July 2017 AOS Fillers

[wildling99 14]

13 hours ago, Kirk&Kean said:

You can renew 90 days before your EAD/AP expiry date. But don't expect to get it within 90 days because they cannot guarantee that. I don't think you can file earlier than 90 days too because they would return it and say you have to wait until exact 90 days before expiry date. There are people who tried filing for renewal of applications like 91/92 days and get returned... We were thinking to travel in Spain for a while after I got my combo card, but after reading about all the risks and possibility of still being able to be detained upon returning to US, I've decided not to take any risk, just wait until I have GC on hand for any international travel purposes. Sometimes you just have to sacrifice for the sake of getting something that can help you in the long run.

Glad that you have been to Malaysia I have to say though the humidity and temp in Malaysia, still not as bad as Yuma... dry heat with above 90F is crazy.... I cannot wait to have my GC on hand and finish with this freaking hot summer and move to East Coast haha, but then I will have to be prepared to learn to live under crazy Winter in PA !!

Oops, didn't realize how to multi-quote, guess I didn't need to post twice in a row

 

This is good to know! At least buys six more months of (hopefully) uninterrupted work and travel.

 

I hadn't read much about anyone being detained with their EAD/AP! I went back to Canada for the first time in a year in January and I didn't have any issues coming back related to my status. We don't have any immediate trip plans, but I'd like to remain confident that if we do go on a vacation, all will be well. 

[Kirk&Kean 9]

4 hours ago, Ehri&Mark said:

I know! I am from the Philippines and the weather there is not as bad as Phoenix. We are planning on moving to Florida when this is over as well. It gets pretty cold out here in Flagstaff during winter but I don't really mind, my husband, however, wants to be near the ocean so we decided to move.

 

Thanks for the info. I guess I should really just expect the worst that it might still be awhile before I even get the GC. That's too bad! I really wanted to come home for Christmas. I can only hope that I do get it by then.

 

Good luck to your case! I know how it feels.

Haha, looks like we are moving to the East Coast together, except us to Pennsylvania, and you guys to Florida. Woo, I do have friends I have always wanted to visit in Apopka, Florida. Known him for 7-8 years and chatted online too, but just lack the chance to meet. I guess when we moved to the East Coast it is so much closer and hopefully easier to plan some kind of visit. The reason we are selecting PA to move to is mainly for the universities of my choice. I am looking to continue 2 years of Bachelor's degree in Digital Forensics / Cybersecurity since I've had my Associate's degree already. A lot of states in the U.S. do offer such relevant programs, but many of the universities offer distance learning (online format) which I don't really like. In fact I got accepted to University of Arizona (Wildcats) to their B.Applied Science in Cyber Operations last year. But I withdrawn due to they classified me as international student and force me to pay insurance. Funny thing is they won't even let me waive that despite I am under Affordable Care Act. Imagine the international student insurance costs about $1k per semester. That is ridiculous, I'd rather postpone my education until I have the GC on hand so I can apply transfer to any school as a domestic student. Meanwhile, just try to knock off as many general education classes I may need as possible in the community college. I've also checked the https://www.cyberdegrees.org/listings on diff states, it seems PA have the most universities with programs that I'd like to try applying for and it is on-campus not online-format. Furthermore it is recognized by NSA so that is good  Only 1 school that I will continue to apply to even though I am physically going to be in PA is George Washington for their Professional Studies (Bachelors degree in Cybersecurity) (located in Ashburn, Virginia campus) - 1 hour outside of D.C. However, the costs to attend GWU and PSU are too expensive that I had to rely on applying for cyber scholarship which I am only eligible by having the GC. So I have another 2 schools in PA which are least expensive but the programs are still pretty good (based on the syllabus/courses listed under the program). In the event that I don't get any scholarship, I'll just pay my way to the one of other 2 least expensive (Tier-2) schools in Pennsylvania.

