KarmaRocks
Registered Users (C)
This is my two cents contribution to this forum which I have benefited in the past. All the recommendations stated below are just “recommendations”. Please use it at your own risk and always consult with a good lawyer. Most of these items apply to EB based immigration petition for permanent residency. Also as you all know immigration laws changes quickly and it is important to understand that all the recommendations here have a limited life span and may not be useful at all in the future.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and do not pretend to be one. I also have never worked for USCIS, so I don't pretend to give an exact description of every procedure. The following explanation is a general guide line ignoring some of the details. It is written to convey a basic idea of how the process works, not to list every single step (Disclaimer was borrowed and modified from another user in this forum).
General points:
1. Be honest. Law protects people and in most of the cases you hurt yourself far more when you try to hide something.
2. Review your applications thoroughly. Review your forms few times and try to put yourself instead of officer and make sure you are comfortable with your application and supporting documents are readily available in case of RFE. Preparing the supporting documents prior to filling helps you in having peace of mind.
3. Always submit what is required nothing more and nothing less. Unless you are a special case like people who are citizens of countries which are considered axes of evil.
4. If your application is important then always try to keep dual status as insurance. For instance renew your H1 status while your application is pending. At the end there are far more parameters in the system which we do not have control over them and may not turn in your favor.
Labor Certification:
Always go with the minimum requirements that put you at the highest EB category possible.
I140:
Try to get a copy of your receipt and/or approval notices. In very rare cases which employer withdraws the approved or pending I140 applications, the information on the notice helps the lawyer to apply AC-21 law for your portability and eventually keeping your status legal.
Recently USCIS tried to pre-adjudicated I485 application while your security checks are pending or your PD is not current at the time of reviewing I140 application. I personally believe this is one of the smart procedures that USCIS has implemented. So if you get weird RFEs which you think you should not have got for I140, be happy because this smoothes the processing later on. I would like to remind you that I have no definite information from USCIS internal procedure at this time but I know pre-adjudication existed at sometime and a lot of people benefited from it when their security check cleared or their PD become current.
I485:
1. Make sure you receive your receipt notices. If you have not, try to extract the receipt number from the back of payment check.
2. Make sure you file for Advance Parole if you plan to leave the country. If you fail to do so, your application is considered abandoned and could automatically be denied.
3. These days you receive your FP notice fairly quickly after filling. Try to hold your appointments and be at the ASC early morning. Rescheduling creates a possibility of being flagged as abandoned if customer service representative make a mistake and consequently you may automatic denied from the benefit. Why would you do something which you have no control over it. System is shaky enough as is.
4. Wait 2-3days after FP then call FBI, Virginia and make sure they have sent the response back to USCIS. You can find their number on this forum. Although they do not tell you the result but they tell if they had processed it or not.
5. One of the holds that one could potentially have is that their FP result was returned as unreadable by FBI. This means that you have to redo your FP. Unfortunately USCIS does not check this automatically and usually it is under duties of local office to schedule a new FP appointment for you. Be advised that if two consequent FP returned unreadable then you should go and get police clearance from almost all the local law enforcement agencies at your local residents. This is a very rare case but it is good to know. Making sure good quality prints are taken and submitted to FBI also helps.
6. Because FP results are valid only for 15 months, make sure you renew your FPs every 15 month. You should automatically receive FP notice every 15 months. However nobody is perfect so you may not. Please call USCIS and try to get them schedule one for you.
The fun part: NameCheck
7. Wait at least 6 month after filling.
8. You might want to contact your Congress(wo)man, Senator, Congress/House Immigration Chair(wo)man, First lady and president himself. Of course the higher in hierarchy you go, the harder would be the access, the larger would be their office load and consequently the longer would be the turnaround time but you do not know if your attempts are useful or not unless you try them.
I recommend to start from Congress(wo)man and try to get details regarding various holds that your case might have and go higher and higher until all holds on case are removed. The most known hold on I-485 cases is FBI NameCheck however there could be other holds on your case which you may not know about. Most of the holds are related to other agencies or a local USCIS office and not the service center itself. So try to remove the holds on your cases one after another with the help of above mentioned people and without bothering people at service center if holds does not relate to service center. If the hold is not in the service center they only tell you that it is pending and nothing would happen.
