I went upto the INS office at Santa Ana to get my iEAD (It was not necessary still I was getting worried about my case since I was overdue for my AP and the AVM plays the same old \'Your Application was received on ...\' message).
We waited in a line behind 20 people to get a ticket. I had an idea about the documents I needed to carry with me for iEAD (One of the members of this forum RS_CSC had helped me a lot with detailed notes about what is needed there). In about 5 minutes our turn came. We showed our I485 and I765 receipts and we were given tickets and forms (I765) to fill out. We also communicated that there has been no response with respect to our I131. The officer gave us another set of tickets for that Query. All this happened in the 3rd Floor of Civic Center Building.
Then we went up to the 5th floor (The seats were almost empty. Since the Santa Ana Office works for a shorter duration on Thursdays we expected a big wait). Our numbers came almost immediately. We had no time to fill our forms. The officer at the counter checked our receipts and details on the computer. He made sure our EADs were not already processed. He asked us to fill out the forms and come back to him. We were done in about 5 minutes. We went back after filling out the forms (another 5 minutes) and he prepared a document one for each applicant and calculated 8 months from now and wrote the date on the form (12/11/02) and also wrote \'Interim\' in the form. Then he asked us to wait for our names to be called out.
Our turn for I131 query came right after. We went (fortunately the same counter) and asked him why we were overdue. He checked his computer and told us that we were approved on March 5th and asked us to write to CSC. On one hand we were happy to hear about our approval but are very worried why the AVM never changed nor we (or attorneys) received the documents by mail. I need to follow that up with our attorney.
Our names were called in 10 minutes. We were asked to check the way our names were spelt for correctness. We were then asked to sign the document and apply index finger print. They photographed us and immediately gave us our EAD cards (valid until 12/11/02). We were done in close to an hour and it was a very pleasant experience and everyone of the staff were very polite.
What I inferred from my personal experience today is that occasionally (may be often I don\'t know) the AVM does not get updated and it helps to query by phone or personally (may be the attorney) if it stresses you out.
For us, it really helped to know that our application has not been lost or trashed out after FP since that was the last we heard our AVMs change. We still need to figure what happeded to our documents and resolve it through our attorneys.
I got a feeling that lot of June/July/August mailers that may have their GCs approved but AVM may not have been updated. There is a possibility that the INS computer system shows they are approved but are not being communicated. Please bear with me for the long mail and wish you all good luck.
We waited in a line behind 20 people to get a ticket. I had an idea about the documents I needed to carry with me for iEAD (One of the members of this forum RS_CSC had helped me a lot with detailed notes about what is needed there). In about 5 minutes our turn came. We showed our I485 and I765 receipts and we were given tickets and forms (I765) to fill out. We also communicated that there has been no response with respect to our I131. The officer gave us another set of tickets for that Query. All this happened in the 3rd Floor of Civic Center Building.
Then we went up to the 5th floor (The seats were almost empty. Since the Santa Ana Office works for a shorter duration on Thursdays we expected a big wait). Our numbers came almost immediately. We had no time to fill our forms. The officer at the counter checked our receipts and details on the computer. He made sure our EADs were not already processed. He asked us to fill out the forms and come back to him. We were done in about 5 minutes. We went back after filling out the forms (another 5 minutes) and he prepared a document one for each applicant and calculated 8 months from now and wrote the date on the form (12/11/02) and also wrote \'Interim\' in the form. Then he asked us to wait for our names to be called out.
Our turn for I131 query came right after. We went (fortunately the same counter) and asked him why we were overdue. He checked his computer and told us that we were approved on March 5th and asked us to write to CSC. On one hand we were happy to hear about our approval but are very worried why the AVM never changed nor we (or attorneys) received the documents by mail. I need to follow that up with our attorney.
Our names were called in 10 minutes. We were asked to check the way our names were spelt for correctness. We were then asked to sign the document and apply index finger print. They photographed us and immediately gave us our EAD cards (valid until 12/11/02). We were done in close to an hour and it was a very pleasant experience and everyone of the staff were very polite.
What I inferred from my personal experience today is that occasionally (may be often I don\'t know) the AVM does not get updated and it helps to query by phone or personally (may be the attorney) if it stresses you out.
For us, it really helped to know that our application has not been lost or trashed out after FP since that was the last we heard our AVMs change. We still need to figure what happeded to our documents and resolve it through our attorneys.
I got a feeling that lot of June/July/August mailers that may have their GCs approved but AVM may not have been updated. There is a possibility that the INS computer system shows they are approved but are not being communicated. Please bear with me for the long mail and wish you all good luck.