I-751 Case Issue: Receipt Notice Was Not Generated But Still Has Receipt Number?

[ALMG0214 1]

Hi all, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! We have some concerns regarding our I-751 case and want see what you all think would be the best steps for us to take from now on:

 

1. We filed our I-751 in early August this year and was never received anything in the mail.

2. After a couple of months passed, we decided to call USCIS and an officer actually provided us a receipt number for our case and we can see our Case Status Online as below:

3. I was also able to request an Online Access Code to add our case under USCIS online account, however, there's no Notice to download under the Documents section:

 4. We called USCIS again and this time was told that our Receipt Notice was never scanned/generated. I emailed the Lockbox as suggested by the Officer, but got a reply that the Lockbox does not print notices for I-751 filings and we should initiate an inquiry with the adjudicating service center (we were told it's Potomac Center which is a little bit weird since we live in west coast and shouldn't the closest center be California Center?)

5. We filed a Case Inquiry online for not receiving notice by mail but it's been more than 30 days but haven't heard anything back.

 

We are a little bit concerned on what to do next as my spouse's green card has expired earlier this month and she is not able to travel internationally, find a job, or even get her driver's license. We tried to schedule an in-person appointment but never heard anything back after 30 days. Should we continue to file case inquiry online? Call/mail/email Potomac Center? Or should we contact our Ombudsman or local congressman? Any advice or suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[OldUser 6,624]

Hi @ALMG0214 

 

1) is the address you live at now different to the one you put on I-751?

2) did you successfully receive any other mail from USCIS at current address?

3) did you file a case for notice non-delivery? https://egov.uscis.gov/e-request/displayNDNForm.do; jsessionid=08E5FD1FD9BC*****************6F3?sroPageType=ndn&entryPoint=init

You have an advantage, at least you know the case number.

4) did you try to get an infopass appointment? If your spouse gets a I-551 stamp in passport, they can renew driver's license and travel internationally for 1 year of its validity

5) does your spouse have an unrestricted social security card?

Edited November 25, 2023 by OldUser

[ALMG0214 1]

Hi @OldUser, thank you for your reply!

 

1) is the address you live at now different to the one you put on I-751?

Yes, we have moved but we updated our physical address and received the address change confirmation (the online account also shows the correct address). Also, we used P.O. Box on our application as mailing address for this purpose just to avoid potential issues with moving.

 

2) did you successfully receive any other mail from USCIS at current address?

Yes, we have received the mail regarding confirmation of address change of US sponsor in our P.O. Box (mailing address) since the filing of I-751.

 

3) did you file a case for notice non-delivery? https://egov.uscis.gov/e-request/displayNDNForm.do; jsessionid=08E5FD1FD9BC*****************6F3?sroPageType=ndn&entryPoint=init

You have an advantage, at least you know the case number.

Yes, we did, but didn't hear anything back even after 30 days, so I just filed another one and need to wait another 30 days. we are starting to worry because when we called USCIS back last week the officer said looks like the notice was never generated and there's nothing to send.

 

4) did you try to get an infopass appointment? If your spouse gets a I-551 stamp in passport, they can renew driver's license and travel internationally for 1 year of its validity.

Yes, we tried to make an appointment through USCIS phone call in October and was given a reference number, we were told someone will contact us within 30 days, however, 30 days have already been passed and when we called USCIS back last week, they said the appointment was never made they are now scheduling another one, hopefully we will hear back within 30 days.

 

5) does your spouse have an unrestricted social security card?

Yes, I think it's unrestricted since she received it after getting her 2-year green card and it looks identical to mine (just name and SSN on the card).

[OldUser 6,624]

1 hour ago, ALMG0214 said:

Hi @OldUser, thank you for your reply!

 

1) is the address you live at now different to the one you put on I-751?

Yes, we have moved but we updated our physical address and received the address change confirmation (the online account also shows the correct address). Also, we used P.O. Box on our application as mailing address for this purpose just to avoid potential issues with moving.

 

 

Seems like you did everything right on your end. USCIS is known to send letters randomly to physical address even if mailing address is provided. Moving during I-751 is always associated with some risk unfortunately.

[OldUser 6,624]

1 hour ago, ALMG0214 said:

.5) does your spouse have an unrestricted social security card?

Yes, I think it's unrestricted since she received it after getting her 2-year green card and it looks identical to mine (just name and SSN on the card).

Is the spouse has unrestricted SS card and DL that is still valid, those can be used for I-9 verification. No need to show the GC, in fact I never recommend showing it to employer.

[ALMG0214 1]

Right, which is why we also requested an Online Access Code so we can add the case to our online account and download any notices in case if they send to the wrong address, but looks like there's not any notice available to download.

[powerpuff 6,697]

That sound’s really frustrating, I’m sorry you’re going through this.

 

5 hours ago, ALMG0214 said:

Should we continue to file case inquiry online? Call/mail/email Potomac Center? Or should we contact our Ombudsman or local congressman?

I’d definitely do all of the above. I heard that the Ombudsman is useless but doesn’t hurt to try I suppose. Best bet would be your local congressperson.

 

5 hours ago, ALMG0214 said:

We tried to schedule an in-person appointment but never heard anything back after 30 days.

Did you try also the USCIS online appointment scheduling for an ADIT stamp? It’s recent and I do not know how/if it works but it’s worth a try:

https://my.uscis.gov/en/appointment/v2 

 

[top_secret 2,414]

I was able to get "Ask Emma live agent" to e-mail me the pdf copy of a biometrics notice that was missing and not visible online due to some ongoing glitch.  I would definitely take the other advice given here first, but I was surprised how easily we got the missing notice from "Ask Emma".  It's also worth a try.

[ALMG0214 1]

So today we filed a FOIA request for the I-751 application and Receipt Notice (it's been 4 months after filing but still no receipt notice). Is this a bad idea? After reading some stories about cases being delayed after filing FOIA request, we are a bit scared that we might made a mistake.

[OldUser 6,624]

54 minutes ago, ALMG0214 said:

So today we filed a FOIA request for the I-751 application and Receipt Notice (it's been 4 months after filing but still no receipt notice). Is this a bad idea? After reading some stories about cases being delayed after filing FOIA request, we are a bit scared that we might made a mistake.

Yes, FOIA can delay I-751.

[ALMG0214 1]

Thanks, we just emailed FOIA and requested to cancel. We will try other ways to get the receipt notice.