hey guys,
I haven't posted here for almost 2 months, I thought I'd provide an update. It's long, bear with me.
As you know I pretty much set a world record in processing speed regarding my green card: February initial filing and the interview took place on April 14th where we got approved with no problem.
Well, since then things have slowed down, I still don't have my card.
I did have an old employment-based case pending. So at the interview the officer told us that he needed to request and receive my old EB I-485 file from the Lincoln Service Center. That took about 3 weeks, so during that time nothing happened obviously.
And I had to travel to Hungary in mid May, so the officer and I agreed that he would only approve and sign my case the day after I return to the US, namely June 4th so there is no confusion about an approved green card when I come back at the border. I also had a mix up with my Advance Parole to make life more "exciting", but that has nothing to do with my green card delay (had to go to Cleveland to sort that out).
So, I returned on June 3rd, and eagerly awaited stuff in the mail the following weeks. But I was also concerned what if the officer forgot that he needed to sign my case on June 4th, and maybe my file is sitting in a drawer or at the bottom of a pile in the forgotten corner of his office etc. So I set out to find out and make sure that he did sign it on June 4th as agreed. Of course there is no way to call a field office (Cleveland, OH) directly, let alone my immigration officer. No email either. So around June 16th I called the central USCIS customer service number just to listen to a representative READ me the complete guide to family based immigration. I explained him 3 times my specific situation but he was adamant to continue reading the material in front of him. Then, after 20 minutes, he said if I don't hear anything within 120 days from my interview date, I should call back,
thank you have a nice day...
Then I called back on June 23rd and fortunately I got a more competent representative on the line. She understood my concern and arranged that a reminder/inquiry would be sent to the Cleveland office regarding my green card. If it has been signed I'll be patient and don't mind waiting, but if it hasn't then I can sit for months and wait and nothing is going to happen.
Then last Friday, June 26th my officer called me finally, obviously the inquiry had reached him. He is a very nice guy, easy to get along with, but it turns out he
had not signed my case yet!!!! He says that he's got all my papers, including the old files and ready to sign it. But he wanted to know whether he should simply deny my old employment-based case or do I want to withdraw it instead? I asked what it takes to withdraw, he says just a couple sentences faxed to him stating that I officially want to withdraw the old case. OK, I did that, and I had to do it quick because he said he was going on vacation for 3 weeks... But he added that he would make sure to do the withdrawal in a minute and also sign my I-485. I truly hope he did that Friday afternoon before he left for vacation...
He also said that I would probably not get my actual green card for perhaps months because there is a backlog in the production of cards. So I'll get an approval letter and that's my "official" green card until I get the actual card. If I need to travel I need to go to the Cleveland office and get an I-551 stamp. Here we go again, INFOPASS...
So basically it's taking me a lot more time to actually get the card after an approved interview than the time between filing and the interview.
The End or actually "to be continued..."
Sorry about the "novel" but I thought I'd share my experience.
In April I thought I'd become this "legend" on the Forum who received his family based green card in only 3 months from filing to card in the mail.
