What happens if you don't get RFE in mail?

[lucybelle 453]

My husband and I will be submitting our I130 package within the next week. I (US cit) live with him in Costa Rica and I am out of my mind crazy worried about an RFE. I rent a PO box here, but have never received any of the mail sent to it. So I'm super freaked out that if we get an RFE the hard copy will never make it.

What happens if that happens? If we get an RFE and it never makes it?

I'm doing my best to avoid it- I'm checking over every single form to make sure everything is filled out. We still need to get our pictures, but I'm bringing the specifications with us to make sure 100% they are okay. I'm also going to front load with lots of picture evidence (I'm thinking 30), our (translated) lease together, receipts from large purchases, maybe a few bank statements showing my paycheck being deposited into his account.

I'm just freaking out that I'll miss something, they'll send an RFE and it will never arrive. Then we'll be in some sort of visa limbo FOREVER.

I'm insane.

Can anyone tell me what happens if the hard copy RFE doesn't and never will make it?

[oohpartiv 484]

This happened to me, and I didn't even find out we'd been issued an RFE until months later - it happened in September, and I found out about it in December. Basically I had to change my address from my actual address in Ecuador to my Dad's stateside address. Everything got to his house fine and he just called me whenever anything from USCIS arrived. Instead of putting your foreign address, you could just put a stateside one. Maybe your parents'?

[NikLR 13,230]

Unless the mail is unreliable where you live, I would keep a foreign address. Often with a non-US address the petition stays at the NBC vs being routed to a local office. NBC itself tends to be faster than the local offices.

[lucybelle 453]

Unless the mail is unreliable where you live, I would keep a foreign address. Often with a non-US address the petition stays at the NBC vs being routed to a local office. NBC itself tends to be faster than the local offices.

That was the point of my post. The mail is very unreliable in my country. I wanted to keep my foreign address so that we get expedited but I wanted to know what would happen if we got an RFE and it never got delivered.

[NikLR 13,230]

You can change your address later if you find out you've been issued an RFE as well. What makes you think you may get an RFE?

[lucybelle 453]

You can change your address later if you find out you've been issued an RFE as well. What makes you think you may get an RFE?

Okay that's nice to know I can change my address later.

I hope I'm not going to get an RFE, but when I go through and read the "stupid RFE" thread it makes me worried I'll somehow miss something somewhere. Or they'll carelessly lose something. I normally wouldn't be this worried but because of the poor mail system here it worries me a lot.

Thanks!

[N-o-l-a 7,168]

I changed my address mid process and it relieved me because I knew I would get the RFEs. As of this week it still seems my address is America (our recent letters from hartford were sent to my mother). But, this is how it may go if you get an uninformed field office:

You are at NBC in the auto-expedite queue and maybe you'll be approved in under 40 days -> you change your address to the US -> you are out of the auto-expedite queue and sent to a field office -> field office gets the indication that you are still abroad and they don't know what to do about it -> they send your I-130 to the embassy and no one seems to know how to handle it

Either way, if you get a RFE and don't get it, it will add maybe months or if you end up how we did it will add months. I'm not sure what the solution is.

Edited February 23, 2013 by Nola123

[Roosha 51]

Keep your address as abroad, do NOT change it. Two months after you send in your petition call in to USCIS and ask about your case status, specifically if you've been issued an RFE or where your case file is etc. Do this every two weeks or every month. That way, IF you get issued an RFE you'll know about it fairly quickly and then act on that information while not loosing too much time.

[AnhDoiEm 9]

what ever comes it will come.. you just need to relax and deal with the matter when it comes. No need to worry about, and make you all stretch out.

[Roosha 51]

Oh, and I TOTALLY forgot to say: under no circumstances should you forget to include Form G-1145 so that they have your email. That's how I got my NOA1, once I had that I then registered on the uscis website for email updates. I also registered my sister's cell for text updates, but we got both at the same time. Our mail is horrid here too.