November 2018 AOS Filers

[NikkiFromCanada 233]

6 hours ago, Akk1989 said:

Well the good news is that you’ve had your interview... try and focus on that, it’s out the way so that’s one step closer so it actually could be any day now!!!🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻I feel you’ll be fine for October but the anxiety must be ruining your wedding plans and enjoyment, it’s really unfair.

 

My wait time is 17-24 months 😣 for the green card interview with no EAD/AP in sight... and I booked flight tickets to England for July thinking 7 months would be up in June and I would have it by then... but now they have pushed it back I probably will have to cancel the flight/ reschedule and be out of pocket and even more homesick, angry and bitter.  The whole process is a joke, you’re not alone in your struggles and calls to the USCIS robots ...but remember we are all here for support!!! Vent anytime.... it helps lol... I just have 🤬🤬🤬

 

I hope we all get good news soon 🤞🏻

 

My field office lists 10.5-29.5 months for a Green Card interview, but so many people have had their Interview within 6-8 months. However, my field office also seems to never give on the spot approvals either. Which is very frustrating. Waiting sucks as it is, but waiting for an unknown date is even worse! I act like I didn’t even have my interview, since it can still be months before I get my Green Card. All my focus is on EAD, since I can at least somewhat track their timeframes with it. 

 

I am so sorry you might have to cancel your trip!! I know that feeling! I didn’t have the tickets booked, but I was planning on traveling back to Canada in May for a long weekend to try on wedding dresses with my bridesmaids and I had to let go of that wish too. Now I won’t have time to do that, because I won’t get the dress in time, so I’m going to have to last minute order my wedding dress somewhere online which makes me really sad. 

 

Thank you so much for your words. Even though I would not wish this waiting on anyone else, and it breaks my heart to see others going through what I’m going through, I guess there is some comfort in knowing I’m not alone in this. I’m sending you and everyone else waiting all of the positive vibes. I really hope we all hear good news soon! ♥️🤞🏼

[Penny&Lee 338]

Sending good vibes & good luck to all for approvals this week 🤞🏻 

[rrobin0609 387]

On 5/27/2019 at 12:32 AM, Akk1989 said:

My wait time is 17-24 months 😣 for the green card interview with no EAD/AP in sight... and I booked flight tickets to England for July thinking 7 months would be up in June and I would have it by then... but now they have pushed it back I probably will have to cancel the flight/ reschedule and be out of pocket and even more homesick, angry and bitter.  The whole process is a joke, you’re not alone in your struggles and calls to the USCIS robots ...but remember we are all here for support!!! Vent anytime.... it helps lol... I just have 🤬🤬🤬

 

I hope we all get good news soon 🤞🏻

We were also planning a trip to the UK end of June and early July, but I'd now say there is a less than 5% chance we will be going. There are 13 days left before the cut off date I gave for buying tickets. We also thought 7 months would be a reasonable amount of time.

 

We did just just back from the Black Hills of South Dakota last night (1700 miles driving in three days). I've told Matt that if we don'g get to go to the UK, we can do some weekend trips to Omaha, St. Louis, Branson, and maybe Denver. Then, hopefully by October he'll be able to leave the country and we can spend our first anniversary there.

 

I did write a letter for both my senators, and my congressman about processing times. I think that since the NBC is in Missouri, and they represent Missouri at the federal level they should all feel embarrassed by the amount of time its taking to process these cases. I really tried to hit that point as hard as I could. I also typed "legal" before the words immigrant and immigration every time to try and help emphasize that as well. I even printed out a copy of the letter for Trump. Maybe he'll make me the new USCIS director 😂

[Allaboutwaiting 2,503]

21 minutes ago, rrobin0609 said:

We were also planning a trip to the UK end of June and early July, but I'd now say there is a less than 5% chance we will be going. There are 13 days left before the cut off date I gave for buying tickets. We also thought 7 months would be a reasonable amount of time.

 

We did just just back from the Black Hills of South Dakota last night (1700 miles driving in three days). I've told Matt that if we don'g get to go to the UK, we can do some weekend trips to Omaha, St. Louis, Branson, and maybe Denver. Then, hopefully by October he'll be able to leave the country and we can spend our first anniversary there.

 

I did write a letter for both my senators, and my congressman about processing times. I think that since the NBC is in Missouri, and they represent Missouri at the federal level they should all feel embarrassed by the amount of time its taking to process these cases. I really tried to hit that point as hard as I could. I also typed "legal" before the words immigrant and immigration every time to try and help emphasize that as well. I even printed out a copy of the letter for Trump. Maybe he'll make me the new USCIS director 😂

I'm truly concerned about you guys and when I saw you posted I got excited thinking it was finally good news. 

After reading, I couldn't help but laugh at your new job opportunity.