So now that you have your EAD, did you started applying for any jobs? Or are you just waiting to get GC and move?

I am looking for part-time jobs to kill some time since I am taking classes in Summer to knockoff the English General Education. Unemployment rate here in Yuma is so damn high, difficult to get job.

[Natreezy 6]

On 3/27/2018 at 12:36 AM, Kirk&Kean said:

Just curious, how long after you filed from Oklahoma before you move to Texas? We've been wanting to move to the East Coast for my choice of universities, but our attorney told us to stay put in AZ until green card gets approved. Due to our response of RFIE was replied in Jan even though we filed in Jul 2017, I can't anticipate my interview notice anymore, I am hoping to get the interview/green card before Fall so we can move to the East Coast, I just got my work permit recently (imagine how late it got delayed lol). I want to get to the East Coast to work and live 1 year to establish the residency before I apply to return to school full-time in Fall 2019. But we are worried that if we don't get the interview notice or if the date of interview is scheduled far beyond Aug/Sep, we are thinking to move and have the case transfer to PA. It probably will further delays the interview date in PA as they need to forward the case + assign new officers to look into our case.

Definitely not a lawyer so I would defer to them. But we filed in July and moved states in August. It was easy to change our address and such by using the website and calling USCIS, we had absolutely no problems. I also had USPS informed delivery added immediately so I knew what mail to expect.

[Natreezy 6]

On 3/29/2018 at 11:31 AM, Lelah22 said:

We received our interview notice in the mail at the beginning or March. The Interview is scheduled for April 9th. We have all of our documentation since it's mostly everything we've already submitted so many times. 

Does anyone have a list of questions they were asked at the interview? I looked around on here some but didn't see many listed. 

Everyone is different, but they asked us a bunch of questions on how we met, if we worked, where we worked, and then a list of criminal/political questions where you should answer no to all of them. Was fairly laid back and not as intense as I expected to be honest. I would still take it seriously however and be prepared, we may of had it easier because we were college sweethearts and have hundreds of pictures documenting our relationship.

[Natreezy 6]

For those worried about processing times, some hope: Our field office says they are processing October 2016(9.5 -17months), but that is obviously not the case as our July AOS interview was this week. Our online status said "ready to be scheduled for an interview" for about 4 months before we got a surprise interview letter in the mail. USCIS is slow to update their online trackers.

 

 Greencard arrived today in the mail, 4 days after our interview.

[Kirk&Kean 9]

1 minute ago, Natreezy said:

For those worried about processing times, some hope: Our field office says they are processing October 2016(9.5 -17months), but that is obviously not the case as our July AOS interview was this week. Our online status said "ready to be scheduled for an interview" for about 4 months before we got a surprise interview letter in the mail. USCIS is slow to update their online trackers.

 

 Greencard arrived today in the mail, 4 days after our interview.

Congratulations!! Yep, I never have trusted their update, it is always slow by almost 2-4 months. I track by visajourney's user profiles, seeing who updated their interview approval date, then I'd have an idea where it is approximately at. Sorted it based on the local CIS office in PHX.

[Kirk&Kean 9]

Btw, if you know how to use the Immigration Timeline and sort via your local office, you'd be able to figure out roughly when was their last processing date, for example :

Although I would believe that not everyone who married a US Citizen would be on VisaJourney with a registered profile and updated timeline, however I can still estimate that Phoenix Office has processed people who adjusted from K1 visa last filed in Mar. There's 3 more people in March, 1 in May, and 1 in June. After that 2 in July (one of them is mine). So I am hoping to get an interview appointment letter maybe a month or two later.



As you can tell from above 2nd screenshot, majority of people who filed from 2016 Oct - 2017 Jan already have interview / decision date. The new pilot tool they have isn't about last processed date. It is Case inquiry date. This is probably for them to have people raise SR about their case beyond normal processing time and probably breached the SLA.



