September 2015 AOS Filers

[Danielle and Jake 24]

So we filed my wife's AOS packet on September 1st, and according to their mapping, our USCIS office was supposed to be St. Paul, MN, but we got our Biometrics appointment in Milwaukee, WI (which was better because it's closer), but that confused us because why would they make us report to one that isn't the one our corresponding area reports to?

Regardless, had our Biometrics appointment September 30th, all went well, and we received her EAD/AP combo card on November 12th (so it took roughly 2 months for that to process).

Other than that, our AOS, the latest online status hasn't changed since September, as it's still "Fingerprint Fee Received" (which I am told is normal). We haven't had any RFEs or anything like that to complicate our case, but we haven't heard anything from them since getting the EAD/AP.

Looking at the USCIS processing times for that field office, as of January 31st, 2015, they were processing AOS applications from August 1st, 2015. Just assuming this is linear (which I probably shouldn't assume for this stuff), it's been 2 months since their last update, which was for applications only a month prior to ours, so we should be up anytime, right?

I have heard that often K-1 often have interviews waived, which I am hoping for because yeah, that'd be nice, but I am just getting nervous and nervous every day because mapping out the processing times on their sites, I feel like we should have heard something by now, at least a "Notice of Potential Interview Waiver", but nope, nothing.

My main worries are because in late May / early June, my wife and I plan to head back to my hometown (for about 6-7 days) for my niece's high school graduation, which means a lot to her that we are there, and my hometown is a 6-7 hour drive. For our Biometrics appointment we only had like a 10 day notice until our appointment, so that's why I am worried that we'll get some letter while we are gone, and the case status site won't report it (which I am told that case status site is not very useful / reliable), and we could miss our interview if we have one. The other issue with that is you need to bring stuff to the interview with you, right? Like we could head to my hometown with most of that, and if we found out, book it to the field office (which is 4 hours away from my hometown, as the city is on the way), but you need to bring the letter with you, so we'd have to drive 6 hours back, grab the letter, then another 2.5 to the field office, all on a whim, should that be the case.

I know that's not likely, and they are supposed to give you at least 2 weeks notice of an interview, it just sucks because it forces me to take days off work on a whim, which I feel is disrespectful and unprofessional toward my co-workers, but fortunately my manager has gone through the immigration process with himself and his family, so he is extremely sympathetic, kind, and understanding with this process, and assures me it's no issue to take work off on short notice for that. Still, I feel guilty to some extent.

So lets say we go on our trip late May / early June, still don't hear anything, and we come back. My wife's father is offering us a late wedding present / honeymoon back in her hometown in Canada, and it means a lot to my wife that we accept and go because it will allow her to see many people in her family again as well. Thing is, we are hoping to do that in mid-to-late July, and her hometown is about 13 hours driving from where we live. So the same worries occur with this should we not have an interview by then, in addition to just the anxiety plaguing my head with traveling with her AP card.

I know their shouldn't be any issues with coming back into the U.S. since she has her AP card, and many have told me since her Canadian passport is in her maiden name, and her EAD/AP, Wisconsin State ID, SSN are all in her married name, we should tuck away our marriage certificate with us during travel to "connect the dots" regarding that, which I guess is a common practice for people in our situation.I've heard we'd get pulled into secondary, which worries me because when we entered on her K-!, we pretty much sat for 30-45 minutes while 5 officers tried to figure our how to process it. None of them had any idea what to do (one even said "I haven't done one of these in 5 years), and it took the 5th guy to walk over with a little book telling them step by step what to do, so that's where some of my worry stems from is because re-entry isn't guaranteed with AP, and it's up to the discretion of the officer. I mean obviously we have nothing to hide, so we shouldn't be worried, but between all of this, and the horrid experience at the SSA office getting her SSN (the lady just sat back, shook her head over and over saying "it won't work, she can't get one", and I handed her a piece of paper from their site with the section highlighted showing my wife's qualifying category, to which she got pissed and said "I'll try it, but it won't work", and 5 minutes later she said "should be there in 2 weeks, have a nice day"), my faith in the system is getting lower and lower.

Well rants over, sorry about that, but sometimes I just need to get that off my chest. But yeah, regarding our timeline, anyone have any advice, comfort, etc.?

Thanks in advance, this place has been such a lifesaver during this process.

[ameribrazil 37]

So we filed my wife's AOS packet on September 1st, and according to their mapping, our USCIS office was supposed to be St. Paul, MN, but we got our Biometrics appointment in Milwaukee, WI (which was better because it's closer), but that confused us because why would they make us report to one that isn't the one our corresponding area reports to?