Even if is not an election based position, I vote for you! 🙌

 

[vaksurik 106]

My husband called USCIS this morning despite the pushback just to get some answers.  (We were SO CLOSE to the inquiry date!!! 😓) The Tier 2 lady he spoke to blamed the slowdown on the government shutdowns that have happened this past year. We were sure this process wasn't going to be affected because we PAY for it (and pay A LOT). He asked her, "so does this mean the information on the USCIS website is incorrect?"  (See: https://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/lapse-federal-funding-does-not-impact-most-uscis-operations ) She said yes. 🙄

 

Could this be real, or do you guys think it's just an excuse? Maybe these employees took those days off even though they weren't supposed to. Either way, uuuughhhhhh.

[Allaboutwaiting 2,503]

4 minutes ago, vaksurik said:

My husband called USCIS this morning despite the pushback just to get some answers.  (We were SO CLOSE to the inquiry date!!! 😓) The Tier 2 lady he spoke to blamed the slowdown on the government shutdowns that have happened this past year. We were sure this process wasn't going to be affected because we PAY for it (and pay A LOT). He asked her, "so does this mean the information on the USCIS website is incorrect?"  (See: https://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/lapse-federal-funding-does-not-impact-most-uscis-operations ) She said yes. 🙄

 

Could this be real, or do you guys think it's just an excuse? Maybe these employees took those days off even though they weren't supposed to. Either way, uuuughhhhhh.

It could be, I think, as an office or employee could perform tasks that are not funded by the customer fees.

In all honesty, everything that happens in those offices seems to be a mystery. 

[vaksurik 106]

1 minute ago, Allaboutwaiting said:

It could be, I think, as an office or employee could perform tasks that are not funded by the customer fees.

In all honesty, everything that happens in those offices seems to be a mystery. 

Truly a mystery. 

[rrobin0609 387]

29 minutes ago, Allaboutwaiting said:

I'm truly concerned about you guys and when I saw you posted I got excited thinking it was finally good news. 

After reading, I couldn't help but laugh at your new job opportunity.

Even if is not an election based position, I vote for you! 🙌

 

It's an appointed position, but I believe the senate has to approve the nominee. I just wrote an addendum to my letters about how processing times have increased a month and a half since I printed the originals. This puts Matt's earliest inquiry date at July 18th- 251 days after our PD. I may add a second addendum to my Trump letter asking to have my name thrown into his list of potential people. Better to have someone who is aware of the issues first hand, right? 

 

21 minutes ago, vaksurik said:

My husband called USCIS this morning despite the pushback just to get some answers.  (We were SO CLOSE to the inquiry date!!! 😓) The Tier 2 lady he spoke to blamed the slowdown on the government shutdowns that have happened this past year. We were sure this process wasn't going to be affected because we PAY for it (and pay A LOT). He asked her, "so does this mean the information on the USCIS website is incorrect?"  (See: https://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/lapse-federal-funding-does-not-impact-most-uscis-operations ) She said yes. 🙄

 

Could this be real, or do you guys think it's just an excuse? Maybe these employees took those days off even though they weren't supposed to. Either way, uuuughhhhhh.

I think its either an excuse or she's misinformed. My money is on misinformed due to it all being shrouded in mystery. Their own employees don't know whats going on.

[vaksurik 106]

11 minutes ago, rrobin0609 said:

It's an appointed position, but I believe the senate has to approve the nominee. I just wrote an addendum to my letters about how processing times have increased a month and a half since I printed the originals. This puts Matt's earliest inquiry date at July 18th- 251 days after our PD. I may add a second addendum to my Trump letter asking to have my name thrown into his list of potential people. Better to have someone who is aware of the issues first hand, right? 

 

I think its either an excuse or she's misinformed. My money is on misinformed due to it all being shrouded in mystery. Their own employees don't know whats going on.

Yep. You're probably right. 

[Allaboutwaiting 2,503]

29 minutes ago, rrobin0609 said:

It's an appointed position, but I believe the senate has to approve the nominee. I just wrote an addendum to my letters about how processing times have increased a month and a half since I printed the originals. This puts Matt's earliest inquiry date at July 18th- 251 days after our PD. I may add a second addendum to my Trump letter asking to have my name thrown into his list of potential people. Better to have someone who is aware of the issues first hand, right? 

You have my full support as the future head of the USCIS. 😀 

And I agree, having someone who's experienced the difficulties of the immigration process would be ideal.

 

I can't help but think of all the variables that have an influence on what we suffer during this process: not just overwhelmed employees and a badly designed workflow, but political agendas and power struggle. 

