Traveling while NOA is going to expire

[dfbd 0]

Hi all,

 

My wife has GC that expired on 7/10/17 with NOA extending the legal status by 1 year. The problem is that she needs to be with her family in Korea for 4 months between May and September. 

Based on my initial search, it seems like she needs to get an I-551 stamp before she leaves country so that she can come back even with the expired NOA.

However, I've seen posts saying that some officers do not grant stamps unless NOA is 1 month before expiration (in this case she would need the stamp at least 2 months before the expiration)

We could try to time the infopass appointment as close to the departure date as possible, but then it involves much of luck. I've been monitoring the availability of the appointments and it is practically impossible to get the date we want...

Has anyone ever been in a similar situation? 

 

- We moved twice since we applied for ROC.. and we are now in LA.. which means the case might have been transferred to CA office. Didn't get the confirmation although we did file AR-11 for both moves.

 

Edited December 19, 2017 by dfbd

[GreatDane 366]

9 minutes ago, dfbd said:

Hi all,

 

My wife has GC that expired on 7/10/17 with NOA extending the legal status by 1 year. The problem is that she needs to be with her family in Korea for 4 months between May and September. 

Based on my initial search, it seems like she needs to get an I-551 stamp before she leaves country so that she can come back even with the expired NOA.

However, I've seen posts saying that some officers do not grant stamps unless NOA is 1 month before expiration (in this case she would need the stamp at least 2 months before the expiration)

We could try to time the infopass appointment as close to the departure date as possible, but then it involves much of luck. I've been monitoring the availability of the appointments and it is practically impossible to get the date we want...

Has anyone ever been in a similar situation? 

 

- We moved twice since we applied for ROC.. and we are now in LA.. which means the case might have been transferred to CA office. Didn't get the confirmation although we did file AR-11 for both moves.

 

I've heard it's really difficult to get an InfoPass appointment for LA and that many drive to further offices to get an appointment. That might be a solution for you. 

 

If you need the I551, you can try to schedule the InfoPass appointment and ask for the I551 under special circumstances, but I believe it's at their discretion. If you bring proof of travel, such as airfare, I've heard of those being signed off on 60 days in advance.

Edited December 19, 2017 by GreatDane

[sddude89 31]

33 minutes ago, dfbd said:

 

 

- We moved twice since we applied for ROC.. and we are now in LA.. which means the case might have been transferred to CA office. Didn't get the confirmation although we did file AR-11 for both moves.

 

Your Infopass must be at the location where you live. Make sure to bring a copy of your AR-11 to the infopass appointment.

 

LA office appointment is hard to get but not impossible.

You just have to try and try and try and try until you are able to.

Try different zip codes (Los Angeles Zip Codes) and try at different times of the day and for several days.

You just have to try again and again and again.

I was able to schedule two different infopass appointments in LA this year.

The guy controlling documents was very strict about only letting in people living in the Los Angeles area, luckily we had our AR-11 which was enough proof that we live in LA.

 

I would not recommend driving to other office until you have exhausted your attempts to get an appt in the LA office because they may just not let you in at other locations.

Edited December 19, 2017 by sddude89

[dfbd 0]

29 minutes ago, GreatDane said:

I've heard it's really difficult to get an InfoPass appointment for LA and that many drive to further offices to get an appointment. That might be a solution for you. 

 

If you need the I551, you can try to schedule the InfoPass appointment and ask for the I551 under special circumstances, but I believe it's at their discretion. If you bring proof of travel, such as airfare, I've heard of those being signed off on 60 days in advance.

 

11 minutes ago, sddude89 said:

Your Infopass must be at the location where you live. Make sure to bring a copy of your AR-11 to the infopass appointment.

 

LA office appointment is hard to get but not impossible.

You just have to try and try and try and try until you are able to.

Try different zip codes (Los Angeles Zip Codes) and try at different times of the day and for several days.

You just have to try again and again and again.

I was able to schedule two different infopass appointments in LA this year.

The guy controlling documents was very strict about only letting in people living in the Los Angeles area, luckily we had our AR-11 which was enough proof that we live in LA.

 

I would not recommend driving to other office until you have exhausted your attempts to get an appt in the LA office because they may just not let you in at other locations.

Thank you both. I'm going to try to get an infopass appointment at LA office when time comes in May. Hopefully I can get one by providing the documents that you suggested. Now getting that appointment would be extremely difficult... but I guess I just have to try. Thank you both.

[nightingalejules 678]

2 hours ago, sddude89 said:

Your Infopass must be at the location where you live. Make sure to bring a copy of your AR-11 to the infopass appointment.