Regardless, had our Biometrics appointment September 30th, all went well, and we received her EAD/AP combo card on November 12th (so it took roughly 2 months for that to process).

Other than that, our AOS, the latest online status hasn't changed since September, as it's still "Fingerprint Fee Received" (which I am told is normal). We haven't had any RFEs or anything like that to complicate our case, but we haven't heard anything from them since getting the EAD/AP.

Looking at the USCIS processing times for that field office, as of January 31st, 2015, they were processing AOS applications from August 1st, 2015. Just assuming this is linear (which I probably shouldn't assume for this stuff), it's been 2 months since their last update, which was for applications only a month prior to ours, so we should be up anytime, right?

I have heard that often K-1 often have interviews waived, which I am hoping for because yeah, that'd be nice, but I am just getting nervous and nervous every day because mapping out the processing times on their sites, I feel like we should have heard something by now, at least a "Notice of Potential Interview Waiver", but nope, nothing.

My main worries are because in late May / early June, my wife and I plan to head back to my hometown (for about 6-7 days) for my niece's high school graduation, which means a lot to her that we are there, and my hometown is a 6-7 hour drive. For our Biometrics appointment we only had like a 10 day notice until our appointment, so that's why I am worried that we'll get some letter while we are gone, and the case status site won't report it (which I am told that case status site is not very useful / reliable), and we could miss our interview if we have one. The other issue with that is you need to bring stuff to the interview with you, right? Like we could head to my hometown with most of that, and if we found out, book it to the field office (which is 4 hours away from my hometown, as the city is on the way), but you need to bring the letter with you, so we'd have to drive 6 hours back, grab the letter, then another 2.5 to the field office, all on a whim, should that be the case.

I know that's not likely, and they are supposed to give you at least 2 weeks notice of an interview, it just sucks because it forces me to take days off work on a whim, which I feel is disrespectful and unprofessional toward my co-workers, but fortunately my manager has gone through the immigration process with himself and his family, so he is extremely sympathetic, kind, and understanding with this process, and assures me it's no issue to take work off on short notice for that. Still, I feel guilty to some extent.

So lets say we go on our trip late May / early June, still don't hear anything, and we come back. My wife's father is offering us a late wedding present / honeymoon back in her hometown in Canada, and it means a lot to my wife that we accept and go because it will allow her to see many people in her family again as well. Thing is, we are hoping to do that in mid-to-late July, and her hometown is about 13 hours driving from where we live. So the same worries occur with this should we not have an interview by then, in addition to just the anxiety plaguing my head with traveling with her AP card.

I know their shouldn't be any issues with coming back into the U.S. since she has her AP card, and many have told me since her Canadian passport is in her maiden name, and her EAD/AP, Wisconsin State ID, SSN are all in her married name, we should tuck away our marriage certificate with us during travel to "connect the dots" regarding that, which I guess is a common practice for people in our situation.I've heard we'd get pulled into secondary, which worries me because when we entered on her K-!, we pretty much sat for 30-45 minutes while 5 officers tried to figure our how to process it. None of them had any idea what to do (one even said "I haven't done one of these in 5 years), and it took the 5th guy to walk over with a little book telling them step by step what to do, so that's where some of my worry stems from is because re-entry isn't guaranteed with AP, and it's up to the discretion of the officer. I mean obviously we have nothing to hide, so we shouldn't be worried, but between all of this, and the horrid experience at the SSA office getting her SSN (the lady just sat back, shook her head over and over saying "it won't work, she can't get one", and I handed her a piece of paper from their site with the section highlighted showing my wife's qualifying category, to which she got pissed and said "I'll try it, but it won't work", and 5 minutes later she said "should be there in 2 weeks, have a nice day"), my faith in the system is getting lower and lower.

Well rants over, sorry about that, but sometimes I just need to get that off my chest. But yeah, regarding our timeline, anyone have any advice, comfort, etc.?

Thanks in advance, this place has been such a lifesaver during this process.

Danielle and Jake - that was a looooooooonnnnnnggg rant But, honestly, I feel your pain as my wife filed her AOS back in Sept2015. She did receive an RFE asking for our tax return but we sent that back within days from receiving the RFE notice. My wife did receive her AP/EAD but unfortunately no status on her GC as of yet. Our local Field Office is in Newark, NJ and they recently updated their Processing Dates. As of January 31, 2016 they are processing I-485 dated March 29, 2015 which means they are about 9 months behind. Our attorney said our case has been forwarded to Newark FO and we just have to wait it out. There's really not much we can do at this point. We're hoping we get some type of notice or acknowledgement that they are working on our case. We'll keep you posted if we get any traction on our case. Hang in there!

