Need help, please. I-751 was approved but failed to inform USCIS.

[Ash.1101 1,756]

13 minutes ago, Mollie09 said:

 

The waiver exists for filing. The filing was completed correctly. 

This is from the USCIS website, it exists for initial filing and for applications in process. The OP was in process when the divorce was filed, in the time of the process, 6 months of it was with a filed divorce and 3 months of it was in a finalized divorce. They spent a majority of the time of the process divorcing, all without adding a divorce waiver to their application. 

 

Quote

 

If you are still married, but legally separated and/or in pending divorce or annulment proceedings, and:

• You filed a waiver request. We will issue a request for evidence (RFE) specifically asking for a copy of the final divorce decree or annulment (if applicable).
• You filed a Form I-751 petition jointly. We will issue a request for evidence (RFE) specifically asking for a copy of the final divorce decree or annulment and a statement that you would like to have your joint filing petition treated as a waiver.

Upon receipt of the final divorce decree or annulment within the specified time period, we will amend the petition, to indicate that eligibility has been established for a waiver of the joint filing requirement based on the termination of the marriage.

https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/after-green-card-granted/conditional-permanent-residence/remove-conditions-permanent-residence-based-marriage

 

Edited December 6, 2019 by Ash.

[Mollie09 1,543]

8 minutes ago, Ash. said:

This is from the USCIS website, it exists for initial filing and for applications in process. The OP was in process when the divorce was filed, in the time of the process, 6 months of it was with a filed divorce and 3 months of it was in a finalized divorce. They spent a majority of the time of the process divorcing, all without adding a divorce waiver to their application. 

 

 

Again, I agree that that's what should have happened. But if no amendment was filed, what now? The website doesn't address this.

I'm saying they found the petition approvable so, while not ideal, it is what it is.

[Nitas_man 3,100]

A waiver for what?  The purpose of a waiver is for an applicant to waive the requirement to file jointly.  Both parties filed jointly, acknowledged (and proved) jointly that the marriage was entered into in good faith, and at the time of application were married.

Where do the rules require a waiver unless the beneficiary/applicant needs one?

The reason that it is not there is that it is not required (unless) the applicant needs to waive the joint filing requirement.  

[Downloader 199]

I agree with this logical reasoning but when dealing with the government is always better to play on the safe side, USCIS should have been informed of the divorce before adjudicating the petition and I’m pretty sure that during the renewal of the green card or naturalization this will come up as a big question as why there is no record of the change during the i-751 processing. 

USCIS has the ability to track where an immigrant might be living but yet they require you to keep your current address updated. 

The final adjudication decision is what matters and at that time the applicant was not married anymore. I would call USCIS, try to get an L2 Officer and explain the situation and go from there, also consult with a few lawyers to hear their opinion but some effort has to be done to at least inform USCIS.

Edited December 6, 2019 by Downloader

[Ash.1101 1,756]

7 minutes ago, Downloader said:

I agree with this logical reasoning but when dealing with the government is always better to play on the safe side, USCIS should have been informed of the divorce before adjudicating the petition and I’m pretty sure that during the renewal of the green card or naturalization this will come up as a big question as why there is no record of the change during the i-751 processing. 

USCIS has the ability to track where an immigrant might be living but yet they require you to keep your current address updated. 

The final adjudication decision is what matters and at that time the applicant was not married anymore. I would call USCIS, try to get an L2 Officer and explain the situation and go from there, also consult with a fee lawyers to hear their opinion but some effort has to be done to at least inform USCIS.

See that's where my issue is coming from.

Yes, the application was approved on its own merits, but the merits of the application were merits based off them being married at the time of sending in the application, and without any updating, USCIS approved the application based on the idea that they are still married because they don't know other wise. 

Even on the website it mentioned that they amend the application to reflect divorce status, which means something on their end does need to know about the divorce or there wouldn't be anything to amend.

 

Quote

Upon receipt of the final divorce decree or annulment within the specified time period, we will amend the petition, to indicate that eligibility has been established for a waiver of the joint filing requirement based on the termination of the marriage.

