Green Card issue date

A

amarles

Registered Users (C)
I have recently obtained my Greeen Card after 4 years delay.
My interview has taken place in May 2005 and back then i was suppose to receive card in the mail, my file got lost and recently found, unfortunately the issue date on my card is 2009. this will prevent me to become a citizen for many years, which I should have been last year.
Does anyone has an experience correcting this problem?
 
Do you have any proof that your green card was officially approved in 2005? Like a passport stamping, approval notice, or even an email?

A successful interview doesn't mean your card is automatically approved at the end of the interview. Many cases will have a supervisory review after the interview before granting the final official approval for the green card. If your file was lost and they were unable to do that final review until this year, that means your card was really approved in 2009, not 2005.
 
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Yes, I never received stamp in the passport or any letter confirming, I was just told that everything is fine and card will come in the mail.
Really nothing I can do about it?
Is it a big problem if I try sending back my card for correction?
 
You'll need some proof that your card was officially approved in 2005, including any supervisor reviews. Otherwise they'll just reject your request. A verbal approval does not count.

If the final approval was not done until 2009 because of delays in the final reviews, it means your card was approved in 2009 and that is it, end of story.

However, you can try to find out if the approval was done anytime before 2009. Do an FOIA filing (search the forum for details) to request a copy of your A-file. If your GC was officially approved before 2009, you should see some papers in the file showing the approval. But it takes about 9-12 months to process the request, which is a bit of a long time, but if evidence of 2005 approval is in there you may be able to use it to get citizenship in 2010.
 
If you're going to make your case in front of a judge, you need proof! Saying that the officer said you were approved won't work, because even if there is a tape recording of the officer saying that, it still doesn't count, because there may be additional checks and reviews required before making it official. People have been given verbal approval at interviews, only to be told later that a green card could not be issued yet because their priority date is no longer current, or an additional file has to be reviewed.

That's why I said to use FOIA to get a copy of your A-file. If you were officially approved (not just verbally) in 2005, there will be some papers in there showing the approval. Then you can take that proof and use it for an administrative hearing or court case. If those old approval papers are not there, you have no case.
 
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yes, married in 2003, interview in 2005, then I have letters from USCIS stating "file not found"
 
Hi ,
I have a similar case. We (My family and I) moved from Louisiana to Virginia and updated our address with USCIS. Our I-485s were filed in Dec 2003 under EB3 category and we got our FPs in Oct 2004.

In Mar 2007, we received emails from USCIS that our I-485 cases have been approved and a "Document other than card has been manufactured and mailed to you." I have copies of those emails and the screen shots of online case status on USCIS website where it was showing the same approved status.

They mailed the documents to our old address in Louisiana and post office returned it to them. It appears to me that when they received the undelivered mail back, they took some negative action on our cases. After repeated requests and fresh update regarding our new address, they sent us new FP notices and then our cases finally got approved in August 2010. There is delay of 3 and 1/2 years just because of that error on their part.

Can we pursue our cases to get benefit of back date approval. This way we will become eligible for Citizenship in 2012 instead of 2015.

Please suggest.

Thanks a lot.
 
Without having anything on paper to confirm an approval in 2007, it's going to be nearly impossible to get the backdate to 2007. You didn't even get the card production email; the email said "document other than card". The approval email probably was a system glitch or human error, which they corrected by mailing another document.

And if your PD was not current in March 2007, it will be 100% impossible to get it backdated.
 
Thanks.
I was just wondering because you mentioned in your earlier email that
"Do you have any proof that your green card was officially approved in 2005? Like a passport stamping, approval notice, or even an email?"

So I thought an email approval or the screen shots of case status from USCIS website may help in my case.

Mar 2007 was the time when all the cases pending with Vermont were transferred to Texas Center. My PD became current in June/July of 2007, but still we didn't get the written approvals as they said our second FP were done only on May 5, 2007 and they didn't get the results when the dates became current. After that the dates became current only in Aug 2010.

Just wondering if any of this may be helpful in my case.

Thanks a lot for sparing time to answer my request.
 
balamerica said:
Thanks.
I was just wondering because you mentioned in your earlier email that
"Do you have any proof that your green card was officially approved in 2005? Like a passport stamping, approval notice, or even an email?"
Click to expand...

The email itself won't be good enough as proof, but it is an indicator of possibly being able to obtain the proof on paper by requesting one's A-file via FOIA, since if it was actually approved there should be a paper trail of the approval in USCIS.

Mar 2007 was the time when all the cases pending with Vermont were transferred to Texas Center. My PD became current in June/July of 2007, but still we didn't get the written approvals as they said our second FP were done only on May 5, 2007 and they didn't get the results when the dates became current. After that the dates became current only in Aug 2010.
Click to expand...

Your PD was not current at the time of that email, so it could not* have possibly been approved at the time of the email, which mean that email was clearly sent in error.


*one exception is when the PD becomes current, and then retrogresses, and then the approval comes 1 or 2 months after the retrogression kicked in. This can happen if they assign the visa number when the PD is current, but then there is a delay in completing the other formalities to finalize the approval and issue the card. But that scenario didn't happen for you, since the visa bulletin didn't have the back-and-forth movement in early 2007 to allow that to happen.
 
Mar 2007 was the time when all the cases pending with Vermont were transferred to Texas Center. My PD became current in June/July of 2007, but still we didn't get the written approvals as they said our second FP were done only on May 5, 2007 and they didn't get the results when the dates became current. After that the dates became current only in Aug 2010
 
Without having anything on paper to confirm an approval in 2007, it's going to be nearly impossible to get the backdate to 2007. You didn't even get the card production email; the email said "document other than card". The approval email probably was a system glitch or human error, which they corrected by mailing another document.
 
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