For example, cases which are filed by or before May 04, 2016. Have yet to get their GC, can actually raise SR for outside of normal processing time and call USCIS Tier-2 to inquire about it. They want the applicants to do it so that they can push all these old cases off their pile of files. The slower USCIS complete these old cases, the more it affects their SLA agreement. Imagine May 2016 -> Mar 2018, that is way beyond 1.5 years. So please stop thinking that is the "last processing date"

[Kirk&Kean 9]

24 minutes ago, Natreezy said:

For those worried about processing times, some hope: Our field office says they are processing October 2016(9.5 -17months), but that is obviously not the case as our July AOS interview was this week. Our online status said "ready to be scheduled for an interview" for about 4 months before we got a surprise interview letter in the mail. USCIS is slow to update their online trackers.

 

 Greencard arrived today in the mail, 4 days after our interview.

Nope, they aren't processing Oct 2016, they are processing July 2017 filed date's AOS packages. The Oct 2016 again is about cases which filed before that date can begin to raise SR due to the processing time is beyond normal.

Check out San Antonio TX office's timeline based on user profiles :


Majority of those that are before July already have decision or interview date updated.

[Kirk&Kean 9]

Damn, had we moved to Philly early this year, we're probably getting interview notice already.

[Kirk&Kean 9]

5 hours ago, Ehri&Mark said:

I know! I am from the Philippines and the weather there is not as bad as Phoenix. We are planning on moving to Florida when this is over as well. It gets pretty cold out here in Flagstaff during winter but I don't really mind, my husband, however, wants to be near the ocean so we decided to move.

 

Thanks for the info. I guess I should really just expect the worst that it might still be awhile before I even get the GC. That's too bad! I really wanted to come home for Christmas. I can only hope that I do get it by then.

 

Good luck to your case! I know how it feels.

Btw, where in Florida are you guys planning to move to? Have your AOS status changed to "Case is ready to schedule for interview" yet? I am trying to check out the local office in FL but there are Miami, Oakland Park, Orlando, Tampa, West Palm Beach, Jasonville, Kendall, Hialeah... haha

[Kirk&Kean 9]

If anyone is interested to find out where their field offices for interview is going to be (due to living in rural or small town), you can search by zip code.
https://www.uscis.gov/about-us/find-uscis-office/field-offices

Edited March 30, 2018 by Kirk&Kean

[LatAmerican_Drimr 20]

This new method of reporting Processing Times adds more layers of confusion and it is obviously just more convenient to them. The way I see it, they could've just put in there "You are allow to call USCIS if you applied Before Christ Resurrection" or something along the lines....

[Adam&Allison 128]

18 minutes ago, LatAmerican_Drimr said:

This new method of reporting Processing Times adds more layers of confusion and it is obviously just more convenient to them. The way I see it, they could've just put in there "You are allow to call USCIS if you applied Before Christ Resurrection" or something along the lines....

Pretty much. It's a nice idea, but the date range they give for most offices is about a year apart.

 

We're going through Philadelphia and the estimated date range given is 9.5 months to 19 months. Which isn't really very helpful. 

[T_P 872]

1 minute ago, Adam&Allison said:

Pretty much. It's a nice idea, but the date range they give for most offices is about a year apart.

 

We're going through Philadelphia and the estimated date range given is 9.5 months to 19 months. Which isn't really very helpful. 

You know what I wonder some times?!?! If USCIS was ever more "efficient" then they "are" today. Perhaps they were always late, unresponsive like this and we (applicants) somehow expect something completely out of their scope. Does that make sense?

[Adam&Allison 128]

Just now, T_P said:

You know what I wonder some times?!?! If USCIS was ever more "efficient" then they "are" today. Perhaps they were always late, unresponsive like this and we (applicants) somehow expect something completely out of their scope. Does that make sense?

 

I think it goes up and down. A couple of years ago you could expect your AOS within 6 months, now it seems to be the norm that they're taking a minimum of 12 months.