This would imply that with a divorce, eligibility on a joint petition would have been lost, because a joint petition eligibility is based on marriage through the entirety of the ROC process. And if you aren't eligible to ROC and you were approved, that would mean the approval was granted under false pretenses.

There's a reason you can change things post-filing, and it's because the facts at final adjudication are more important than the facts at filing, that's why the option of filing a waiver exists and they readily give us all of this information to make sure we understand what needs to be done prior to adjudication. 

[Villanelle 4,122]

This has happened to others....

 

How long exactly were you approved? Did you get the new card in the mail yet? What you need to do is  GO TO INFOPASS!!! Bring a waiver 751 filled out and your divorce decree. Explain to them what happened. In one case they were able to go back in an amend the joint approved to a waiver approved. Depending on how long its been since approval they may be able to do this... In another case they were unable to do such and advised the person to send in a new waiver ROC and they were going to revoke the joint ROC approval as they couldnt amend it. Ive also seen people be told there was nothing they could do and for them to do nothing! So its really going to depend on how the Officer wants to handle it... For those advised to do nothing, well they did nothing but had documentation then that at least they tried for naturalization or any other issues that may come up in the future. 

Please go to infopass and let us know what happens!

 

 

 

 

[kazunzun 0]

7 minutes ago, Villanelle said:

This has happened to others....

 

How long exactly were you approved? Did you get the new card in the mail yet? What you need to do is  GO TO INFOPASS!!! Bring a waiver 751 filled out and your divorce decree. Explain to them what happened. In one case they were able to go back in an amend the joint approved to a waiver approved. Depending on how long its been since approval they may be able to do this... In another case they were unable to do such and advised the person to send in a new waiver ROC and they were going to revoke the joint ROC approval as they couldnt amend it. Ive also seen people be told there was nothing they could do and for them to do nothing! So its really going to depend on how the Officer wants to handle it... For those advised to do nothing, well they did nothing but had documentation then that at least they tried for naturalization or any other issues that may come up in the future. 

Please go to infopass and let us know what happens!

 

 

 

 

ROC was approved on 3rd and they sent the card on 5th.

I'll go to infopass and explain the situation as well as calling them to explain what happened. 

 

Thank you for your advice, Villanelle!

[Villanelle 4,122]

The only issue I can see here is determining who exactly did the approval. For ROC it gets sent to the service center and the service center can approve w/o interview. Or they can send it to the local office who will either interview or approve w/o interview. I believe some of the people this has happened to had different results based on who actually did the approval (but thats my own speculation!). It seems those who had an Officer do the approval in the local office were successful in getting an Officer to undo it. But anyway even if they didnt approve it at the local office they can send your files directly to the service center and communicate with the service center. A phone rep will technically do the same thing. However I am always weary of using the phone reps in that matter because they never seem to follow through. When you actually deal with a person in person its much more likely they will do what they say or else they know you will be back and they have to face you again. With the phone system you get a random person each time and its easy for them to say I know nothing about what the previous person said.... So if infopass can not help you you may want to consider going to your local representative. Everyone has 2 senators and one rep they can contact for immigration assistance. So personally if I had the choice of dealing with phone center on my own or using a congressperson I would use a congressperson hands down every time. The congressperson also has a direct contact line to USCIS so you would be sure your info of being divorced is submitted and if they choose to do nothing, well again at least you tried. I understand you do not want naturalization but things can change and you may choose to do it in the future. Also if you are ever going to attempt to petition for someone this is going to come up. So you have to at least try to get it fixed or get an acknowledgment that they know and are not doing anything about it. Best of luck to you!  

