• Hello Members, This forums is for DV lottery visas only. For other immigration related questions, please go to our forums home page, find the related forum and post it there.

DV 2017 AOS Only

I m familiar with NIW process as that was my fall back plan. Infact I was in process when I found out I was selected for DV lottery (wasted close to $6000 in attorney fees for a process which I didn't even use). Process is quite lengthy as it involves getting recommendation letters, preparing a petition, writing a research summary. Then you have to apply for I140 to get the exception followed by I485. If you are lucky you will get u r I140 approved with in 3 months if not it will take around a year. Alternatively you can concurrently file i140 and i485 which might be a route you should prefer if this is possible. What I can do is if you are in my field of study I can give you a recommendation letter (independent one) why don't you PM me regarding u r field.

Cool, thanks for the info and offering your help. I'll send you a message.
 
Hi Mom,

Now that I fall back onto F1 visa, is it risky for me to go back to my country for vacation? Will that be a problem at the port of entry since I have an A number and showed immigrant intent by applying for green card?
 
Hi Mom,

Now that I fall back onto F1 visa, is it risky for me to go back to my country for vacation? Will that be a problem at the port of entry since I have an A number and showed immigrant intent by applying for green card?

You should be alright coming back, unless of course your current visa has expired and you need to apply for a new visa before you can return to the US.
 
Technically speaking, the affidavit of support you're submitting for AOS does not make the sponsor obligated or responsible for you in anyway. If the sponsor refuses to give you any kind of support after you receive your GC, there's nothing you can do about it, you can't successfully sue the sponsor. You're responsible for making sure you do not become a public charge of your own.

You will not "belong" to the sponsor either.

Thank you so much for respond. So for to be clear,
basically my sponsor doesnt responsible for me in anyway after i receive GC ? I am the only responsible if i become any public charge of my own.
 
We went for our InfoPass today, to Houston FO. Everything went as expected:
- As usual, we were told that our case is being processed and we will be notified by mail very soon.
- I did not buy that and insisted on getting more information stating that the deadline of Sep 30 is right in front of us, next week. Then the front desk officer disappeared for ~20 minutes and came with the another officer (probably the one processing our case). They both told us that the decision on our case is ready to be made but they cannot do so, because DOS ordered no more visas to be issued.
- Nothing of what I out-poured verbally at that time made any difference at all. They could not explain why our case was not looked at for over 5 months since our response to RFE. So we left frustrated and hopeless.

It was quite an effort on our side, we are 5 people in our family which means all in all we had a considerable amount of expenses incurred for fees, medicals, and attorney fees for our RFE response package. All for nothing due to slow processing by USCIS.
So sorry that you had to go through that! :( I wish you the best of luck in the future.
My FO will be Houston TX as well :/
 
Hi Mom, Brit,
Unfortunately I have not received interview letter till now. I put the service request to schedule an interview and yesterday I received response from the field office officer that they still considering the case... Surprisingly they did not send cancellation letter or smth else. Here are the latest details on my case:
On Aug 30th Chicago FO requested my case from KCC and NBC. KCC sent the case to FO on Sep 1st but NBC cancelled that request.
NBC only transferred the case to the FO on Sep 13th after congress person involvement.
Is there any chance any visas are allocated for us since the all the requests on my case was don on Aug 30 by the FO?
 
Hi Mom, Brit,
Unfortunately I have not received interview letter till now. I put the service request to schedule an interview and yesterday I received response from the field office officer that they still considering the case... Surprisingly they did not send cancellation letter or smth else. Here are the latest details on my case:
On Aug 30th Chicago FO requested my case from KCC and NBC. KCC sent the case to FO on Sep 1st but NBC cancelled that request.
NBC only transferred the case to the FO on Sep 13th after congress person involvement.
Is there any chance any visas are allocated for us since the all the requests on my case was don on Aug 30 by the FO?

I wish I had some good news to give you, unfortunately I don't. Like we've said over and over, visa numbers are not pre-allocated or reserved in DV based AOS cases. The visa only gets requested at the end of the process.
 
I wish I had some good news to give you, unfortunately I don't. Like we've said over and over, visa numbers are not pre-allocated or reserved in DV based AOS cases. The visa only gets requested at the end of the process.
Just before scheduling an interview? Why are they torturing us?
 
Just before scheduling an interview? Why are they torturing us?

No, not before scheduling the interview. The very last step in the approval process! Visa number is requested for when the decision has been made to approve the petition.

And no again! They are not torturing you or anybody. You are the only person torturing yourself considering you've opted to not believe anything that's been written/said on this Thread in the past couple of days.
 
No, not before scheduling the interview. The very last step in the approval process! Visa number is requested for when the decision has been made to approve the petition.

And no again! They are not torturing you or anybody. You are the only person torturing yourself considering you've opted to not believe anything that's been written/said on this Thread in the past couple of days.
Please believe me, it is not easy to acknowledge this. I received response from AILA saying that USCIS still certain approves applicants depends what stage they are at. Additionally I made an inquiry to my country`s consulate and they stated that they still conduct interviews... Additionally I looked through the statistics, there have been years where DOS exceeded 50K visas.... I have not slept for almost a week...
 
Please believe me, it is not easy to acknowledge this. I received response from AILA saying that USCIS still certain approves applicants depends what stage they are at. Additionally I made an inquiry to my country`s consulate and they stated that they still conduct interviews... Additionally I looked through the statistics, there have been years where DOS exceeded 50K visas.... I have not slept for almost a week...

