My wife and I both got approval notice yesterday (8/29/2007). Here is the case details:
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EB2 PERM China Filed at VSC transferred to TSC on 03/15/2007
Priority date: 06/13/2005 Labor certificate AD: 08/13/2005
I-485 RD: 09/21/2005 AD: 08/29/2007 FP1: 11/25/2005 FP2: 05/10/2007
I-140 AD: 11/15/2005
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The whole duration from PERM to I-485 approval is about 2 years and 2 months. You might say "this is not bad at all!!!", but wait a second, let us share some details on other labor certificates and I-140s we have applied:
Both my wife and I started working from end of 1999 with OPT after getting MS from a US university and we made a huge mistake that we did not apply labor certificate right away. When we decided to start the process, it was eight months later and because of some delay from the company and attorney, my first EB2 labor certficate was applied in March 2001. If I could have applied LC a month earlier, I could have got it approved in two months. Because of the flood of 245i (pardoning illegal immigrants), DOL was overloaded with those cases and mine wasn't approved until May 2002. However, by the end of 2001, the tech bubble poped and my old company was hit hard and went straight south like a free fall object. The company ended up shutting down the whole branch and l was lucky enough to find a job in two weeks to transfer my H-1B, so that's the end of my first labor certificate:
1st Labor certificate: filed on March 2nd, 2001 approved in May 2002.
I did not dare start the process again right away since the company I transferred my H-1B to is small and not very stable. I found another job four months later and started this green card process again. After 3 month probation, my second labor certificate was applied on February 20, 2003 and it was applied from Washington DC. In the meantime, my wife applied her EB2 labor certificate in May 2002 from VA. Both labor certificates got stuck at DOL regional processing center and ended up in BPC (or BEC, aka backlong elimination center).
My 2nd labor filed on March 2nd, 2003 and was approved on December 27, 2006 (which took almost four freaking years by DOL!!!!)
My wife's 1st labor was approved in August 2006 and she got her I-140 approved in two months, but by that time we already applied PERM and I-485.
I did not want to waste my 2nd LC since the priority date was moving so slow half a year ago, thus I went ahead applied second I-140 based on it. In total, we got four labor certificates, three I-140s and two I-485s. During that time, we also got three EADs and four APs. I cannot even remember how much money we had spent on filing fees, attorney fees and advertising fees for LCs, but it's awfully a lot. In our cases, what messed us up is not really USCIS, but DOL.
After getting our 485 approvals, my thoughts are with those who got stuck in DOL BEC and I sincerely hope you will get your approvals soon. If I had not applied PERM, I might still be waiting in the queue......
Hope you all will get your approvals. The sooner you get out of the system, the better. Let's face it. This immigration system has a lot of flaws and it is not fair to everybody and it does not follow FIFO. Wish everyone good luck and hang in there......
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EB2 PERM China Filed at VSC transferred to TSC on 03/15/2007
Priority date: 06/13/2005 Labor certificate AD: 08/13/2005
I-485 RD: 09/21/2005 AD: 08/29/2007 FP1: 11/25/2005 FP2: 05/10/2007
I-140 AD: 11/15/2005
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The whole duration from PERM to I-485 approval is about 2 years and 2 months. You might say "this is not bad at all!!!", but wait a second, let us share some details on other labor certificates and I-140s we have applied:
Both my wife and I started working from end of 1999 with OPT after getting MS from a US university and we made a huge mistake that we did not apply labor certificate right away. When we decided to start the process, it was eight months later and because of some delay from the company and attorney, my first EB2 labor certficate was applied in March 2001. If I could have applied LC a month earlier, I could have got it approved in two months. Because of the flood of 245i (pardoning illegal immigrants), DOL was overloaded with those cases and mine wasn't approved until May 2002. However, by the end of 2001, the tech bubble poped and my old company was hit hard and went straight south like a free fall object. The company ended up shutting down the whole branch and l was lucky enough to find a job in two weeks to transfer my H-1B, so that's the end of my first labor certificate:
1st Labor certificate: filed on March 2nd, 2001 approved in May 2002.
I did not dare start the process again right away since the company I transferred my H-1B to is small and not very stable. I found another job four months later and started this green card process again. After 3 month probation, my second labor certificate was applied on February 20, 2003 and it was applied from Washington DC. In the meantime, my wife applied her EB2 labor certificate in May 2002 from VA. Both labor certificates got stuck at DOL regional processing center and ended up in BPC (or BEC, aka backlong elimination center).
My 2nd labor filed on March 2nd, 2003 and was approved on December 27, 2006 (which took almost four freaking years by DOL!!!!)
My wife's 1st labor was approved in August 2006 and she got her I-140 approved in two months, but by that time we already applied PERM and I-485.
I did not want to waste my 2nd LC since the priority date was moving so slow half a year ago, thus I went ahead applied second I-140 based on it. In total, we got four labor certificates, three I-140s and two I-485s. During that time, we also got three EADs and four APs. I cannot even remember how much money we had spent on filing fees, attorney fees and advertising fees for LCs, but it's awfully a lot. In our cases, what messed us up is not really USCIS, but DOL.
After getting our 485 approvals, my thoughts are with those who got stuck in DOL BEC and I sincerely hope you will get your approvals soon. If I had not applied PERM, I might still be waiting in the queue......
Hope you all will get your approvals. The sooner you get out of the system, the better. Let's face it. This immigration system has a lot of flaws and it is not fair to everybody and it does not follow FIFO. Wish everyone good luck and hang in there......
