Approved! Passport stamped at 26 Fed. Plaza today - all the gory details below
The following post is a copy of my post on
www.rupnet.com/immigration
So... our case is EB-1/NIW, I-140 approved Jan 02, I-485 RD Apr 02, case filed VSC (NYC residence, NYC work), 2 FPs (FP1 Jun 02, FP2 Jan 04). Our case was xferred to MSC sometime in Mar 04 (found out online, no notice by mail at all), then xferred to NYC local office sometime in July 04 (found out when I called local Congressman's office for help, they found out through their "special" connection that the case was received at NYC, again no notice by mail). I have already posted about the whole Congressman thing. Please search for those posts.
We received interview notices about 3 wks ago by mail, date set for today, 11:30 a.m. I immediately called the IRS for tax return transcripts (takes a few days to get, so please do this as soon as you have an interview date) for last 3 years. Being paranoid, I asked for 4 years.
There is a list of docs you have to bring with you to the interview - birth certs, marriage certs, tax returns, W2, 1099s, tax transcripts, medicals (if you didn't already file them), APs & EADs (expired & current), H1B approval notices, photos, etc. (please don't quote me, I was assembling these like a robot).
Make copies of any originals.
Anyway, we showed up at 11:15 a.m. today at 26 Federal plaza by ourselves, no attorney. If you have an interview, you go around to the Worth Street entrance.
Before I left, I called the West Virginia FBI number to find out the date they sent FP results to INS (just in case they were going to give me some excuse like the FBI is holding up the fingerprinting results) - the customer rep told me that our latest FP results were submitted in Jan. 02. So far so good.
You go to the 8th floor, room 800, go to one of 2 dedicated counters (no waiting), sign 2X & fingerprinted twice for the actual green card. Then you WAIT, and WAIT and wait until they call your name. We waited 4 hours. In the meantime, I had to eat so I went to the 6th floor cafetaria. No real danger of being called then because it was clear to us that people whose appts were at 10:30 were not even being called by noon.
Finally we got called, followed an officer to a room (it's not that private, he left the door open). He asked us for copies of tax returns, W2 for past 2 years, copy of marriage cert, asked us for meds (I told him that we filed them with I-485 which he confirmed by looking up in the files which he had in front of him), he asked us the same questions found in I-485 app (e.g. have you ever been arrested, member of Communist party, etc. etc.) - just answer no with a straight face. Then he started this program on his computer which I believe is a "request for immigration visa number" - he just inputs your country of citizenship, I-485 category, A-number (twice), and the officer's name and submits. It should come back approved. Previously, I'd read on Rupnet about offices running out of visa numbers and the process stalling at this point. My husband's came back instantaneously approved. The officer however aborted mine midway due to a typo, and it interpreted his later request as a duplicate and rejected it! You can imagine my distress. I know many of you are computer professionals and at this point would want to jump in and help the person debug. I too had that urge. Please restrain yourself. You are just going to make the officer frustrated. My husband and I sat VERY quietly, not giving the officer any reason to get even more annoyed by making comments.
Don't forget to ask your officer his/her name! In case something bad happens, this is extremely useful. Also check with him/her the current address on your file because this is the address your GC will get sent to (we moved so we really needed to double check).
Anyway, the officer said he would have to clear up the disapproval by faxing some document to Washington D.C. I was quite distressed because it was already 3:30 p.m. but again restrained the urge to make any comment and frustrate the process even more. The officer stamped my husband's passport right there in front of us, and asked for any EADs he had ever had (we gave him the card) and my husband was free to go.
The officer said that he hoped that he could clear the matter in an hour (usual time frame for D.C. office to get back to him) but could not guarantee and all I could do was to wait around. Well you can imagine my internal frustration as it was already almost 4 p.m. and you know that gov. employees don't work a minute beyond 5 p.m. Again, I swallowed any comment that I had, and said that I would wait in the waiting area. To be fair, the officer seemed quite distressed at the computer glitch (said it had never happened to him before) and quite determined to make things right before the end of the day.
Anyway, I headed back to the waiting area, waited half an hour - the same officer called my name and emerged with my passport stamped! I gave him my EADs (current and old), quickly checked the stamp while there and headed home.
Although we brought photos (2 copies of both the profile & full head bcs not sure which is right - conflicting info from attorney and INS), the officer did not ask for them.
When I asked him if he wanted them, he said they were in the file. So I let it be.
Other questions (I believe these are all on the I-485 application) - previous marriages? divorce? children? ever had a J1 visa? fined, arrested? espionage? Communist party?
We also signed an attorney waiver and swore to tell the truth at the beginning of the interview.