I understand it is hard to come to terms with, I most certainly do feel the pains of those who missed out. This is not my first year of supporting DV candidates (same with Susie and Simon by the way), we were all gut wrenched back in 2015 (I think?) when visas were under issued based on miscalculation on KCC's side when they thought they already had enough cases, and so many cases did not get to become current.

We have a deeper understanding of the DV process than all of AILA combined together. We've talked extensively about the additional 5,000 NACARA visas set apart that sometimes gets allocated to DV cases. Of course we don't yet know if those are all used up, (I don't think they are), but for some reasons unknown to us, USCIS has been instructed to stop approving 2017 DV based AOS cases.

Regarding the enquiry to your home office, that is like comparing apples to oranges. CP cases are still being interviewed and approved, and will most likely continue until Sept. 30th. The reason for that is quite simple. Visa numbers are set apart for CP cases once KCC schedule them for interview. Visa numbers ARE NOT set apart for AOS cases, they only get requested when the decision has been made to approve the case. Period!

Of course miracles can still happen, I certainly do believe in them. I wouldn't be surprised to start reading of AOSers coming back to say they've suddenly been approved. But I honestly don't want people to get their hopes up unnecessarily.
 
Hi Mom/Simon,

I just got my denial letter when I went for an infopass today, and the reason of course is that the visas are exhausted. I do not have words to express how sad I am, but since I do not have anything left to do, I am trying to make up my mind to face the reality. I wish this will never happen to anybody else in the future.

Anyway, thank you so much for all you advise and guidance. Keep up your good work. May God bless you !
 
Hi Mom/Simon,

I just got my denial letter when I went for an infopass today, and the reason of course is that the visas are exhausted. I do not have words to express how sad I am, but since I do not have anything left to do, I am trying to make up my mind to face the reality. I wish this will never happen to anybody else in the future.

Anyway, thank you so much for all you advise and guidance. Keep up your good work. May God bless you !

It's very sad and frustrating. I'm sorry it happened.
 
Hi Mom/Simon,

I just got my denial letter when I went for an infopass today, and the reason of course is that the visas are exhausted. I do not have words to express how sad I am, but since I do not have anything left to do, I am trying to make up my mind to face the reality. I wish this will never happen to anybody else in the future.

Anyway, thank you so much for all you advise and guidance. Keep up your good work. May God bless you !

This is really sad, I'm so sorry. Wishing you the best as you move on though.
 
This is really sad and unfair , I got denied cause my FO didn't do it's job properly and my IO didn't want to approve me 5 weeks after my AP , and I live in this country and I really needed that GC , and some body gets the GC and doesn't even use it ....
 
This is really sad and unfair , I got denied cause my FO didn't do it's job properly and my IO didn't want to approve me 5 weeks after my AP , and I live in this country and I really needed that GC , and some body gets the GC and doesn't even use it ....
Very sorry to learn about your experience - this is very sad, indeed. The procedural difference in AoS processing, as compared to CP, in terms of visa number allocation as very last step in the approval process does normally not make any difference, until it does. Again, very sorry to learn about your case and that of other DV-2017 applicants in the same situation!
 
it is very sad.

I believe the spreadsheet has always stated that one of the drawbacks of AOS is that the FOs often take much longer than CP to process, but perhaps it should now also be highlighted that there have now been cases this year where people have lost out on visas because of it.

While understanding the frustration and sadness, I really don't know if all the anger towards the FOs is justified. The FOs have never been places that drop everything else for immediate action on all DV cases (hence the warnings in the forum about length of time), from their perspective they have a huge workload on other cases, they actually do push DV cases in front of others and this has never been an issue for them before. They are probably as surprised by the outcome as everyone here.
 
it is very sad.

I believe the spreadsheet has always stated that one of the drawbacks of AOS is that the FOs often take much longer than CP to process, but perhaps it should now also be highlighted that there have now been cases this year where people have lost out on visas because of it.

While understanding the frustration and sadness, I really don't know if all the anger towards the FOs is justified. The FOs have never been places that drop everything else for immediate action on all DV cases (hence the warnings in the forum about length of time), from their perspective they have a huge workload on other cases, they actually do push DV cases in front of others and this has never been an issue for them before. They are probably as surprised by the outcome as everyone here.
I think this is a fair assessment - all other USCIS AoS processes, other than DV I-485's are based on noticeably longer processing times, without underlying firm deadlines and this is what FO's are therefore geared for. Generally speaking, they do their best to accommodate DV priority processing requirements and therefore normally do a good job in this respect (again, in general). I think you are also correct in your suggestion to update and include related AoS DV-2017 experience in the spreadsheet for future consideration. Not that it makes any difference to any DV-2017 applicant at this stage, yet I continue to believe that for higher CN's, that may require USCIS processing during the second half of August or during September of the DV year, CP is the safer way to go. Again, this is my personal assessment, others might have a different perspective.
 
This is really sad and unfair , I got denied cause my FO didn't do it's job properly and my IO didn't want to approve me 5 weeks after my AP , and I live in this country and I really needed that GC , and some body gets the GC and doesn't even use it ....

Really sad, and especially for people with strong ties to the US who need a green card more than someone who never set foot on american soil. You should ideally have priority over the rest. I'm really sorry. What doesn't kill you will make you stronger. Hopefully you'll find another way to get a green card. Be tough and good luck.
 
Top