 

LA office appointment is hard to get but not impossible.

You just have to try and try and try and try until you are able to.

Try different zip codes (Los Angeles Zip Codes) and try at different times of the day and for several days.

You just have to try again and again and again.

I was able to schedule two different infopass appointments in LA this year.

The guy controlling documents was very strict about only letting in people living in the Los Angeles area, luckily we had our AR-11 which was enough proof that we live in LA.

 

I would not recommend driving to other office until you have exhausted your attempts to get an appt in the LA office because they may just not let you in at other locations.

Lots of people have successfully gotten infopass appointments at other offices, so if your wife has too much trouble getting an appointment don’t be afraid to check other offices. It may be that LA is tough on it because they are such a busy office.

 

Either way, if you haven’t been approved about a month before your wife’s planned trip, start looking for an appointment. Many people have had success looking for appointments just after midnight, or at other weird times.

 

Good luck!

[sddude89 31]

On 12/18/2017 at 8:35 PM, nightingalejules said:

Lots of people have successfully gotten infopass appointments at other offices, so if your wife has too much trouble getting an appointment don’t be afraid to check other offices. It may be that LA is tough on it because they are such a busy office.

 

 

This is not good  advice.

I would not want to be 1.5 hours stuck in traffic just to  be rejected at the door.

It is easier to try to several times to get an appointment online  at the right field office than giving up just because an appointment at a far away location is available.

 

The other offices in the area are Van Nuys and Santa Ana. I am not sure how strict they are about accepting people that don't belong to them. 

Before driving to other location, I would search on these forums for positive experience of other VJ members  at Santa Ana or Van Nuys (or even Further, San Diego), as they may be as strict as LA is. IF they are lax about the rules then sure, try it out (and again it depends on the particular person checking documents at the entrance, not all are the same)

LA metro is huge metropolis. Van Nuys covers the whole valley (larger than LA proper) and Santa Ana covers the whole Orange County, millions and millions of people. So I don't think the LA office is any busier than the others. 

 

Edited December 20, 2017 by sddude89

[WeGuyGal 1,052]

USCIS is a national agency.

Unless you encounter an idiot, workers manning USCIS workstations in LA should ideally have access to the same database as someone in Fargo, ND or Baltimore, MD.  If you can snag an appointment at another location, go for it. 

[sddude89 31]

5 minutes ago, WeGuyGal said:

USCIS is a national agency.

Unless you encounter an idiot, workers manning USCIS workstations in LA should ideally have access to the same database as someone in Fargo, ND or Baltimore, MD.  If you can snag an appointment at another location, go for it. 

I don't think it matters whether they can see the database or not or whether they are idiots or not.

 

The fact is that there is a person controlling documents at the entrance. That person does not check databases, that person does not see cases and I think that person did not even have a computer.  The person at the door only checks that you live in the area and have an appointment and gives you a number. That's it.

 

Once past that person, there is a waiting area and the real officers are there.

 

Personally, I think it is easier to try online than venturing into another office possibly in vain. As there are LOTS of examples of both (rejecting people at the door, and allowing people in); of which I have not seen reports from Santa Ana or Van Nuys or San Diego for the good or bad.

Edited December 20, 2017 by sddude89

[mindthegap 2,598]

4 hours ago, sddude89 said:

It is easier to try to several times to get an appointment online  at the right field office than giving up just because an appointment at a far away location is available.

 

Several times? For certain offices people can be trying for weeks or even months and still not get a sniff of an appointment appearing online. The system is borked.

 

52 minutes ago, sddude89 said:

The fact is that there is a person controlling documents at the entrance. That person does not check databases, that person does not see cases and I think that person did not even have a computer.  The person at the door only checks that you live in the area and have an appointment and gives you a number. That's it.

 

I would put money on having done more infopass appointments than most on here, and definitely at more offices around many parts of the US than most.

 

It is a federal building, so the very first thing you encounter is security, not an agent. I have never - not once - in probably exceeding fifty infopass appointments,  had my residency checked or queried at the entrance by rent-a-cop security, including at several appointments in Los Angeles.

That is not their job. Their job is to check for water of mass destruction, and other weapons and prohibited items.

Most do indeed check that you have an appointment before letting you through security, but even if you don't, with the right words and passing the attitude test you can usually get through to reception to speak to an alleged human and either get a number to be seen, or flat out turned away (as they do at the manhattan office without an appointment, every single time).

