Please talk to your lawyer and an IIO
as early as possible. There may be portions of your application missing in the BIG black hole of an office of VSC.
Just sharing an oft repeated story of mine (am trying to help others to not get into the same folly as us).
So here goes.
Our GC application was approved on 9th October 2002.
Gosh! it's been a really trying time for us.
Everything went pretty smooth till our file was pulled out on July 9th. Then an RFE was raised for most silliest issues. For the primary applicant two pictures (out of the six submitted while applying in last August) did not show the left eye clearly - Thanks to SEARS photolab. For the spouse, it was the doctor's assistant who created the issue by not placing a check mark against the box which states that all immunization was up to date.
We sent in the rectified pictures and medical report through the attorney on July 25th.
Since the EAD was valid till 23rd of October, we decided to renew it as well as the AP due to an unavoidable trip to India coming up in November.
We went to the local INS office in the first week of September to check on our status (because the AVM still kept blurting out the same old message that an RFE was issued on July 9th). It was the same message that we got at the local INS office after waiting for almost four hours and moreover they suggested that we file for an extension directly with VSC lest we should lose our turn while the records were being transferred to the local office.
With the extensions were taken care of directly with VSC, we were still clueless about the status of our RFE and the notice clearly stated that there would be no extension of time frame (in our case deadline was 4th of October)
Towards the third week of september, it was best decided that the attorney be contacted and eventually the source of the problem was identified on the 3rd of October. The RFE notices sent to us had the wrong form number. Instead of the RFE mentioning I-485, it said I-765 which promptly landed it in a different department. All of us had overlooked that aspect and then there was this dreaded call from the lawyer's office stating that the primary applicant's photos were received, but the spouse's medical report was misplaced by INS. The lawyer's office decided to ask for a timeline extension because of the mix up. The EAD cards came on the 21st and now we get the approval notice (thankfully some one traced the missing medical report).
Even though a gist of what transpired is mentioned here, the true frustration experienced by us cannot be put in words.
Just wanted to bring it to your attention about the various small factors that can be easily overlooked and the tensions that it can create. SO PLEASE VERIFY EVERY TINY DETAIL IN ALL YOUR PAPERWORK (to save time, money energy and sanity).
Here's wishing y'all the best.
VSC/EB3, PD 06/99, RD 08/27/01, ND 10/17/01, AP recd, FP 01/15/2002, RFE 07/09/2002 replied on 25th July 2002, AD 9th October 2002 and PP stamped on 28th October. Cards finally ordered on 10th December.