[nolee 7]

After long wait and no status updates where our case is we finally got the interview letter in the mail. I sent out an online service request for case being outside normal processing times on March 26 and our interview letter was sent out on March 30. I don't know if the service request helped or they just finally got to our case. It seemed like our case was all over the place. Local office should be St Paul, MN. Automated phone said Lee Summit, MO, and our RFE came from Guam from all places!

Peace of mind finally getting an update on our progress. I hope soon other will hear something too!

[Danielle and Jake 24]

Danielle and Jake - that was a looooooooonnnnnnggg rant But, honestly, I feel your pain as my wife filed her AOS back in Sept2015. She did receive an RFE asking for our tax return but we sent that back within days from receiving the RFE notice. My wife did receive her AP/EAD but unfortunately no status on her GC as of yet. Our local Field Office is in Newark, NJ and they recently updated their Processing Dates. As of January 31, 2016 they are processing I-485 dated March 29, 2015 which means they are about 9 months behind. Our attorney said our case has been forwarded to Newark FO and we just have to wait it out. There's really not much we can do at this point. We're hoping we get some type of notice or acknowledgement that they are working on our case. We'll keep you posted if we get any traction on our case. Hang in there!

Thanks for the good vibes, and yeah, sorry about the rant. Our scare is just those planned trips are around when a potential interview could take place, and while we wouldn't be gone for more than a week, it's scary knowing the online status functionality isn't all that reliable. Also I have read that you never, ever want to try to reschedule an interview unless it's a true emergency. So like I don't know what to think. The clear thing to do would be to not travel until the interview, but like in May, for my niece's graduation, that's not necessarily something we can control, it's either we go or don't. And that trip is 6 days, and they SHOULD give at least 2 weeks notice, so it shouldn't be an issue, but as stated earlier, we only had 10 days notice for our Biometrics.

Edited April 5, 2016 by Danielle and Jake

[The415 5]

I had my interview on Monday and i was approved!!! finally!

the status online changed after the interview into : a new card is being produced....

but i checked the following day and i found that it changed into: case approved.

which one is supposed to come first? i am confused! and since then it did not change.

[Lizb2013 7]

I had my interview on Monday and i was approved!!! finally!

the status online changed after the interview into : a new card is being produced....

but i checked the following day and i found that it changed into: case approved.

which one is supposed to come first? i am confused! and since then it did not change.

Congrats! My status were the same way and 5 days later I got the notification that card was mailed .. You'll probably get that one either tomorrow or Monday

[DHCF 3]

We just received an update that our card is being produced. No interview and we had no news since the fingerprint processing. The moment of ease will come when the card actually arrives, but we are happy to see this notification!

Good luck to all those still waiting as we were, hopefully it picks up for all on this board still in limbo.

[Casey&Titi 14]

My wife and I filed in September and finally received an appointment for April 19th.

My wife and I passed our interview today. We're sooo excited!!! Our interview was scheduled at 1215 and we were called back around 1240 or so. We were not asked any crazy questions, just basic things like our names, address, where we work, our parents names and to see any new evidence of our marriage other than what we already front loaded in our AOS packet.

[Carlos EA 0]

Are there people who are still waiting for an update/status change since biographic notice? I'm eager to move forward to card production. It's been 7 months since we submitted for AOS.

[rochestergrad 10]

It's going really slowly here, so I assume most people filed in Sep have got their cards already. Congratulations!

We had our interview this morning, and I'd like to share our experience with future filters, or those who are still waiting. We had our interview first scheduled on Feb 16th, but the huge snow storm in upstate NY happened on exactly that day (and it was the only snow storm this year--it was a really warm winter! Great luck right? lol), resulting in the cancelation of our first interview @Buffalo field office. After a month of anxious waiting, we received a second notice mailed directly from Buffalo office informing us of a second interview scheduled on Apr 20th. So just like that, two months got wasted in between. Anyways, we arrived 15 min earlier than our appointment time today (at 10:30am), waiting to be called in. At about 11:15am, the immigration officer came out, and told us that he didn't forget about us, but we needed to wait a bit longer. It was very nice of him to tell us that, but we waited for about another 30-45min after that, and finally it was our turn. He was very friendly and cheerful. Apologized for the wait, he told us that the case before us was really tough, and he had been interviewing that couple since 9:30am (so that was more than 2 hours!)... Then we remembered that the husband was sent out alone to the waiting area when the wife was questioned separately. We were like "wow..." Then he went on to tell us that our interview was going to go really quickly, because from his review of our case the night before, everything looked great. We were not nervous to start with, and the fact that he told us "you should be able to know whether you are getting approved or not just minutes into the interview" further assured us. He checked with us some basic facts, such as our names, addresses, jobs, etc, and asked if we brought more proof for a bona fide marriage. I submitted some more recent bank statements, utility bills, car insurance paper, photos, and he just added them to our existing files. He told us about some people who edited the documents to make up evidence for a bona fide marriage, and joked that we wouldn't imagine the amount of fraud he'd seen on his job. Then he asked me some yes or no questions, joked that if I had bought a doughnut for terrorists, that was financially aiding them too. I laughed and told him "no I haven't bought a doughnut for a terrorist" lol. Oh we also freely admitted to him that we were staying at two different locations for job reasons, but my husband drove over every weekend. The IO then went out of his way to explain to us that our situation was perfectly justifiable, which was super nice of him. Then the interview was over in about 15-20 min! He congratulated us on getting approved at the end, and told me that given our case, we could simply get our permanent card through mail. And hours later, the case progress app showed that the card was in production! Huray!

