July 2021 - AOS Filers

[chancecody 125]

12 minutes ago, uapilot said:

Well, I never said they were consistent. 😆

 

This isn't my idea, just something a lot of people have suggested based on the fact that:

• They re-request a LOT of documents that people have already sent in. Seems like almost everyone has this experience. They can't be this bad at keeping files in the right folders.
• You're allowed to request an inquiry into case status if you haven't had an update in over 90 days.
• USCIS has no vehicle for updating your case except for 1) moving your case forward a step or 2) requesting an RFE. If they haven't been able to get to your case, the assumption is that they'd rather pretend they lost stuff than move forward a case that potentially should not be moved forward.

I am agree with the other poster that this is bs. My case has not moved for 120 days. The idea that USCIS will waste their resources by asking for fake RFE just to show they are doing something about it in 90 days is ridiculous. Are you able to provide references to this from USCIS?

 

In general, we can only contact them if our case falls outside processing times.

[uapilot 68]

2 minutes ago, chancecody said:

Are you able to provide references to this from USCIS?

Why would USCIS admit to doing something like this?

 

Also, you had your bio appointment in September, that counts as an update. As does scheduling the bio appointment.

[molehills 67]

12 hours ago, chancecody said:

I am agree with the other poster that this is bs. My case has not moved for 120 days. The idea that USCIS will waste their resources by asking for fake RFE just to show they are doing something about it in 90 days is ridiculous. Are you able to provide references to this from USCIS?

 

In general, we can only contact them if our case falls outside processing times.

I've seen similar posts fall back on the "90 days -> auto RFE", a handful in just this thread. I think it's been said that a former USCIS agent (?) did a reddit post who gave up some insider secrets, this was one of them. Now whether or not this is true or not, who knows. I know working for local/city government, 90 days to act on something is very common. Granted, we have state laws where this is actually written down and explicit and is publicly available, but I digress.

[HBundle 44]

I think its a good theory but was just commenting that I don't think there is necessarily a 90 day window since many people, including us, fall outside of that.  I suspect there is some truth to the theory but probably not as an actual policy, rather certain examiners may take the lazy route if a case hasn't been updated in a while.  Who knows? 🤷‍♂️

[uapilot 68]

1 hour ago, HBundle said:

I think its a good theory but was just commenting that I don't think there is necessarily a 90 day window since many people, including us, fall outside of that.  I suspect there is some truth to the theory but probably not as an actual policy, rather certain examiners may take the lazy route if a case hasn't been updated in a while.  Who knows? 🤷‍♂️

I don't think it's intended to a be a "rule", but a lot of people see it that way for some reason. USCIS has plenty of policies about timeliness that they obviously don't follow LOL.

 

My guess is that teams get measured on metrics, one of them being % of cases over the 90 day response window, and some team managers care about having good metrics and some don't.

[RishDan 77]

Good Morning 😃 

Has anyone received their combo card ( EAD + AP ) yet from the July Filers group ? 

My case DMV- CA dept. has not approved my Drivers license and is now on hold ( although I passed and have my temporary for 60 days with me ) because they couldn’t verify my legal presence in the country.
They asked to send the approval notice of my (EAD or GC) Work permit when I get them to have my license approved. 

Do we get an approval notice by mail or email in our USCIS account ? 

[FayeAlexandra 17]

Does anyone have any knowledge of expediting your work permit? I'm most likely going to be made a job offer in the next few weeks to start in Feb 2022. Really want to attempt to get hold of my EAD before then so they don't pull my offer. Any thoughts?

[chancecody 125]

36 minutes ago, FayeAlexandra said:

Does anyone have any knowledge of expediting your work permit? I'm most likely going to be made a job offer in the next few weeks to start in Feb 2022. Really want to attempt to get hold of my EAD before then so they don't pull my offer. Any thoughts?

Congratulations! I am also glad that you have until Feb 2022. I’d say prepare for a roller coaster in this expedite process🎢. In reddit, many people who are expediting these days are getting an automatic deny because everyone is expediting. 

 

The main thing is to make a strong case from the get go. See below post if you have a job offer. You mentioned that you will only get the job offer in the next coming weeks. My reco is to call USCIS now and talk to an agent about expediting. They will give you a referral number. You will be asked to provide proof roughly a month later. If you use a representative, it MAY be processed in 7 days. Good luck!

 

My timeline:

Sept 3- called USCIS to expedite. They gave me a referral number.

Oct 1- got an email from USCIS to provide proof of financial loss. I provided it and nothing was done.

Oct 29- my case was approved via a senator‘s help. They said I would get my card within 30 days

Nov 22- I still do not have my card. My senator’s office forwarded the approval on Oct 29th to NBC last week when they inquired but somehow USCIS said they do not see approval in their system. On Oct 29th, I remember the USCIS agent who approved it told my caseworker they had a technical glitch that day.

 

My guess is NBC approved my Advance Parole by mistake as I got the standalone approval on Oct 29th. My EAD that was supposedly approved is still in limbo.

 

As you can see, USCIS is a mess. I got approval but now they don’t have a record of it. Prepare for a roller coaster.

