service center and updated our address and filled out the AR-11 form with our new address.

A few days later, we receive a duplicate copy of our NOA1 in our mailbox. The cover letter with our new address was correct, and made it to our post, however, the updated address on our NOA was correct save for the zip code had not been updated. This wasn't brought to our attention until August 16th or so, when I had been impatiently waiting for the biometrics appointment letter to show up. I called the service center and had been informed we missed our biometrics appointment.

Long story short, after speaking with several officers, some more helpful than others, they all agreed that it was an error by USCIS and unfortunately, not much can be done because they had already filled out a Change of Address request and could not do another one for another 30 days.

One officer finally told us that our new biometrics appointment was scheduled for the 6th of September. I had to do a bit of researching just to find the address of the place we need to go to for our appointment.

All of these errors has cost us an additional two months in wait time. We're in no rush for Paul's GC, we just really need his work authorisation to come through so we can start our lives back up. Now I'm worried after we do the biometrics on Tuesday, we won't receive anything further in the mail.

Any suggestions on how I can get USCIS to send us our mail??

Edited September 4, 2011 by LB & PC

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

No idea how to help. You're dealing with a massive bureaucratic machine that only accepts round pegs, and you gave them a square one. There have been numerous cases here on VJ where the couple properly filed their change of address, and it still didn't get processed correctly by USCIS. This has happened so many times that I recommend to people not to file their AOS until they are firmly planted at their current address, and don't expect to be moving for at least the next six months.

Sorry.

[VanessaTony 3,567]

Any suggestions on how I can get USCIS to send us our mail??

When you go to the biometrics appointment take your copy of the AR-11 showing the CORRECT address that you changed it to and they should be able to alter it on the system there. I would probably also take the original NOA1 with the old address, and the new NOA1 with the updated but wrong address. So you can show them that it's a USCIS error. You shouldn't have any issues after that.. in theory of course because sometimes you just never know with USCIS.

[VanessaTony 3,567]

No idea how to help. You're dealing with a massive bureaucratic machine that only accepts round pegs, and you gave them a square one. There have been numerous cases here on VJ where the couple properly filed their change of address, and it still didn't get processed correctly by USCIS. This has happened so many times that I recommend to people not to file their AOS until they are firmly planted at their current address, and don't expect to be moving for at least the next six months.

Sorry.

Agreed. This is why Tony and I didn't file my AOS until April 2010 when we had moved back to Iowa and had a permanent and "safe" address to mail stuff to. Even though it was the in-laws (and we'd be moving to our own place eventually) I would still be able to get mail if and when we moved and USCIS didn't correctly change my address on the system. This is also why if you're planning on moving, but staying around the same area, a PO Box is a great idea (pointless for us moving from Texas to Iowa )