How to get One Year Extension system changed

[Leo7777 243]

In this post, I am asking suggestions on how 'we' can take some action to try to get the One Year Letter extension system changed.

This is not the thread to reply with "that's the way the system is, and nothing can be done about it."

So the answer lies perhaps with Senators, Congressmen, etc. But I don't know where to start; perhaps others have some ideas about a good beginning point or place.

For those not familiar with the potential problems, I will quote a recent post by NickD on 17 January 2016.

"Depending on the laws of your state, if you applied for your driver's license, it may have expired the same date your conditional card expired,

you cannot drive with an expired driver's license. Even with that one year extension letter, may have our experience, and I quote,

what in the hell is this one year extension notice. And if you are working, your employer may say the same thing in a politically correct manner.

When you very politely reply, this is how the USCIS operates, you hear, what in the heck is the USCIS? Admittedly, all of my friends, relatives,

and even myself never heard about the USCIS either. So this requires a lot of proof and explanation.

And even furthermore, they will ask, what in the heck is an I-551 stamp in your passport or that I-94? That requires even more explanation."

This situation of the One Year Extension letter has different impact on different people involved in the ROC process.

At the low impact end of the spectrum would be a person who mostly stays home, does not drive and does not work. They are not faced with drivers license hassles and work related hassles. They can ride out the year or so in relative comfort.

But for others, which is probably the majority of us, it can be a very tense filled year and even traumatic for some.

The basic problem is that there is an 8 by 10 piece of paper purporting to 'legalize' us, when those than control our destiny in the real world are used to seeing laminated cards with specific dates, form numbers, etc.

So the system itself is the problem, and this problem would exist even if the ROC process took much less time than the current year or so.

Many of you have had contact (perhaps extensive) with senators, congressmen, attorneys, etc., and might have some feel for

what would be the best way to begin a drive, petition, etc., to change the system.

I don't think this is a situation where we should just give up and say "that's the way it is."

[Jack2107 46]

Hi there

I can't answer all your questions but I can tell you that the one year extension is issued when you file for the removal of your conditions. It's a piece of paper sent to you in the mail. If you do not get this then you can go to your local office with the NOA and they will stamp your passport.

As far as the drivers licence and work. Most people that post the question about employment do not have any issue when they show their employer this extension.

Everything is just very long winded and there should be a much simpler way to do this.

I find the department of state to be very behind with the times in what they want evidence wise. Most modern married couples don't do what the uscis wants them to do. Like shared bank accounts, joint credit cards, power of attorney

It's very much old minded marriage and most of the time people just make these things solely for evidence.

Be much easier just to do an in-depth interview or even a surprise home visit.

[LoveMyTico 999]

PA DMV is very familiar with the one year extension letter. They told us to just bring the letter and his license will be extended one more year. Of your employer uses e-verify, they will see in the system that the status has been extended and the one year extension letter backs it up. Good luck trying to change their process. Save yourself the hassle and just follow the instructions and you'll be fine

[Leo7777 243]

Hi there

I can't answer all your questions but I can tell you that the one year extension is issued when you file for the removal of your conditions. It's a piece of paper sent to you in the mail. If you do not get this then you can go to your local office with the NOA and they will stamp your passport.

As far as the drivers licence and work. Most people that post the question about employment do not have any issue when they show their employer this extension.

Everything is just very long winded and there should be a much simpler way to do this.

I find the department of state to be very behind with the times in what they want evidence wise. Most modern married couples don't do what the uscis wants them to do. Like shared bank accounts, joint credit cards, power of attorney

It's very much old minded marriage and most of the time people just make these things solely for evidence.

Be much easier just to do an in-depth interview or even a surprise home visit.

Your answer has nothing to do with what I posted.

PA DMV is very familiar with the one year extension letter. They told us to just bring the letter and his license will be extended one more year. Of your employer uses e-verify, they will see in the system that the status has been extended and the one year extension letter backs it up. Good luck trying to change their process. Save yourself the hassle and just follow the instructions and you'll be fine

Your answer has nothing to do with what I posted.

[Leo7777 243]

Folks, I am looking for suggestions and ideas about how to get the One Year Extension letter system changed.

I am not looking for comments from those who think the system is OK.

If you want to tout the advantages of the current system or relate how the system worked OK for you, please start another thread for that.

Edited April 3, 2016 by Leo7777

[Jack2107 46]

if you want to make a change then come up with some ideas and post that!

No need to be rude to people that have taken the time to reply to your post.

Plus I answered 2 of your questions from your post.

Maybe you need to edit your post in a way that your not asking about how do you get the stamp on your passport and what's the 1 year extension!

[Cheezees 1,514]

Hi there

I can't answer all your questions but I can tell you that the one year extension is issued when you file for the removal of your conditions. It's a piece of paper sent to you in the mail. If you do not get this then you can go to your local office with the NOA and they will stamp your passport.

As far as the drivers licence and work. Most people that post the question about employment do not have any issue when they show their employer this extension.

Everything is just very long winded and there should be a much simpler way to do this.

I find the department of state to be very behind with the times in what they want evidence wise. Most modern married couples don't do what the uscis wants them to do. Like shared bank accounts, joint credit cards, power of attorney

It's very much old minded marriage and most of the time people just make these things solely for evidence.

Be much easier just to do an in-depth interview or even a surprise home visit.

The NOA is the extension letter. You've added a lot of irrelevant and incorrect information.