 

 

Edited November 22, 2021 by chancecody

[HBundle 44]

We finally got our biometrics appointment set for 12/14 🥳 Only took 4 months haha

 

Does this mean we shouldn't get an RFE?  Do RFEs ever follow biometrics?  Or are they generally before receiving the biometrics appointment?

[powerpuff 6,697]

25 minutes ago, HBundle said:

We finally got our biometrics appointment set for 12/14 🥳 Only took 4 months haha

 

Does this mean we shouldn't get an RFE?  Do RFEs ever follow biometrics?  Or are they generally before receiving the biometrics appointment?

RFEs can be issued at any point of the process, even after a green card interview. 

[molehills 67]

10 hours ago, HBundle said:

We finally got our biometrics appointment set for 12/14 🥳 Only took 4 months haha

 

Does this mean we shouldn't get an RFE?  Do RFEs ever follow biometrics?  Or are they generally before receiving the biometrics appointment?

We had an RFE about 2 months after our biometrics were done. 

[Treasure1 243]

Can one request for expedite through Emma successfully or must we have to call them?

[uapilot 68]

On 11/16/2021 at 6:21 AM, RishDan said:

Good Morning 😃 

Has anyone received their combo card ( EAD + AP ) yet from the July Filers group ? 

My case DMV- CA dept. has not approved my Drivers license and is now on hold ( although I passed and have my temporary for 60 days with me ) because they couldn’t verify my legal presence in the country.
They asked to send the approval notice of my (EAD or GC) Work permit when I get them to have my license approved. 

Do we get an approval notice by mail or email in our USCIS account ? 

You’ll get one by mail for sure, but usually they’ll upload it to your myUSCIS account as well for that case number.

[uapilot 68]

We had our interview today. The officer didn't say the case was approved or denied, but a lot of things were implying it would be approved (e.g. "all documentation is present and correct", we signed a statement acknowledging that we'd have to remove conditions after two years). It's 6:40pm where we are, so I'm thinking she already went home for the day, but there's no update to our case at the moment.

 

A few things that may be of interest that were gray areas when I tried to research them:

- The I-693 deficiency notice is mostly meaningless unless you didn't know your application was supposed to have one. It means your application did not have a medical, but it doesn't imply at all that it was supposed to have one.

- Filling out just the vaccine portion of your medical is A-OK if that's the only thing that was missing from your overseas medical.

- What was a very pleasant surprise was that the officer offered to adjudicate our daughter's I-485 as well (here on K-2) at the same time. My daughter's case was still at NBC after I had responded to the initial RFE. She said that it was possible for her to do so because my daughter's case was electronically filed, and since she's 5 years old, she doesn't need an in-person interview. Since all needed docs were present for her case as well, she would try to adjudicate hers, barring some computer issues.

- She said they're able to access any IOE case even if they're still at the service center, but she still had the paper copy of my wife's case in front of her (permanent record style, starting with the I-129F). This is a plus for electronic filing, but the downside is that the electronic copy of it is very slow to access for them. It pretty much hangs on every single page she tries to load, so the more pages you submitted, the harder it is to evaluate. Take that for what you will; I just know that some people like submitting everything but the kitchen sink as evidence "just in case", but if more forms go electronic and things don't improve speed wise for the officers, I can imagine a case with 400 pages of evidence would be frustrating to adjudicate.

[chancecody 125]

16 minutes ago, uapilot said:

We had our interview today. The officer didn't say the case was approved or denied, but a lot of things were implying it would be approved (e.g. "all documentation is present and correct", we signed a statement acknowledging that we'd have to remove conditions after two years). It's 6:40pm where we are, so I'm thinking she already went home for the day, but there's no update to our case at the moment.

 

A few things that may be of interest that were gray areas when I tried to research them:

- The I-693 deficiency notice is mostly meaningless unless you didn't know your application was supposed to have one. It means your application did not have a medical, but it doesn't imply at all that it was supposed to have one.

- Filling out just the vaccine portion of your medical is A-OK if that's the only thing that was missing from your overseas medical.

- What was a very pleasant surprise was that the officer offered to adjudicate our daughter's I-485 as well (here on K-2) at the same time. My daughter's case was still at NBC after I had responded to the initial RFE. She said that it was possible for her to do so because my daughter's case was electronically filed, and since she's 5 years old, she doesn't need an in-person interview. Since all needed docs were present for her case as well, she would try to adjudicate hers, barring some computer issues.

- She said they're able to access any IOE case even if they're still at the service center, but she still had the paper copy of my wife's case in front of her (permanent record style, starting with the I-129F). This is a plus for electronic filing, but the downside is that the electronic copy of it is very slow to access for them. It pretty much hangs on every single page she tries to load, so the more pages you submitted, the harder it is to evaluate. Take that for what you will; I just know that some people like submitting everything but the kitchen sink as evidence "just in case", but if more forms go electronic and things don't improve speed wise for the officers, I can imagine a case with 400 pages of evidence would be frustrating to adjudicate.

Congratulations! You’re the second July filer that I read that have had their interviews (one in another thread was approved). I am sure your card will be sent soon based on your interview.