Interview mess--your comments appreciated

J

jkim2001

New Member
Guys, I am newbie to the forum and thought I might offer this question before sending a letter to my congressman. My wife had to delay her naturalization since they did not have additional documents on hand to review for her interview. What a mess! The file was a previously rescinded fiance visa (we rescinded almost 3 years ago at the LA USCIS office). She could not get naturalized that day since her "files" were in a document processing center in Missouri. WTF? Why couldn't they fax or email the file? And why are naturalization/citizenship cases only reviewed the day before the interview? Wouldn't someone smart enough organize all related files BEFORE the interview? As a result of this mess, we were forced to delay or return flight to Germany (I am currently stationed there) at a cost of over $600! So, before sending a complaint to the ombudsman and congressman, what else should I do? Thanks!

Maj Kim USAF
 
I understand your pain. If you had been in this forum for a while you would see that your case is not entirely unusual. I assume they probably mean that your wife has two A-files. It happens from time to time and it is usually a source of delays. I agree with your frustration and I encourage you to contact your congressman and the ombudsman to complain about this. I think USCIS has plans to digitize all these documents, so in the future there should not be a need to move the physical file and hopefully these problems won't affect future immigrants. Hopefully, as I am sure what will happen is that people might not be able to interview because the system is down and they cannot access the electronic A-file ;)
 
There have been several posted occurrences on this board where applicants were only told on the day of their interviews that it had to be canceled since the case files did not arrive from the service center. To get around this, some applicants were able to go through the interview anyways since they brought along a copy of their application, but their interview results would still have to be consolidated with their original file.

A couple of questions:
You rescinded the original fiance visa 3 years ago? Do you mean you removed conditions at the time by filing I-751?
Also, you state she wasn't able to naturalize on that day 3 years ago. Do you mean she wasn't able to take her interview, or did you really mean her naturalization oath?
Finally, has there been any action on your wife's case since that incident 3 years ago?
 
jkim2001 said:
Guys, I am newbie to the forum and thought I might offer this question before sending a letter to my congressman. My wife had to delay her naturalization since they did not have additional documents on hand to review for her interview. What a mess! The file was a previously rescinded fiance visa (we rescinded almost 3 years ago at the LA USCIS office). She could not get naturalized that day since her "files" were in a document processing center in Missouri. WTF? Why couldn't they fax or email the file? And why are naturalization/citizenship cases only reviewed the day before the interview? Wouldn't someone smart enough organize all related files BEFORE the interview? As a result of this mess, we were forced to delay or return flight to Germany (I am currently stationed there) at a cost of over $600! So, before sending a complaint to the ombudsman and congressman, what else should I do? Thanks!

Maj Kim USAF
Click to expand...

Stuff like this happens quite often. By all means complain to the Ombudsman, but I frankly doubt it will do much good. Most of these errors only get detected when the IO assigned to the case has time to review the case files, and I suspect that usually only happens as the interview date approaches.
 
The best you can do is wait. My interview was "descheduled" a couple of days before the original date. I ended up waiting another 5 months before getting a new interview date (and that required the intervention of my Senator).

You can try raising a fuss now, but screwups are part of the USCIS's core competancies, and a month or two wait for them to fix one of their screwups is considered normal.

Wait a couple of months to see if it gets rescheduled, and then start raising a fuss.

Good luck
 
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