[kazunzun 0]

12 minutes ago, Villanelle said:

The only issue I can see here is determining who exactly did the approval. For ROC it gets sent to the service center and the service center can approve w/o interview. Or they can send it to the local office who will either interview or approve w/o interview. I believe some of the people this has happened to had different results based on who actually did the approval (but thats my own speculation!). It seems those who had an Officer do the approval in the local office were successful in getting an Officer to undo it. But anyway even if they didnt approve it at the local office they can send your files directly to the service center and communicate with the service center. A phone rep will technically do the same thing. However I am always weary of using the phone reps in that matter because they never seem to follow through. When you actually deal with a person in person its much more likely they will do what they say or else they know you will be back and they have to face you again. With the phone system you get a random person each time and its easy for them to say I know nothing about what the previous person said.... So if infopass can not help you you may want to consider going to your local representative. Everyone has 2 senators and one rep they can contact for immigration assistance. So personally if I had the choice of dealing with phone center on my own or using a congressperson I would use a congressperson hands down every time. The congressperson also has a direct contact line to USCIS so you would be sure your info of being divorced is submitted and if they choose to do nothing, well again at least you tried. I understand you do not want naturalization but things can change and you may choose to do it in the future. Also if you are ever going to attempt to petition for someone this is going to come up. So you have to at least try to get it fixed or get an acknowledgment that they know and are not doing anything about it. Best of luck to you!  

I just called but the rep said since it's approved, there's nothing she can do. I explained that I didn't inform my divorce prior to the approval but she kept saying it's been approved, so I should be okay...

I asked her to make an appointment for Infopass, but she said she can't. I was to told to call back Monday morning to talk to level 2 officer. 

Can I just go to a local representative? I had no idea where and how but.. Is it the local immigration office?? I also like to someone in person to make sure they know I try to get it fixed.

[little immigrant 801]

Let me make sure I didn't miss anything. 

 

You applied ROC jointly. 

 

You got dicorced. 

 

You waited for an RFE. 

 

BUT you never informed USCIS in the meantime that a divorce was filed? How did you expect a RFE? USCIS are not mind readers. 

 

You already received good advice on how to amend this. Please come back and update us as it will be helpful. Thank you. 

[SunflowerSweet 1,321]

4 hours ago, Ash. said:

When did you file for divorce? Because the time of filing is just as important since you can do a divorce waiver the second you know you are going for a divorce. It's easier to go "Oh I forgot" if you got a 30 day divorce (filed and finished) but if you had more than 3 months between filing and finalization then it's gonna be pretty iffy.

I agree they should have notified USCIS once their divorce was finalized but I feel filing is a little more complicated than what USCIS asks for. 

 

It looks like OP's divorce took 10 months from filing to to finalized. If they would have asked to switch to waiver filing immediately after submitting the divorce for filing, they almost certainly would not have had the finalized divorce decree in time to produce it for the RFE. Would their petition then be denied at that point, causing them to have to start over?

[Downloader 199]

49 minutes ago, MorganandMichael said:

I agree they should have notified USCIS once their divorce was finalized but I feel filing is a little more complicated than what USCIS asks for. 

 

It looks like OP's divorce took 10 months from filing to to finalized. If they would have asked to switch to waiver filing immediately after submitting the divorce for filing, they almost certainly would not have had the finalized divorce decree in time to produce it for the RFE. Would their petition then be denied at that point, causing them to have to start over?

Almost sure it would have been denied but they didn’t inform USCIS after the divorced was final either.

Edited December 6, 2019 by Downloader

[SunflowerSweet 1,321]

16 minutes ago, Downloader said:

Almost sure it would have been denied but they didn’t inform USCIS after the divorced was final either.

I know. If you read the first line, I agree that they SHOULD have let USCIS know once it was FINALIZED. But Ash’s first post mentioned letting them know right after FILING the divorce, which seems like it would have been extremely against their best interests in this case and the case of any other states with long divorce processing times.

[Nitas_man 3,100]

4 hours ago, Ash. said:

This is from the USCIS website, it exists for initial filing and for applications in process. The OP was in process when the divorce was filed, in the time of the process, 6 months of it was with a filed divorce and 3 months of it was in a finalized divorce. They spent a majority of the time of the process divorcing, all without adding a divorce waiver to their application. 

 

 

A jointly filed application does not require a waiver from jointly filing.

If there is such a requirement, other than the applicant having to go it alone and apply for a waiver, please find and post that requirement.

 

All of the posted references describe the waiver process that is applied when joint application is infeasible.  

Edited December 6, 2019 by Nitas_man

[SalishSea 17,928]

18 hours ago, Burnpro23 said:

I though checking marriage/divorce databases

? Marriage/divorce databases = isn't a thing.