 

I have also never been refused to be seen because I don't live in that area or have ID from a different state -  generally all they care about is that you have an appointment. As @WeGuyGal points out above, it is a federal agency, and they can access the majority chunk of info* (see annotation below), and certainly enough to issue extension stamps, which I have also had done at non-local offices.

 

Also, to my knowledge, nowhere is it written in law or policy that you must go to your 'local' office for an infopass either. Interviews are a slightly different scenario, but for your bog standard info pass/extension, you should be fine.

 

The whole system is a rapidly crumbling s**tshow, as evidenced by people driving many hundreds of miles to another state just to get a bloody extension stamp, which is only necessitated in the first place by the inability by USCIS to process cases within their own timeline.

 

 

 

 

 

 

* I don't think that they can access it all, as I have found out when they couldn't access one system to tell me when my interview was after I could see via my informed delivery that I had a USCIS letter waiting for me when I was travelling, and I suspected it was an interview appointment.

After being told via several agents on the phone that they could not see any evidence of a letter being sent or an interview being scheduled, and "are you sure it is from USCIS?", I went to the nearest local office, without an appointment, in an attempt to find out more.

After waiting for around 30mins, the spectacularly helpful advice given by possibly the rudest ####### in a customer facing role that I have ever encountered was (and I quote) "What am I, your mailman? Why should I do this for you. You are treating me like your mailman.  You should just go home and open the letter and check for yourself. Oh look, I can't access it anyway, as it is on the local system, as it was a letter sent by the local office. See? Go home and open your mail". 

I asked for a manager, who came and was thankfully polite, and could also not access it, but was able to tell me that it was indeed an interview appointment. 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2017 by mindthegap

[sddude89 31]

26 minutes ago, mindthegap said:

 

Several times? For certain offices people can be trying for weeks or even months and still not get a sniff of an appointment appearing online. The system is borked.

....

It is a federal building, so the very first thing you encounter is security, not an agent. I have never - not once - in probably exceeding fifty infopass appointments,  had my residency checked or queried at the entrance by rent-a-cop security, including at several appointments in Los Angeles.

 

 

 

I am not sure when you have been to Los Angeles Field office but I was there in September 2017 to get my stamp.

I was able to do the appointment online after trying several times. As recently as last week, I saw there were some openings.

And when I was there, there were a lot of other people with appointments, so it is not impossible.

 

I can't make a general statement about all Field Offices.

In the Los Angeles Field office  once inside the building and past security (X-Rays), there is a person in a booth. It is not a uniformed cop or a contracted agent. I don't know what he is.

But all his job was to check if your address is in the field office jurisdiction and that you had an appointment.

Since our Driver Licenses's had San Diego addresses he was sending us away. I was glad we had the AR-11 printout and then he gave us a number to go to the other side to wait.

 

In the INFOPASS page, for the Los Angels Field office it says:

"If you are not within the LOS jurisdiction, we may not be able to service you".

 

So there is that.

 

So, at this point, my experience was that they were strict about where one lives.

 

Personally, I did not want to drive to Santa Ana or Van Nuys or San Diego so I tried several times with the online appointment system until I got an appointment. It took me trying for about a week until it worked.

 

We are talking here about the I-551 stamp while I-751 is pending, which is not too urgent.

 

If someone has an urgent need to travel internationally and the only appointment showing up is in Alaska, well then go for it.

But if one can wait, I would prefer to try again with the online appointment system than having to drive across the state or having to go through a confrontation with a Xth tier employee to let me through.

 

This is just from a practical point of view.

My opinions on USCIS, its personnel or its systems is irrelevant to this discussion.

Edited December 21, 2017 by sddude89

[WeGuyGal 1,052]

3 minutes ago, sddude89 said:

In the INFOPASS page, for the Los Angels Field office it says:

"If you are not within the LOS jurisdiction, we may not be able to service you".

 

"may" may be the operative word.

Note it doesn't say we do not serve non LOS applicants, or something along those lines. If a non LA applicant comes thru and groggles enough, they're likely to let em in. Eventually.

[sddude89 31]

Just now, WeGuyGal said:

"may" may be the operative word.

Note it doesn't say we do not serve non LOS applicants, or something along those lines. If a non LA applicant comes thru and groggles enough, they're likely to let em in. Eventually.

Correct!!!

For that same reason of having to argue with the person checking appointments, personally, and that's just me, I would try to score an appointment online first. Even if it takes me weeks.

We are fortunate that we did not have a sudden urgent need to travel, in which case, IMO, it might have been worth it then to go to wherever there is an appt available.