Approval notice lost in the mail

T

the_gc_wait

Registered Users (C)
Hi

My wife's online status says I-485 was approved on Sept. 13th. But neither my lawyer nor we have received the approval notice. Looks like USCIS has misplaced the approval notice.

1. Should I ask USCIS for a duplicate approval notice to be mailed out?
[OR]
2. Can I go to the stamping with a printout of the approval email?

Thanks for any info.
 
Welcome to the club.

Ny case and my wife's case were approved on September 13 and on the same day, according to the CIS, an approval notices were sent to our home address (I do not use a lawyer). I checked- the CIS has a correct address on file, yet we have not received the approval notices. I opened a thread on this subject a couple of days ago, but then only one guy replied (his case approved on sept 10, but he attributes the delay in mail to the fact that he changed lawyers, etc).

In my case the situation has some urgency since I am to travel to Canada in two weeks 9one can not vtravel in our situation without a stamp).

I called National Customer Service Center- they suggested to contact in writing California Center. I called then the emergency line of the California Center- was told that 7-14 days wait is natural. hey told me that they could not send a duplicate since "it is not the case that the original was returned by the postal service undelivered" (if a postal service can not deliver mail it returns it to Laguna Niguel). May be you should also fax/call these guys in Laguna Niguel to put some pressure.

So far I have two theories:

1) On September 13 some drunken, on drugs, just divorsed, miserbale CIS emploee misplaced some mail (maye our approval notices on the same dark shelf, my friend).

2) Recently CIS changed the photos format. Maybe they are changing the instructions in the approval notice letter also and this takes time.

Let us stay in touch.
 
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I don't know if this information will help, but my lawyer told me that sometimes even though the system says that something has been mailed, it is actually sitting in the outgoing mail room at the CSC because they either have too much mail to send or are too lazy to send it right away. That's one reason for the "14 day" stipulation. First class mail does not take 14 days! In one of my cases, the system said something had been mailed, but I only received it 10 days later. It was postmarked five days after when it was supposed to have been mailed, and then must have sat at the CSC for another three days.

Anyway, good luck. I hope it's just been delayed in the CSC mail room (which means you WILL get it) rather than lost in the mail.
 
We are also on the same boat..Mine and My wife's I-485 approved on Sep'13th according to LUD. So far we haven't recevied any approval notice. just waiting for the 14 days period to follow up.
Seems like some thing screwed up???????????????
Let's keep track on this.
 
fine&jadwin: can you post the phone number of CSC that you called?

I will call the 1-800 number and the emergency number tomorrow and will post any updates I have.
 
akkati
congrats ..
can you please post ur details, as it looks like it is ur first post!

akkati said:
We are also on the same boat..Mine and My wife's I-485 approved on Sep'13th according to LUD. So far we haven't recevied any approval notice. just waiting for the 14 days period to follow up.
Seems like some thing screwed up???????????????
Let's keep track on this.
Click to expand...
 
I think you should all be getting the notice soon. There were lots of people approved on Sept.1 (including me) got the notice only on Sept.14th. Infact my lawyer got it first on Sept.14th and I got it on Sept.15, my spouse on Sept.16.
 
Following are my details...

I-140 and I-485 RD:26July'2004
I-140 AD : 18thAug'2004
EAD/AP AD:18thAug'2004
FP: 18th Aug'2004
FP done: 2ndSept'2004
I-485 AD: 13thSept'2004
Waiting for Approval notice.....

Seems like my case is picked in pilot processing...
 
under 2 months ..

Akkati
Congrats again ..just under 2 months you were done with everything ..awesome....go buy a Lotto ticket man!!
 
the_gc_wait said:
fine&jadwin: can you post the phone number of CSC that you called?

I will call the 1-800 number and the emergency number tomorrow and will post any updates I have.
Click to expand...

The 2003 CSC manual lists (949)389-3007 and (949)389-3252 as emergency numbers. The personnel who are responding to these calls are IIOs from Division XII (Customer and Congressional Relations).

You may also wish to fax the Division XII at (949)389-3486.

Good luck.
 
It takes USCIS about 12-15 days to mail the approval letter. I got approved on 1st sept but I got the approval letter on 15th. It had a mail stamp of 11th on it. So you might want to wait a couple of days..
 
Today is 14 days past the AD and I still have not received the actual approval notices.
It is getting really annoying.
 
The mail may sit for sometime in the mailroom and there is only one person who can suffer. As pointed by wik, my wife's RFE was supposed to have been mailed out on Sep 15 as per online status, but Sep 20 is the date I see on the envelope. It was received on Sep 23.

So it was there sitting there for 5 days. Must be the same case.

There is nothing else at this time you can do other than calling up CSC on 15th day.

-novis
 
akkati,

Are you sure? Is there any typo?

Congrats to you.

Thats amazing. I think you are the fastest guy who finished I-140/I-1485.

As the other guy(linuxrox) said, buy a lotta and share the number with all of us so that we all can buy the same lotto/number.
 
Thanks.. there is no typo. It took around 6weeks for me to get approval. But, again I have not recieved any approval notice. .I hope it is not a typo in LUD.
 
hello guys,
I am also in same page.
got approved on 09/20 but still nothing in mail. I have to travel next week.

I have couple of ques.
1. can we go to local INS and get it stamped w'out notice producing photo ID.

2. The online status check is reliable ??? I hope it is ??

Please write if u know anything regarding this.
 
got stamped

Hi,

I have yet to receive the approval notices for myself and my wife (AD Sept 13).
I need to travel next week to Canada for a scientific conference (part of my job).
Since I was told repeatedly that one can not travel without the 551 stamp I started bothering CSC about approval notices last week. I was able to convince them (faxing the ticket copies and invitation letter) that my situation is indeed serious), so they faxed me (as a response to my inquiry) a letter that stated that my I-485 was approved.

As CSC personnel suggested this was enough for the Sacramento District Office- I got passoprt stamped earlier today.
 
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Hi

Same deal for me as well. I just called CSC and they lady on the phone told me she would fax a copy of the approval notice to me, and I can go to the stamping with that.

Lets see what the SJ office does. I have an appointment tomorrow, I will post a follow up.
 
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