[wakeuplittlesuzy 192]

1 hour ago, rrobin0609 said:

We were also planning a trip to the UK end of June and early July, but I'd now say there is a less than 5% chance we will be going. There are 13 days left before the cut off date I gave for buying tickets. We also thought 7 months would be a reasonable amount of time.

 

We did just just back from the Black Hills of South Dakota last night (1700 miles driving in three days). I've told Matt that if we don'g get to go to the UK, we can do some weekend trips to Omaha, St. Louis, Branson, and maybe Denver. Then, hopefully by October he'll be able to leave the country and we can spend our first anniversary there.

 

I did write a letter for both my senators, and my congressman about processing times. I think that since the NBC is in Missouri, and they represent Missouri at the federal level they should all feel embarrassed by the amount of time its taking to process these cases. I really tried to hit that point as hard as I could. I also typed "legal" before the words immigrant and immigration every time to try and help emphasize that as well. I even printed out a copy of the letter for Trump. Maybe he'll make me the new USCIS director 😂

I'm sorry it's getting so close to your cutoff date for buying tickets for your flight. I can definitely relate to your frustration as we just missed a trip back to England in early May because we still haven't heard a word on our case. As I had mentioned in this forum before, my husband was supposed to be the best man in our friend's wedding in Devon, and we were supposed to play music during the ceremony... that didn't end up happening, of course, so we decided to take a road trip down to Austin to visit my parents, and then we drove all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico to spend some time at the beach. We were pretty upset to miss such an important wedding, but I think it definitely did us some good to get away for a bit. (It also helps that I work remotely for my job, so I didn't miss out too much on making money in the meantime!). I would definitely recommend taking some road trips in the meantime to try and take your mind off things a bit! 😊

 

I love that you took the time to write all those letters as well. (We may need to do that too at this point!) They don't give us much of a say in any of this, so being proactive and writing letters to congressmen is a great way to hopefully speed things along and to feel a bit more empowered in the meantime. Also, I full-heartedly support you being the new USCIS director! They should just hire all of us, and we'd get things moving along in no time! 😂

[dr01d3k4 21]

2 hours ago, vaksurik said:

He asked her, "so does this mean the information on the USCIS website is incorrect?"  (See: https://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/lapse-federal-funding-does-not-impact-most-uscis-operations ) She said yes. 🙄

From what I've heard, the USCIS part of the application isn't affected by shutdowns, but any dependency on external agencies, such as the FBI for background checks, is affected.

 

Really disappointing for everyone who's missing trips :(. I was hoping to go to my mum's wedding this coming weekend, thinking that filing in October with processing times at 4-6 months meaning I should have been working around March. At least we didn't book any flights yet, so there's no monetary loss, and we're planning to go back to the UK in September around my wife's birthday, but this is something that I really didn't want to miss!

[Allaboutwaiting 2,503]

Just found someone that filed for AOS from K1 in February, 4 months after their I-94 expired, from a local office where the average waiting time is 7-17 months and they had the GC in hand AFTER THREE MONTHS FROM FILING! 

Some people are just lucky; and then, there's us, doing everything properly and on time, still waiting. 

 

It is the kind of thing I wish I didn't know, but once I do, I come here to pass on my frustration and anger.

Edited May 28, 2019 by Allaboutwaiting

[lms 50]

Just received a USCIS update. Your case must be reviewed/Initial Review. I think that's the background check? 

Hmmm. 

Edited May 28, 2019 by lms

[Olumide & Funlola 73]

On 5/26/2019 at 12:52 PM, Allaboutwaiting said:

There was another successful case from months ago about someone who claimed financial loss if missing their own wedding -which makes perfect sense as all the money paid to vendors would be lost, plus any penalty that applies-.

 

I'll try to find the most recent post I saw and share it here. 😊

We too have a wedding planned for September and when we started planning, I thought my husband would have been working at least some months beforehand to help with the costs of things. We're at a few months before the wedding and still owing thousands to vendors and doing Doordash/Postmates on the weekends to make the extra money we now owe and in fear that we won't be able to pay up on time. 

 

This process has been frustrating for us and as much as we want to express that my husband's lack of employment leads to a significant loss for us with everything we've planned towards a wedding, I always felt in my opinion that USCIS would see it as an "insignificant" issue that we put on ourselves. And that we were being selfish to throw a big wedding that we couldn't afford in the first place when we could have just had a backyard wedding or something small. But who knew that after 7 months, we still wouldn't have a work permit!?!?!  I mean, we can definitely pay for the wedding by September with my income and help from both families, but we're prepared to eat beans from a can up until then lol. 😂😭

 

Anyway, it's good to know now that there was a successful case in the past from someone who claimed financial loss due to having a planned wedding and the penalties that might follow if the balance isn't paid. We might also use that as a reason to expedite in addition to other financial stress we are also facing. It's worth a try...