Immigration Officer did NOT give fiance an I-94

[Cassandra+Yuibi 0]

My fiance arrived through Houston, Texas two weeks ago. Everything seemed fine and in order until we started to get things together to apply for his social security number; that's when we realized that the immigration officer never gave him his I-94. As far as I can tell, we can neither apply for a SSN nor apply for Adjustment of Status without this document.

After further investigation I discovered that in order to apply for a new copy of it with USCIS it costs $350, which I refuse to pay. That costs more than our K-1 petition did and I am not about to pay such a huge amount of money (on top of the new fees) because of an error on the part of an immigration officer.

From reading through old posts here on VJ I saw people say that in this case Deferred Inspection should be called to handle the situation. (All the posts were at least a year old though). I just want to make sure this holds true still.

Should I just call the Houston Deferred Inspection site and explain to them the situation and demand they give us our I-94? My fiance expected that they would give it back to him in his passport as usual and didn't realize they hadn't until now.

Thanks for any help anyone can offer.

[Kez/JWolf 6]

I would call the CBP in Houston and explain to them what has happened... they should be able to help you... this happened to our friend here in Boston and that was what we did... they issued a new I-94 to her...

Kez

[bradcanuck 1]

I did not receive my I94 on an F-1 and it caused some problems. I had to go to an office in LA to get it. Call CBP and they will let you know what office you need to go to. You fill out a couple of forms. Bring the passport and all supporting documents and they will give you the card on the spot.

[zqt3344 21]

My fiance arrived through Houston, Texas two weeks ago. Everything seemed fine and in order until we started to get things together to apply for his social security number; that's when we realized that the immigration officer never gave him his I-94. As far as I can tell, we can neither apply for a SSN nor apply for Adjustment of Status without this document.

After further investigation I discovered that in order to apply for a new copy of it with USCIS it costs $350, which I refuse to pay. That costs more than our K-1 petition did and I am not about to pay such a huge amount of money (on top of the new fees) because of an error on the part of an immigration officer.

From reading through old posts here on VJ I saw people say that in this case Deferred Inspection should be called to handle the situation. (All the posts were at least a year old though). I just want to make sure this holds true still.

Should I just call the Houston Deferred Inspection site and explain to them the situation and demand they give us our I-94? My fiance expected that they would give it back to him in his passport as usual and didn't realize they hadn't until now.

Thanks for any help anyone can offer.

Call or go see CBP now. They should fix it no problems.

[roverdriver 0]

It sounds like others have had better experience, but this is what happened to us:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...t&p=1297218

Fortunately you're in a somewhat different situation, since he's here on a visa. Good luck. Let us know how it goes.

[Cassandra+Yuibi 0]

UPDATE!

My fiance and I tried the method suggested by everyone here to no avail in November. The person allegedly 'in charge' of deferred inspection told us that the staff was 'human' and 'sometimes make mistakes' and that if we wanted a replacement we had to go to the airport and see him IN PERSON for him to give us a replacement and there was no way he would mail us a replacement.

Well, relatively miffed by how rude he was to us (the man did not even know what a K-1 Visa was, even when I said "K-1 FIANCE Visa" he still had no clue), I called our local airport. The man there actually tried very hard to help us but in the end said that he couldn't because he did not have a deferred inspection officer. He suggested we go to San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, or El Paso, to get a new copy. We figured that since we were going to San Antonio after our wedding that would be fine. So, while in San Antonio we attempted to get our I-94. The person at the Airport's deferred inspection site told us they didn't know what it was, but we should go to a different place. She gave us an address and phone number and told us she didn't know anything about it when we asked things like: Do we need an appointment? When is this place open? What do we need to bring? Etc.

Upon researching the place we discovered that it was not the correct building, nor was the phone number correct. The phone number was just the general phone number for the California Service Center. And, to even ENTER the building that the address led to we needed to schedule an appointment. So, we returned home, even more irritated, and at that point I contacted our Congressman's Office (which I've become very familiar with throughout this process).

Luckily, the Congressman's Office helped once again! They couldn't get CSC to return their phone calls for a while so the person in charge of our case actually called someone she knew working for an immigration lawyer and was told by that person that the stamp on my husbands passport from his entry was working as an I-94 now. Also, she managed to get CSC to finally speak with her and she got our I-94 number so that we could fill out our forms properly.

The saddest and funniest thing is that even the Congressman's office was really disgusted at how poorly run CSC is because they wouldn't return a Congressman's calls for two weeks.

In conclusion, we'll be filing (finally) for a SSN and Adjustment of Status soon now and I hope that our experience can help all the other victims of incompetent immigration officers.

Edited December 7, 2007 by Cassandra+Yuibi

[~Nini~ 2]

Sorry to hear that you were given the runaround. Glad to hear things worked out though! Good luck with filing your paperwork.

Lovely wedding picture, too!

[journeyman 0]

Good that you got the I-94 number...but how are you going to file for AOS without an actual copy of the I-94 ?

The stamping in your passport is not going to be understood as I-94 by many.