February 2019 AOS Filers [merged topics / edited title]

[ZeeZeeZee 11]

Any February filers seen new progress recently? I got the "case is ready to be scheduled for an interview" update on July 18th, nothing since then.

[NguoiVietNam 5]

Ready to be scheduled for interview on August 14. Days 186 and no EAD yet.

[ZeeZeeZee 11]

Isn't this fun. I'm especially enjoying that "I budgeted for a 3-5 month process and it's now at 7 months and counting" doesn't count as a severe-enough financial loss to warrant expediting the EAD.

 

So anyway: EAD estimated wait time for most AoS peeps like us is currently at 3.5 to 5.5 months, so anyone still waiting on their EAD can file an "outside normal processing times" case inquiry on the USCIS website. When they inevitably don't respond to your inquiry within 30 days, you can phone them and they'll escalate your call to a Person Who Can Actually Tell You Stuff. They probably won't be able to tell you *much* or give you any sort of time estimate, but you'll get a person who'll look at your case specifically and tell you where it's at, rather than give you the usual vague non-answers, which is nice.

 

Turns out my case was on hold for *several months* because I sent them my short-form birth certificate instead of the long-form one. I replied to the RFE within days of receiving it, it just took them months to *send out the RFE in the first place*. Ugh.

 

Also: the call centre has a limit on how many calls they can escalate per day, so if you call them you'll want to do it in the first few hours after their phoneline opens for the day. They open at 8am Eastern and they dgaf if you're on Pacific time, but you can probably get away with calling at 7-8am Pacific time (I called at 6:30 Pacific and got my call back from the supervisor person at 10:30 Pacific). Also look up in advance how to get through their phone menu, they've made it really difficult to figure out how to get off the automated system and actually talk to a person.