<<< If Approved and not received notification>>>>

chichu

Registered Users (C)
All,

If my case(I-485) is approved(but the status not changed online to verify) and have not received notification what would happen?

Is there any time frame within which we have to get the passport stamped otherwise the case would be rejected or any additional steps would be requested?

Thanks
chichu
 
How do you know it is approved?
you have to get the stamp withing a year from approval date.
 
Hi Jaxen

I have been waiting for FBI name check(after I-485 interview at the local office) for the last one year. Since I had 2 experiences(it cost me dearly) of not getting notification from the LOCAL INS, I regularly check the status with them by visiting the local office where my case is pending . I did not feel that they have been really helpful /co-operative when I inquire about the status on a regular basis (once in 2 months). For example recently I had been to the INS office and they said something came back after the name check and you would receive the details by mail. I avoided any kind of argument to make her find out what the info is. I wonder why she did not care to find out and inform me the details. She repeated "YOU WOULD RECEIVE SOMETHING BY MAIL Sir"

At some point(when I go again to check the status- if I do not get anything by mail) they would have to inform me what the feedback was after the name check.

The purpose of this posting was to find out how much time I have before I can go and get the stamping. Are you sure it is 1 year?

Thanks
chichu
 
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If your case has been approved, you do not necessarily need passport stamps unless you need to travel out of the country before you receives your plastic green card. The problem is how soon the BCIS can make and mail the card after approval. One of my best friends in NC finally receives his more than one year after receiving his approval notice, only after pushing by his own several inquries and one senator's help.

Please let us know your case progress because my case situation similar but much more complicated then yours, has made me pay attention to your case.

We were interviewed on 4-14-03 at Newark, NJ and still pending name check. Are you sure it is FBI name check , or CIA name check , or BCIS name check, or just a BCIS execuse for unexplained reason. My initial interview receipt has "CIA" circled by our interview officer, but my receipt for my walk-in case inqury last November only says "... Pending Name Checks" without CIA or FBI specified. Since most postings here point to FBI Name Check, I called FBI and asked for Name Check last Thursday, and my call was transferred to criminal record office, and the lady was very nice and told me when my wife and my finger prints were cleared ( which match our own fingerprint dates). But I told her that we know our fingerprints have been cleared and what I am trying to find out is if FBI has done with our name check because BCIS told us our case are still pending name check which has been 10 months after our interview last April. The lady responded that "BCIS always tell people like that, but we don't do the name check, which might be done within BCIS".

I am confused. The only answer I can think about for our case delays is our cases were put at the end of the line after denial and reopen.

No Labor Certificate
I-140 approved within 3 weeks in March 1997
1st I-485 filed in June 1997 and denied in Aug 2000
1st MOTION TO REOPEN filed in Oct 2000 (> 33 days my attorney's fault) and thus got dismissed in Feb 2001.
2nd I-485 filed in April 2001 and denied in May 2002
2nd MOTION TO REOPEN filed in June 2002
REOPEN approved in Aug 2002 for my case and Jan 2003 for wife's
Transfered to local at the end of Jan 2003
Interviewed on April 14, 2003.
Still pending name check as of today Feb 15, 2004

Applied online for sixth EAD for wife in Jan 2004.
Applied and got Advance Parole by walk-in on Feb 13, 2004
 
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7yrGC,


I applaud your patience.

In my case, I did not receive the notification(this is the reason for me worring about not getting the notification) for interview twice from the LOCAL INS office and the name check was introduced just 2 weeks before the interview when it took place finally. Each time I walk in to the LOCAL INS office they say case is pending for FBI name check. I learned from this site that if your name(either first name or last name) has any hit while FBI do the check, you are doomed. Then they keep your case separate. I am waiting for them to do the second, third or whatever level checking that they have to go through. Unfortunately both my first and last names are very common Christian names. So I would have got some hits while they did the name check. I am pretty sure that this is what is happening as one of the LOCAL INS personnel said the same thing without me prompting anything.


I am confused after reading your posting regarding what you learned while calling FBI regarding name check. I have never been convinced about the feedback that I had received from LOCAL INS whenever I go for status-check. But there is not much that we can do about it.

I am wondering why the INS lady did not tell me what I am going to receive by mail as I mentioned in my previous posting above.

Let us hope for the best. Good Luck to you!

chichu
 
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Hi Jaxen,

Do you have any comments/suggestion after reading my postings after your last posting?

Thanks
chichu
 
So the 485 was approved, but you never got the 551 stamp. The 1 year limit does not apply in your case. You will have to patiently wait for the letter.
In most cases the IIOs can only see in their system that a letter was mailed but not the details.
You have to maintain patience, throwing tantrums at a messenger will not accomplish anything.
You should initiate an official case referral or try to write to the USCIS director.
 
