Email confirmation, but no NOA1

[Ciyin 1]

I received an email from USCIS on January 12 confirming that my application had arrived and was being sent to the California Service Center. Since then I have not gotten any physical mail. The email said I would receive an "Form I-797" but nothing has come.

I'm afraid they tried to send it to my address in China and it got lost along the way. The address line on the forms didn't allow me to type in the full address for my university in China, so while it should be able to get to the university (in theory), I'm not sure what the mail would do with it at that point.

[Ciyin 1]

I realized there was't really a question in that post.

How long does it usually take to receive the NOA1 in the mail? Can you still get it while living abroad?

If it did get lost, any suggestions on what my next step should be?

[Darnell 8,478]

IMO - the receipt notice is not so needed.

What you need to watch out for, though - is the approval notice, that NOA-2, the 2nd I-797C.

You'll need that months down the road when filing for Adjustment of Status.

re: the address in China - goodness! if in pinyin - you think it will get delivered? did you give COMPLETE pinyin address, or just what would fit in the text box on the form ?

Suggest you write to ncsc-customerconnect@uscis.dhs.gov via email,

giving your bio info and her bio info in the email,

and inquire about the mailing of the I-797c, receipt notice address, also giving some address in China, and ultimately, giving some address in USA that will accept postal mail for you without it being marked 'return to sender - addressee unknown here' .

Sorry, I wish I had other paths to suggest.

[vbtwo 54]

I realized there was't really a question in that post.

How long does it usually take to receive the NOA1 in the mail? Can you still get it while living abroad?

If it did get lost, any suggestions on what my next step should be?

In the US it takes about a week. They send it regular mail, not priority or express, so it might take about a month or so to get to places overseas, if they even sent it to the correct address.

[Ciyin 1]

IMO - the receipt notice is not so needed.

What you need to watch out for, though - is the approval notice, that NOA-2, the 2nd I-797C.

You'll need that months down the road when filing for Adjustment of Status.

re: the address in China - goodness! if in pinyin - you think it will get delivered? did you give COMPLETE pinyin address, or just what would fit in the text box on the form ?

Suggest you write to ncsc-customerconnect@uscis.dhs.gov via email,

giving your bio info and her bio info in the email,

and inquire about the mailing of the I-797c, receipt notice address, also giving some address in China, and ultimately, giving some address in USA that will accept postal mail for you without it being marked 'return to sender - addressee unknown here' .

Sorry, I wish I had other paths to suggest.

I tried sending an email to that USCIS address, but haven't gotten any response. Is that an address for general help? I found an address for the California Service Center and sent the same email to them; hopefully that'll get a response. I know the first notification isn't all that important, but I'm freaking out now so that we can fix it before later notifications can be lost.

The address was written in pinyin, which is the problem: there was just too much information to put in that one space because of the length of my address. I was only able to include the street number and name of my university; I'm not sure if that's enough for it to reach me, because there are some 20,000 people at my university using that same address and I don't think the people in the mail room really care if mail doesn't get to the right person.

[Darnell 8,478]

since you know the receipt #,

You can also call into USCIS (when they are open), get a Tier 2 Human, an ISO,

and go over this stuff with them.