andrews,
My reason for going in June was to inquire why my wife's case was not transferred with mine to Miami. They told me that sometimes TSC decides to only transfer one family member, and its up to them as to what they want to do since employment based cases are TSC's jurisdiction, not Miami's jurisdiction. I agreed that EB cases are TSC jurisdiction, but reminded them that my case has now been transferred to Miami, and thus my case is now in their jurisdiction regardless of whether its an employment based case or not. I also showed them the standard operating procedure manual from TSC for adjudicating I-485 cases, and in there it states that all family members should be handled as a package together with the main applicant's case. It even specifies which elastic band and which folder type to use to ensure that these family members cases' don't get separated, so I wasn't making this up, and TSC seemed to put extra effort in ensuring that these files stay together, so it made son sense as to why only mine was transferred. She told me there is nothing she could do since its TSC jurisdiction, and she doubts that she can do anything to help. I asked her to try. All I was asking for was for her to at least issue request for my wife's case, since my case was already in their jurisdiction, and the cases should be kept together.
At this point, it was almost 4pm on a Friday. All the workers were saying goodbye to each other, and she looked like she was sick of my polite calm and repetitive nagging and just wanted to go home also. She came back with a form, to fill out, and she said she would send the request to TSC for us. We filed it out, she made a copy, and gave us the copy.
I got what I wanted, which was to get her to issue a request. The bottom line was that she did NOT want to do anything, so to answer your question, they treated me as if I was an idiot, even though I had tons of proof that I was right. Its a banana republic I guess.
To this day my wife's case has NOT been transferred, and I doubt it ever will be even though it says that her case should stay with mine in TSC's standard operating procedure manual. I have a feeling that her case will get lost. Mark my words, as I plan to refer to this post in the future, when it turns out that I was right.
I never asked her when my case would get an interview. That's why I'm going back in October. My old lawyer says interviews usually get assigned within 4 months at Miami. My new lawyer says its closer to 8 months. I believe it all depends on your RD at TSC. My fingerprints are expiring, so that might entice them to move quicker. My EAD expires in 6 months, so I need to know whether I should file the application and waste my money, since I can't get the money back for an EAD application that never gets adjudicated due to an adjudicated I-485. Same goes for my AP. Plus to top it all off my ND is now officially past the official processing date of TSC. I plan to throw all these reasons at them to expedite my case. I also plan to bring up the fact that I need to take a day off from work every year just to renew my driver's license, and I can't file for homestead exemption for the 3 year sin a row because I don't have a green card. I am considered a non-permanent resident for property tax purposes, and yet I am have been here so long, I can hardly consider this a temporary stay, and my property tax goes up 11% a year, while everyone else's only goes up 3%. I would like to offer her that I pay the extra $800 increase in my property tax to the USCIS, instead of the county, but that would be bribery of course.
The bottom line is more and more case are getting transferred to Miami to artificially reduce the backlog, and transfer it to the local offices, that's my personal observation. Ever since I got transferred I've been angrier than ever at how this damn system is so inefficient.
"They were just closing down due to Hurricane Watch".I felt so bad!!! They were rescheduling appointments . The closest I could get was Ocotber 12 at 6:45 am.!!!!