9. In contacting any office which you requesting help regarding your case, I strongly recommend you to write a personalized letter which expresses the amount of hardship that you or your family members are going thru due to the prolonged delay in processing of your case. You can start with one of the samples that you can find on this forum as a start point but you must tailor it for your case. At the end if your request for help is based on/looks like a reasoning which is similar to another 10000 applicants, why would you be the one who should be helped? Also if system was able to process all 10000 requests at the same time you would not be reading this message, right? So it is important that in your communications always express the hardship that applies to you and your family directly.
10. Some people recommend geting FOPIA for your name from FBI data base which could be as a base for your claim that you are not a criminal. However I personally do not see any benefit in doing so because these days everybody knows that FOPIA is based on different database than NameCheck and being cleared on FOPIA does not mean that you will be cleared from NameCheck as well. But hey it does not cost anything and you can ask for it. You can find the instructions on FBI website or this forum.
11. Another general rule that I recommend is that you should write something like the following on the envelop or beginning of the letter:
Envelope:
“For personal review of xxxx”
Letter:
“Information in this letter is confidential and can be released to others with direct authorization of xxxx”
By doing so you are making sure somebody close to the person who you are trying to contact will open the letter. At least the letter will be opened by somebody who has authorization by that person for opening his/her personal letters.
12. After you find out what the hold on your case is, try to resolve it with the help of above mentioned people. In the case of name check I have no specific recommendation but mentioning the fact that if you work with those people mentioned in item 6, eventually one of them will be helping you. Don’t give up and check with them every few months and request for update and do not forget expressing the hardship on you and/or your family.
13. Another recommendation after waiting more than 3 years is filing mandamus lawsuit. You can find lots of information with that regards specially in N-400 citizenship forum. Believe it or not you should go through FBI name check clearance once again at citizenship. However I hope they fix the system fundamentally by then. Also citizen’s applicants have higher priority with respect to I485 applicant. Because there is a law which enforces USCIS to finalize the case in 3 months or something similar.
14. When you cleared all the holds on your case and your PD is current; now you somehow need to get your old forgotten file on the desk of a nice officer.
15. At this phase you may want to open a service request (SR) by calling 1-800-375-5283, option 1-2-6. One can open SR every 3-4month. I was told by rep. that earlier than 3-4month system automatically does not allow him/her to open SR. Your reason would be that your case is outside the normal processing date (6 month in I-485 cases). They will ask your name, address and application number. They should provide you with confirmation number which is useful in two senses: A. For your future reference, B. You feel comfortable that SR is actually in the system.
16. You may want to pay attention to the timing when you are putting SR. For instance Visa Bulletin is one of the important parameters. At the end you do not want to waste your once in maybe 3-4 month chance of being eligible for SR with the standard response that your PD is not current and you need to wait for your visa number to become current or your security checks/internal checks/reviews are pending, right?
17. Meanwhile work with Congress(wo)man and/or Senator to move the case. Of course you need to provide all the evidences that you have collected so far which demonstrates that there is no hold on your case. This helps your Congress(wo)man or Senator to push USCIS into action and finalizing your application.
18. Use POJ’s method contacting people at the service center regularly just in case something good comes out of it. Although I suspect that they will close this window of opportunity (speaking to an IO at service center) fairly quickly. We can already see that they are not giving up any useful information these days. POJ’s method: 1-800-375-5283 option 1-2-2-6-1-Receipt#-1-3-4.
19. When your case is with officer and if you are lucky the officer who reviewed your I140 application, pre-adjudicated your I485 application as well. The only thing remains for the officer is few clicks and ordering your welcome notice and card.
I hope this helps and once again this is my understanding of how one may be actively involved in helping his/her case. Most of the information is collected from this website and I urge others if they have more accurate information and/or effective procedure(s) please post them as well so other people can benefit from it.