How could you explain the name checks for our cases with the follwing facts:
1. My wife and I have Chinese names, with different last names.
2. Our name and address have not changed since we started this process in March 1997
3. Anybody can find my name, phone number and address on the Internet which have been in the Cyber space soon after we movied to the current address in Jan 1997. And what is more, if you search my name, you can only find one entry, unlike popular names, searching which usually produces a long list of matching names. So I think my name might be unique on the planet.
4. One government agency needed my service and it did and finished my security check (or background check) in 5 to 6 weeks and granted me badge for me to start working for them.
5. We had only one 3-week trip to China for the last 12 years of living in the the US.
6. Computers could do name check matching and produce reports in seconds, minutes or hours, NOT in days, months, or years. We are IT people specialized in database technologies and we know this for fact.
7. During working in the government agency, It is clear to me that a lot of people are lazy with no expertise at all, thus having contractors to help them on various projects.
 
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Jaxen,

Thanks for your informative postings.

I do not know whether 485 was approved yet. I am hoping for the best.

Lady at the counter just told me that they got some feedback regarding the name check and I would receive something by mail. I was wondering why she was not giving the details(I did not push her to get the details either). Now after your posting I understand that probably she did not have access to the details. But it is weird that she cannot even find out whether the case is approved or rejected or something else.

Incase I do not receive anything by mail for another 2 weeks making it 3 weeks after my last inquiry(do you think that is a reasonable time or should I wait more)? or so I would initiate an official case referral or try to write to the USCIS director asyou suggested.


Thanks a lot for the information.

Chichu
 
I am sorry 7yrgc, I am an immigrant myself subject to all those illogics you listed everyday. Maybe you should write to the attorney General
Chichu wait for 14 days and then start a case referral.
 
Thanks Jaxen/Jaxen2

I presume that Jaxen and Jaxen2 are two different ids used by you.

Many times I found the suggestions made by senior/moderators on this board quite helpful. Thanks to you all.

How do I start a case referral or write to the USCIS director? Do I do it at the Local INS office itself by filling up some form or write to the Vermont Service center? Do I need to go through an attorney?

====================
7yrgc,

My suggestion to you would be to gather maximum information from this chat forum from senior guys and make an action plan. I noticed from postings from past that many times suggestions on this forum are quite helpful.

This is my humble suggestion. Like most guys on this forum, I too do not have any legal expertise. You have to make a wise and practical judgement about what to do.

Just wanted to let you know that my interview was done 3 months before yours. I am still waiting.

Good Luck!

====================
chichu
 
Newark is processing I-485 cases filed on 4-15-2003 according to the monthy-released processing dates on BCIS official webside. We were interviewed on 4-14-03 and Chichu was presumedly interviewed in Jan 03. How could these applicants ( most relative-based) start later but finish earlier? It took them 10 months to go through all steps including security checks, while it is taking us much longer to pass through only the last one step of security checks.

I got NJ's two senators' contact info and is going to write to them about this issue. Also I am going to make last visit to Newark Office if I still have time to do that before going back to China for family emergency, for which I walked in and got AP Friday and had no time to make inquiry about our name check pending status. I don't want to see the information officers' ugly faces and negative attitudes. Actually I brought up our pending status issue at informatin desk on 2nd floor together with my AP application, but Information officer Johnson refered my AP to 13th floor to pay and then 14th floor to wait for AP call, and told me I should find our case staus on 14th floor. But when I was called to take approved AP and asked to check our case status, they told me that another department is responsible for that and they only responsible for AP. So Mrs. Johnson cheated me. It was almost 5 PM, so I did not have time to achieve multiple tasks on one visit although I tried.
 
7yrGC,

Eventhough I agree 100 % with Jaxen's comment "throwing tantrums at a messenger will not accomplish anything", just like you, I too do not enjoy seeing information officers' negative attitudes. I am pretty sure that these officer's can help us by providing more clarity/transparency about the status and by providing suggestions. They generally do not like us asking questions that would help us in reaching a conclusion about what exactly is happening.

And it is very distrubing to see that generally the attorneys representing the poor immigrants like us also give us general notions rather than analyzing each case on its own merit and finding out what exactly is happening. I feel that the clients should not just leave decision making to attorneys alone whenever there is a choice to be made. After all attorney's mind automatically/programatically might work in a particular direction that would be beneficial to them. There are probably very few exceptions to that, one being Mr. Rajiv(I came to this conclusion from the feedback I see on this site and specifically from his initiative in starting the I-485 litigation). Hats off to him.


Good Luck again!. Wish me the same.

Chichu
 
You start a case referral by calling the National 800 number and insisting on a case referral . You can also write to the ASC or service center where your app is pending and requesting a case referral or freedom of information act provisions (FOIA) .
 
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