Help contacting congressman

I found the information of my senator on the
senate site . You can search for your senator's name (and site) by state and region. That site will have his address and fax number. You would have to fill out a release of information or privacy form (this should be available on ur senator's site) giving rights to your senator to enquire on your behalf.

Here is the format I used for fax

Respected Senator,

I am requesting you to help me with my I485 case at BSCIS -Vermont Service center.

Please find below the details of my case –
Notice Date :- xx/xx/20xx
Receipt Date :- xx/xx/20xx
Receipt # :- EAC-03-xxx-xxxxx
Alien # :- A96 xxx xxx

BSCIS (Vermont) is currently processing cases for Receipt Date of June 19, 2003. My case is 6 months older than the current processing date. I am also sending in the privacy authorization form along with this fax.

Please help me.

Thanks,
{Your name}


You can also give other relevant information like FBI name check etc if you think appropriate.

Hope this helps.
 
from a congressional caseworker

because i happen to be employed as a immigration caseworker in a congressional office, i have an idea how to answer this question! i'd suggest, as the person above wisely did, that you check the website of the congressman/woman or senator from whom you are trying to obtain assistance. these sites can be found at www.senate.gov or www.house.gov. congressional offices require written consent to inquire on your behalf, and in my experience, it's also helpful to have a time line of action taken on your case and what specific goals you are seeking. another safe bet is to just call the main office in the home state/district and ask what the procedures are for opening a new immigration case. it is not necessary to speak directly to the immigration caseworker or the representative him or herself--they can't tell you very much until they have the paperwork they need.

please know that every congressional office is working simultaneously on many immigration cases, so it is very likely that they have heard a story very similar to yours in the past. this is not to discount the frustration that you are experiencing--just do your best not to keep a caseworker on the phone for 45 minutes to complain about the name check process or some other problem that we encounter every day. believe me, in most cases, we *know* it is a problem, and we would much rather spend that 45 minutes working on cases that we can actually make progress on.

as an aside, i also want to bring up a point about contacting multiple congressional offices. please please don't do it! uscis offices only allow one congressional office to work on a particular case at a time, and you will only be causing frustration and wasted effort by contacting more than one office at a time. if you find that one office is not helpful, please do us all the favor of requesting that the office close the inquiry and notify the CIS. then, when you contact another of your representatives, please let them know that you previously closed out an inquiry with another office in favor of theirs. it seems like a silly thing, but i spend a good portion of my day working on cases only to get the answer that "so and so needs to see senator whomever, who is already working on their case."

if you all have any other questions about contacting congressional offices, let me know. i can do my best to answer general questions about what offices are and are not able to do and give you some idea about the process from our side of things.
 
Annestew,
Thanks alot for such a great post. Here is my question. I live in MA. My senators are John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and my congressman is Richard Neal. I need help in expediting my Advance Parole. Since I should contact only one of them, I need tips to find out who has the best case work office. Any advice will be helpful.
 
Annestew,

Read your response and found it interesting.
I have been talking to my senator's helpline and I asked the lady there point blank if she could help me..her answer was..we get a response..we can rarely speed up things...now since you are actually working in a congressman's team...my question albeit silly is this: why on earth is the USCIS doing things so randomly? is the govt (congress/senate) aware of how many people are suffering as a result of this?
It's not like we are taxi drivers or hotel bellboys ...we are all educated (in most cases highly educated individuals) who feel that we need this residency if not to settle down then atleast to get out of this servitude..the awful bondage which in itself is an INS creation....sorry to vent of this way but I have been waiting on a 140 approval for over 2 years and a 485 approval for 1 1/2 years and yet I wait....
 
Under USA law, bellboys are no different from other people. You should know that since you look like you are 'highly educated'. That is one reason why people want to immigrate to USA- equal opportunities.
 
from this side

pras01,

i don't work in mass, so i'm not sure about the specifics of the congressional offices you are working with, but generally you will have to keep in mind that senatorial offices accept casework from the entire state, while the offices of house members will only take on cases from their 650,000 or so constituents. the pros and cons are likely obvious--with a senatorial office they will get more requests, but will also have more resources (in other words, staff time) to deal with them. a congressman/woman's office will probably have a lower case load, but perhaps less resources to deal with it. with all that being said, i would give the first shot to your congressman--give one of his mass. offices a call and feel it out. keep in mind that not all congressional offices DO immigration casework, so you might end up calling one of your senators after all. it can't hurt to call the senatorial offices as well and see how willing they are to help out...i would just suggest not going to the written authorization phase with more than one at a time.

dogbert99-

i definately understand and empathize with your concerns about the random processing. your senator's assistant was being honest when she told you that in most cases, we can't speed application processing. congressional inquiries are most effective when they are trying to sort out some sort of problem or for straight status checks directly from the office with jurisdiction over your cases. legitimate expedite requests are also facilitated with a congressional inquiry. i definitely see evidence of the random processing you bring up every day, and believe me that congressional offices are aware of it. it would be my guess that while most offices are aware of it, they are so consumed with working on the immediate concerns of their constituents to address the bigger picture issues. you should also know that we DO keep the big picture in mind, and we press the USCIS offices for change whenever we can. the congressional units take a regular beating from the congressional offices, and we do our best to keep them on their toes, because we do get rare opportunities to speak the truthto the leadership in the office.

honestly, reading the message boards here has been an education in itself. i think you are all doing an awesome thing by organizing and sharing information, and while it's somewhat frustrating during work hours ("well, i read on the internet that cases from April 2003 are being proceessed..."), i think you are all providing an important service.
 
Thanks a lot. I will give my congressman a try even though his website only offers services such as 'tour of the capitol hill, academic recommendations' etc. There is no mention of immigration casework.
 
Thank you very much for your help. LiveAndLetLive and annestew. Thanks again, annestew, your information would help me greatly.
 
LiveAndLetLive said:
You are most welcome.

My thanks to annestew.
Click to expand...

LiveAndLetLive, the place i live at is far from the Senator's office. However, there is a US Representative person's office closer to my place. Do you think contacting US Representative is of same effect as compared to Senator?
I'm not sure what is the difference between congressman and senator?
Or better of contacting senator?
Please reply. I appreciate your response.

Thanks
 
If my memory serves me right, it should be fine.

Also, you don't need to be near the senator's office to contact him. You can fax your details to him.
 
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