Good luck
Karma Rocks
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and do not pretend to be one. I also have never worked for USCIS, so I don't pretend to give an exact description of every procedure. The following explanation is a general guide line ignoring some of the details. It is written to convey a basic idea of how the process works, not to list every single step (Disclaimer was borrowed and modified from another user in this forum).
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and do not pretend to be one. I also have never worked for USCIS, so I don't pretend to give an exact description of every procedure. The following explanation is a general guide line ignoring some of the details. It is written to convey a basic idea of how the process works, not to list every single step (Disclaimer was borrowed and modified from another user in this forum).
General points:
1. Be honest. Law protects people and in most of the cases you hurt yourself far more when you try to hide something.
2. Review your applications thoroughly. Review your forms few times and try to put yourself instead of officer and make sure you are comfortable with your application and supporting documents are readily available in case of RFE. Preparing the supporting documents prior to filling helps you in having peace of mind.
3. Always submit what is required nothing more and nothing less. Unless you are a special case like people who are citizens of countries which are considered axes of evil.
4. If your application is important then always try to keep dual status as insurance. For instance renew your H1 status while your application is pending. At the end there are far more parameters in the system which we do not have control over them and may not turn in your favor.
Labor Certification:
Always go with the minimum requirements that put you at the highest EB category possible.
I140:
Try to get a copy of your receipt and/or approval notices. In very rare cases which employer withdraws the approved or pending I140 applications, the information on the notice helps the lawyer to apply AC-21 law for your portability and eventually keeping your status legal.
Recently USCIS tried to pre-adjudicated I485 application while your security checks are pending or your PD is not current at the time of reviewing I140 application. I personally believe this is one of the smart procedures that USCIS has implemented. So if you get weird RFEs which you think you should not have got for I140, be happy because this smoothes the processing later on. I would like to remind you that I have no definite information from USCIS internal procedure at this time but I know pre-adjudication existed at sometime and a lot of people benefited from it when their security check cleared or their PD become current.
I485:
1. Make sure you receive your receipt notices. If you have not, try to extract the receipt number from the back of payment check.
2. Make sure you file for Advance Parole if you plan to leave the country. If you fail to do so, your application is considered abandoned and could automatically be denied.
3. These days you receive your FP notice fairly quickly after filling. Try to hold your appointments and be at the ASC early morning. Rescheduling creates a possibility of being flagged as abandoned if customer service representative make a mistake and consequently you may automatic denied from the benefit. Why would you do something which you have no control over it. System is shaky enough as is.
4. Wait 2-3days after FP then call FBI, Virginia and make sure they have sent the response back to USCIS. You can find their number on this forum. Although they do not tell you the result but they tell if they had processed it or not.
5. One of the holds that one could potentially have is that their FP result was returned as unreadable by FBI. This means that you have to redo your FP. Unfortunately USCIS does not check this automatically and usually it is under duties of local office to schedule a new FP appointment for you. Be advised that if two consequent FP returned unreadable then you should go and get police clearance from almost all the local law enforcement agencies at your local residents. This is a very rare case but it is good to know. Making sure good quality prints are taken and submitted to FBI also helps.
6. Because FP results are valid only for 15 months, make sure you renew your FPs every 15 month. You should automatically receive FP notice every 15 months. However nobody is perfect so you may not. Please call USCIS and try to get them schedule one for you.
The fun part: NameCheck
7. Wait at least 6 month after filling.
8. You might want to contact your Congress(wo)man, Senator, Congress/House Immigration Chair(wo)man, First lady and president himself. Of course the higher in hierarchy you go, the harder would be the access, the larger would be their office load and consequently the longer would be the turnaround time but you do not know if your attempts are useful or not unless you try them.
I recommend to start from Congress(wo)man and try to get details regarding various holds that your case might have and go higher and higher until all holds on case are removed. The most known hold on I-485 cases is FBI NameCheck however there could be other holds on your case which you may not know about. Most of the holds are related to other agencies or a local USCIS office and not the service center itself. So try to remove the holds on your cases one after another with the help of above mentioned people and without bothering people at service center if holds does not relate to service center. If the hold is not in the service center they only tell you that it is pending and nothing would happen.
