thanks for your advice. i am actually planning to send out a letter to the officer describing my situation and what i was told by these other people - which is clearly incompetent and i think the officer will see that. the other thing is whether she can or want to do something about moving it off her desk. again, i was given no details whether to what specifically is holding up the processing of the case. i know that common reason for the delay is name check - but again, it's not clear if that is the reason, there is just no info... and you are right of saying i should not feel bad about annoying them, but i cannot push it too far either. so, i will give it another week for the officer to read my letter and the congressman's office is going to follow up again and then i will make another appointment, leaving it just two weeks for the whole thing either to be resolved or lost. not sure i want to go through a lawsuit. regarding lawyer, they can't do much at this stage, unless i hire one for a lawsuit - but again, not sure if that's what i want to do.