Good luck to everyone!

[KASH2011 382]

I had my interview on Monday and i was approved!!! finally!

Congrats!

We just received an update that our card is being produced. No interview and we had no news since the fingerprint processing. The moment of ease will come when the card actually arrives, but we are happy to see this notification!

Good luck to all those still waiting as we were, hopefully it picks up for all on this board still in limbo.

Congrats!

Then the interview was over in about 15-20 min! He congratulated us on getting approved at the end, and told me that given our case, we could simply get our permanent card through mail. And hours later, the case progress app showed that the card was in production! Huray!

Good luck to everyone!

Congrats!

[Danielle and Jake 24]

Congrats on the approval. We filed first week September and haven't heard anything since the biometrics appointment in late September. Just "Fingerprinting Fee was Received".

[rochestergrad 10]

Congrats on the approval. We filed first week September and haven't heard anything since the biometrics appointment in late September. Just "Fingerprinting Fee was Received".

Hi, I noticed that you are also at Buffalo field office. As far as I know, Buffalo office is quite "on schedule". Before I got my appointment letter, I went to the AOS July 2015 filers forum and there was a couple who filed in mid July and were getting interviewed in December. So I predict d that my interview would be two months after theirs, and that was exactly when my first scheduled interview was. Of course it was canceled due to bad weather, but they still managed to reschedule me within 30 days of the cancellation. (It seems that they schedule people monthly. ) So I find it really weird that you have heard nothing for so long, and you filed earlier than I did too! When I was waiting for the second interview to be scheduled, I was told by USCIS customer service that to find out about local office scheduling we should make an appoinmwnt with the office. Maybe you can have a try with that if Buffalo isn't too far from you? Good luck!

[Judebloom 0]

Hi, we filed our AOS on Sep 3. Our local field office is Chicago.

AOS recpt date - Sep 3

Biometrics - Sep 23

AOS Interview - Jan 14

We were asked some basic questions during the interview and at the end of the interview we were told by the officer that he did not have the 130 petition with him. He will request it and the allocate the visa #.

Our case is still pending.

We followed up several times. Did infopass in February and were told it takes time to get 130 file from NRC and to wait for few week.

On March 17th we were able to open s service ticket thru 2nd level. And on March 29th we got a response saying our case has been put on processing hold since the security check is not complete.

Anyone else having this experience?

Are there any other Chicago filers around this date who have received updates on their case?

[Danielle and Jake 24]

Hi, I noticed that you are also at Buffalo field office. As far as I know, Buffalo office is quite "on schedule". Before I got my appointment letter, I went to the AOS July 2015 filers forum and there was a couple who filed in mid July and were getting interviewed in December. So I predict d that my interview would be two months after theirs, and that was exactly when my first scheduled interview was. Of course it was canceled due to bad weather, but they still managed to reschedule me within 30 days of the cancellation. (It seems that they schedule people monthly. ) So I find it really weird that you have heard nothing for so long, and you filed earlier than I did too! When I was waiting for the second interview to be scheduled, I was told by USCIS customer service that to find out about local office scheduling we should make an appoinmwnt with the office. Maybe you can have a try with that if Buffalo isn't too far from you? Good luck!

Thanks for the advice, but sorry, my apologies, for some reason our profile had the wrong field office, we actually report to Milwaukee. Do you mean an infopass appointment, just to find out information on our case? That's a 2.5 hour drive when a phone call would suffice, but I am not sure there is an actually number for me to call. From what others have said, it's quite likely we won't even have an interview, so who knows. I just wish there was someone I could call or email to get some information, without receiving those generic automated replies.