Green card production after ELIS

[Jughead 3]

My wife's POE was Oct 6 via Toronto. She paid the immigration fee on the ELIS site on Sept 16. As of today (almost 9 weeks), still no green card or welcome letter.

The ELIS site never works when my wife tries to login, so we can't see if there are any status updates. It says she's entering an incorrect password even though she's using the one that she created when she paid the fee. She tried once to reset it and it gives you three security questions. She answered them, but the system said one of them was incorrect and if she answered incorrectly again the account would be locked. So she stopped trying.

Edited December 5, 2013 by Jughead

[NikLR 13,227]

My only suggestion would be to call the uscis and speak to a tier 2.

[Jughead 3]

My only suggestion would be to call the uscis and speak to a tier 2.

It's been about 3 weeks since we last called and spoke to a tier 2, so we'll try calling again. But do you think we should have received the green card by now?

[NikLR 13,227]

Nope. right now the green cards are taking 2+ months.

[Happytobe 164]

11/04 Visa issued and ELIS paid

11/12 POE

11/26 applied for SS#

12/02 uploaded identity docs on ELIS

12/03 Received SS card

12/05 IOE number can be used on USCIS tracking system "initial review" - states a letter was sent

ELIS site says optimized

Those are the points so far... I will post when further info is available. BTW this is a very useful thread, thanks guys!

Edited December 6, 2013 by Happytobe

[Jughead 3]

Just spoke to level 2 ISO this morning.

Regarding the green card: He said my wife is in the system but it wasn't showing her date of entry. He asked for the date and confirmed the address with me. He then sent an email to the Texas Service Center in Mesquite, TX where they produce the green cards. He took my email address and gave me a target reply date of Dec. 21. He said the system generates the date but it could take up to Jan 6 to get a response from Texas. What they will be able to tell me, I'm not sure...I think it is to confirm that they received the immigration papers. But he said if I don't get a response by then to call again.

Regarding ELIS: He was able to see that we made the payment. However, his system was not showing an IOE number. He was concerned about that and transferred me to ELIS. They were able to give me the IOE number and also reset my wife's password so she could log in.

When we log in under CASE STATUS for the Immigration Fee it is showing "accepted" (case summary just says payment submitted). It's not showing OPTIMIZED yet...status details says "application/petition has been accepted and pending review."

[Jughead 3]

One more thing... I just entered the IOE number in the USCIS case status check and it says our case cannot be found. Should I be concerned about this?

[NikLR 13,227]

11/04 Visa issued and ELIS paid

11/12 POE

11/26 applied for SS#

12/02 uploaded identity docs on ELIS

12/03 Received SS card

12/05 IOE number can be used on USCIS tracking system "initial review" - states a letter was sent

ELIS site says optimized

Those are the points so far... I will post when further info is available. BTW this is a very useful thread, thanks guys!

You should get a green card in at most a month... probably a week or two. I've never seen it take longer than 2 weeks to go from optimized to closed.

Just spoke to level 2 ISO this morning.

Regarding the green card: He said my wife is in the system but it wasn't showing her date of entry. He asked for the date and confirmed the address with me. He then sent an email to the Texas Service Center in Mesquite, TX where they produce the green cards. He took my email address and gave me a target reply date of Dec. 21. He said the system generates the date but it could take up to Jan 6 to get a response from Texas. What they will be able to tell me, I'm not sure...I think it is to confirm that they received the immigration papers. But he said if I don't get a response by then to call again.

Regarding ELIS: He was able to see that we made the payment. However, his system was not showing an IOE number. He was concerned about that and transferred me to ELIS. They were able to give me the IOE number and also reset my wife's password so she could log in.

When we log in under CASE STATUS for the Immigration Fee it is showing "accepted" (case summary just says payment submitted). It's not showing OPTIMIZED yet...status details says "application/petition has been accepted and pending review."

I'm glad you called them and got the IOE number. it's pretty normal for it not to show up in the USCIS case status check. I hope you hear back soon about what's going on. But I'm sure it's better to know what's going on. I'd keep checking the ELIS online and see if your IOE number shows up on there. Don't be afraid to call again to figure out what's going on by Dec 21 and then again after the holidays.

Edited December 6, 2013 by NLR

[Jughead 3]

I'm glad you called them and got the IOE number. it's pretty normal for it not to show up in the USCIS case status check. I hope you hear back soon about what's going on. But I'm sure it's better to know what's going on. I'd keep checking the ELIS online and see if your IOE number shows up on there. Don't be afraid to call again to figure out what's going on by Dec 21 and then again after the holidays.

Thanks. We'll keep checking ELIS. Hopefully it will get switched to Optimized soon.

One thing I forgot to mention... when I spoke to ELIS they told me that they didn't have my wife's address in their system. I know USCIS has it because the tier 2 ISO I spoke with beforehand confirmed our address. When we logged in to ELIS we saw it wasn't there so we updated her profile with it. Not sure if that's where they pull the address for the green card, but maybe it will help. We're moving in February, so we'd obviously like to have to the card come before then. I asked the ISO if we would get it by then. He said he can't make any guarantees, but we should have it before Feb.

[NikLR 13,227]

She should have it by then. But make sure to have your mail forwarded if she doesn't. I made sure to put my address in the ELIS site as well.

[Jughead 3]

She should have it by then. But make sure to have your mail forwarded if she doesn't. I made sure to put my address in the ELIS site as well.

Thanks, keeping my fingers crossed! If you have your mail forwarded, will the post office send the green card to the new address? I think I've seen on here a few mentions that they'll send it back to USCIS as undeliverable even if you change your address with the post office.

[Darnell 8,478]

No, alas.

However, if you shift to a 30 day mail-hold, instead, and if it shows up inside those 30 days, you've some hope.

USPS returns USCIS postal mail when a forward order is in place, back to USCIS, mostly. It's supposed to be returned. If it's not returned, and actually forwarded, that's the fault of that local USPS station.

[calygirl75 12]

Great thread!

I called the USCIS and they said there is a 45 day wait for the GC.

Here is where we are at:

10/07/13: Interview Date

10/14/13: Visa Issued/Pick Up

10/29/13: Case Received Date (E-file)

11/26/13: POE - Tampa

12/3/13: Elis Fee Paid (Status Detail: Your application/petition has been accepted and is pending review.)

12/7/13: SSN Arrived in Mail

[veronicavonn 7]

A week and a half later, and still no Green Card. ELIS still says Optimized.

Only other kind of good news is that my husband received a letter in the mail yesterday from the SSA saying "Thanks for applying for your SSN Card on 11/21/13. You should receive your card within two weeks. If you don't, please call our office."

Let's just note that 11/21/13 was the THIRD time he applied for the card.

The first time applied was in Germany, when I checked the box on his application saying he wanted it. It seems that was never processed.

The second time he applied was in October at a local SSA office. The clerk put the wrong information in the computer and messed it up.

The third time was 11/21/13.

Edited December 14, 2013 by veronicavonn

[Darnell 8,478]

If you need the SSNumber, go back to that SSA office, they'll give it to him.