[rjgacek 6]

Hi there

I can't answer all your questions but I can tell you that the one year extension is issued when you file for the removal of your conditions. It's a piece of paper sent to you in the mail. If you do not get this then you can go to your local office with the NOA and they will stamp your passport.

As far as the drivers licence and work. Most people that post the question about employment do not have any issue when they show their employer this extension.

Everything is just very long winded and there should be a much simpler way to do this.

I find the department of state to be very behind with the times in what they want evidence wise. Most modern married couples don't do what the uscis wants them to do. Like shared bank accounts, joint credit cards, power of attorney

It's very much old minded marriage and most of the time people just make these things solely for evidence.

Be much easier just to do an in-depth interview or even a surprise home visit.

Totally agree with your perception, the USCIS should move out of the dark ages of what a marriage was, and what marriages are now. As far as them taking forever to approve ROC, this has to change also. This agency is a business, like any other business, if business is good and you cant keep up with it, then, like any other business you expand and hire more, and open more offices. What I dont understand is all the applications received year after year, with only two offices to do this, CSC and VSC, it is no wonder why it takes a year or longer for approval. The fees for the immigration processes and services are pretty much the sole income for the USCIS, but, they are still Federal Employees, their benefits, i.e., medical, retirement, vacation, paid sick leave is top of the line, so the fees we all have to make compensates for them very well. So, bottom line, they need to come into the real world when it comes to marriages, and open more offices and hire more people, just as any successful business has to do when business is good

[rjgacek 6]

if you want to make a change then come up with some ideas and post that!

No need to be rude to people that have taken the time to reply to your post.

Plus I answered 2 of your questions from your post.

Maybe you need to edit your post in a way that your not asking about how do you get the stamp on your passport and what's the 1 year extension!

RELAX PEOPLE. This person is correct, many things need to be revamped in this agency. Changes in Federal programs are very hard to revamp, but, to start, the politicians are the ones who have to be told that this agency is far from being perfect and changes to need to occur. When you have to wait for the ROC to run it's course, it is still very frustrating when you wait 7 - 8 months and finally hear from them and you get an RFE. Come on, dont you see the problem here. Again, lack of personnel and lack of offices to do this work. Remember, to all government agencies in this country, we as law abiding tax payers are their source of unlimited income and benefits, you have to be ignorant not to understand that.

[charmander 692]

The whole conditional card business started by the 1986 Marriage Fraud Act. Maybe the Congress saw marriage based green cards were being abused and wanted to do something about it. When you think about the numbers of this really doesn't make sense to me either, first of the 7.5 million petitions a year, about 2-2.5% of the cases are ROC cases, roughly 150-200K petitions a year. Of these cases about 2% of the joint cases, about 5% of the divorce waiver are denied. So when you do the math, the whole ROC business is to identify 4000-5000 immigrants that are trying to abuse the system. To catch this 4-5K people, we are all going through this stress, long waits, dealing with people who have no idea what ROC is, etc etc.

Things can be done are two-fold. Things that are at state level such as DL expiration dates. I was lucky enough to live in NY and MA that doesn't limit the expiration of DL based on conditional residence. Both of my DLs in these states were for 5 years. But as you say some states only give for 2 years, extend another year, then finally give a longer DL once conditions are removed. Since this is at state level, you have to initiate movement at the state congress level. Things at the state level are easier to change than federal level. But remember number of ROCs are already a low-number compared to the total number of cases, and your state may not be the most populated state with conditional GCs. Therefore, state may not react to the problems of conditional residents.

The next level is at the US congress to totally take care of conditional residence. That would require a much bigger initiative. Personally I'd like to see a 3 year conditional residence. At the end of 3 years, people who want to be naturalized should go through a joint ROC-naturalization process that requires a joint interview, and if you only want to remove conditions but not interested in becoming a citizen, then go through the current ROC system. Why? Because the current ROC is already a very long process, especially for Vermont Service Center filers. I was approved after 10.5 months while my naturalization application was also in place. Why not process these two cases together?

To make such a change, an initiative needs to come from the Congress. Any chance of success? I don't think so because 1) we are such a small group of people and 2) the latest events in San Bernardino will not help anyone. I won't be surprised if a congressman recommends toughening the current system further due to the latest event. Let's see.

[Lemonslice 4,968]

General public is uneducated and has zero desire to understand whatever document you have to show your legal status. Unless USCIS changes for a trendy tattoo system, I'm afraid any change will be in vain.

[LoveMyTico 999]

They won't change anything anytime soon. The new president will probably bring tons of immigration changes. If the democrats get elected, expect the uscis to be overloaded with new applications.

They also have tons of other petitions to process so they divide the workload. They aren't in a hurry.

[Anh map 2,098]

Laws are made in Congress. Start there. Understand that a very small part of the population is impacted by this so it will not be a high priority.

[Leo7777 243]

Maybe you need to edit your post in a way that your not asking about how do you get

the stamp on your passport and what's the 1 year extension!

You must be confusing my post with someone else's. I never asked about how to get a stamp

in a passport and what's the one year extension.

[Leo7777 243]

OK, thanks to those who addressed my questions. Keep the relevant answers and comments coming.

There are two or more levels of change needed in the system.

1) The highest level relates to what a lot of you are writing about.

2) A very minor but extremely helpful change would be to simply replace the 8 by 10 piece of paper with another laminated GreenCard with perhaps a new 2 year expiration date. Then, hopefully, the 10 year Green Card would come during this second two year period. Baby steps for changes ??

Edited April 3, 2016 by Leo7777