9. In contacting any office which you requesting help regarding your case, I strongly recommend you to write a personalized letter which expresses the amount of hardship that you or your family members are going thru due to the prolonged delay in processing of your case. You can start with one of the samples that you can find on this forum as a start point but you must tailor it for your case. At the end if your request for help is based on/looks like a reasoning which is similar to another 10000 applicants, why would you be the one who should be helped? Also if system was able to process all 10000 requests at the same time you would not be reading this message, right? So it is important that in your communications always express the hardship that applies to you and your family directly.
10. Some people recommend geting FOPIA for your name from FBI data base which could be as a base for your claim that you are not a criminal. However I personally do not see any benefit in doing so because these days everybody knows that FOPIA is based on different database than NameCheck and being cleared on FOPIA does not mean that you will be cleared from NameCheck as well. But hey it does not cost anything and you can ask for it. You can find the instructions on FBI website or this forum.
11. Another general rule that I recommend is that you should write something like the following on the envelop or beginning of the letter:
Envelope:
“For personal review of xxxx”
Letter:
“Information in this letter is confidential and can be released to others with direct authorization of xxxx”
By doing so you are making sure somebody close to the person who you are trying to contact will open the letter. At least the letter will be opened by somebody who has authorization by that person for opening his/her personal letters.
12. After you find out what the hold on your case is, try to resolve it with the help of above mentioned people. In the case of name check I have no specific recommendation but mentioning the fact that if you work with those people mentioned in item 6, eventually one of them will be helping you. Don’t give up and check with them every few months and request for update and do not forget expressing the hardship on you and/or your family.
13. Another recommendation after waiting more than 3 years is filing mandamus lawsuit. You can find lots of information with that regards specially in N-400 citizenship forum. Believe it or not you should go through FBI name check clearance once again at citizenship. However I hope they fix the system fundamentally by then. Also citizen’s applicants have higher priority with respect to I485 applicant. Because there is a law which enforces USCIS to finalize the case in 3 months or something similar.
14. When you cleared all the holds on your case and your PD is current; now you somehow need to get your old forgotten file on the desk of a nice officer.
15. At this phase you may want to open a service request (SR) by calling 1-800-375-5283, option 1-2-6. One can open SR every 3-4month. I was told by rep. that earlier than 3-4month system automatically does not allow him/her to open SR. Your reason would be that your case is outside the normal processing date (6 month in I-485 cases). They will ask your name, address and application number. They should provide you with confirmation number which is useful in two senses: A. For your future reference, B. You feel comfortable that SR is actually in the system.
16. You may want to pay attention to the timing when you are putting SR. For instance Visa Bulletin is one of the important parameters. At the end you do not want to waste your once in maybe 3-4 month chance of being eligible for SR with the standard response that your PD is not current and you need to wait for your visa number to become current or your security checks/internal checks/reviews are pending, right?
17. Meanwhile work with Congress(wo)man and/or Senator to move the case. Of course you need to provide all the evidences that you have collected so far which demonstrates that there is no hold on your case. This helps your Congress(wo)man or Senator to push USCIS into action and finalizing your application.
18. Use POJ’s method contacting people at the service center regularly just in case something good comes out of it. Although I suspect that they will close this window of opportunity (speaking to an IO at service center) fairly quickly. We can already see that they are not giving up any useful information these days. POJ’s method: 1-800-375-5283 option 1-2-2-6-1-Receipt#-1-3-4.
19. When your case is with officer and if you are lucky the officer who reviewed your I140 application, pre-adjudicated your I485 application as well. The only thing remains for the officer is few clicks and ordering your welcome notice and card.
I hope this helps and once again this is my understanding of how one may be actively involved in helping his/her case. Most of the information is collected from this website and I urge others if they have more accurate information and/or effective procedure(s) please post them as well so other people can benefit from it.
Good luck
Karma Rocks
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and do not pretend to be one. I also have never worked for USCIS, so I don't pretend to give an exact description of every procedure. The following explanation is a general guide line ignoring some of the details. It is written to convey a basic idea of how the process works, not to list every single step (Disclaimer was borrowed and modified from another user in this forum).
