Philadelphia Transfer Cases

poongunranar said:
I have responded to your posers at this thread: http://boards.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?p=976552#post976552

One additional point: You can only PREVENT your wife from getting her green-card, if your divorce is DECREED before your interview. Even, if it is not finalized and decreed, there is a 50-50 chance for hers to get approved because INS is expected to not only see how they live after marriage, but to see whether the marriage was entered with a bona fide intent. It is a complex issue, but, still, there is a 50-50 chance for hers getting approved if your interview takes place before the divorce is decreed. However, once it is decreed, your wife cannot get her GC through your marriage. Also, see this will be true in your case: Until you get your divorce decreed, for sure, the local office is not going to call you for interview. They will keep your files in abeyance because they don't want to enter into this legal quagmire of whether to approve or reject your wife's petition. I assume, that they would have read your plaints that you had already sent.
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Poongunranar,

Thank you very much for your valuable comments.

I guess it is a beneficial thing for me that my documents have been transferred to Newark and hers to Philadelphia. It means that she is not even any longer hiding the fact that she lives in a different city in a different state. Also from what I heard interviews take much longer to schedule in Philadelphia than in Newark.

Also, based on the timing, I believe that the transfer itself might have been triggered by my complaint letter to Vermont. (Otherwise my case is very straightforward - a university professor at the same school for the last 5 years.)

As to the interviews, I sincerely hope that mine will be sooner than hers and will not be affected by marriage issues because it is bona-fide-employment-based. Because hers is a marriage-based application, I hope they will wait with her interview to allow some time to resolve this issue. That's what I hope will happen, but I agree, with USCIS you never know...

Thanks,

RNJ

P.S. I realize that divorce is the only thing that will put a definite end to all this and I am doing everything possible to get it asap, but because of the contested nature and because of her lawyer's tricks, it will not happen for at least 2-3 more months, so my question was on the best things I can do in the meantime - and I pretty much got some idea now - thank you.
 
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Charlie,

Which state are u in? Thanks.

r4a2002 said:
Dear all,
I have been a silent observer of this forum and benefited from it tremendously. It is my turn to give back.
A history of my case:
I-140 filed in April 2002
I-485 filed in October 2002 both at Vermont center.
There are done by myself and it is a NIW case (I was still a Ph.D candidate at that time).
I-140 approved Oct 2003. Then I moved to Philly and case was transferred to Philly local in June 2004.
Received transfer notice in June from Vermont and July from local.
Received interview notice in October and interviewed on Nov 2nd.
There is something I’d like to mention before I go into the details of my interview.
My wife received her approval notice for her EAD on June 8th 2004 and our I-485 was transferred to local on the same date. So we figure this had something to do with this. So I waited a little bit and applied for EAD(even though I didn’t need it) by myself in July. I received notice but did not schedule for EAD interview until the end of September. I scheduled on Oct 14. then one week later I received interview notice for I-485.
About my interview. My case is a straight forward case. Mine is NIW with advanced degree as individual and my wife is marriage based.
I was a little worried first because I lost some of my files (including my birth certificate, certified translation of my marriage certificate and master diploma). Pretty bad. So I did talk to a lawyer. But I think they are useless. All they tell you is that you should have every damn things (if I did then I wouldn’t have need him). But later I realize that the local office should have all the original documents (I have two copies of the translated originals from my country).
So I went. We were scheduled for 1:30 but they took us in at 1:15. It looked like that the person we got was an inexperienced one. He asked for my driver license then job letter then he kept going back to the file he had on me. Then he asked for passport, old EAD card. My Ph.D diploma. Then that is it. Didn’t ask for birth certificate, not even tax return or pay stubs. I ended up giving these to him by myself (I made copy of everything, so he just stuck them into my file). He did asked what kind of research I am doing and the usual question you heard over and over again on this forum (crime, how many kid, are you a member of communist party…..) Just say no to these.
Then we moved on to my wife’s case. He asked for my original marriage certificate. When I showed him mine (which is in Chinese), he was a little bit surprised but I have a certified translation also. Then he checked her file to see whether there is anything missing. I guess we had everything in there so he didn’t ask for anything more except repeated the same routine question to her.
I hope this will benefit some people and don’t loss hope.
I will be happy to answer some questions.
Charlie
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Pa

My case was filed in NY and then I moved to Philly in 2003. Case was then transferred to Philly local from Vermont center.
 
EAD for transfer case

Hello Folks,

My 485 was transferred from Vermont to Philadelphia on the 30th of Sep 2004. Havent received any notice from either on of the offices yet. I need to apply for an EAD extension as it is due to expire in Dec04. DO i have to apply the EAD extension at the Vermont Service cneter of at the Philadelphia Local Office.. Appraciate your response..

Shabbu77
 
good question.
I also want to add: whether we should apply for Advanced Parol from Philly Office or Vermont Service Center

shabbu77 said:
Hello Folks,

My 485 was transferred from Vermont to Philadelphia on the 30th of Sep 2004. Havent received any notice from either on of the offices yet. I need to apply for an EAD extension as it is due to expire in Dec04. DO i have to apply the EAD extension at the Vermont Service cneter of at the Philadelphia Local Office.. Appraciate your response..

Shabbu77
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My wife's 485 was transferred to Phily on Oct. 15 and she did not receive any notice too. Anyway, she applied EAD on Oct. 30 from Vermont Service Center and received application notice in two weeks from Vermont Service Center.

Update: just received letter from Vermont Service Center. EAD application was transferred to Philly too.

will keep update.

shabbu77 said:
Hello Folks,

My 485 was transferred from Vermont to Philadelphia on the 30th of Sep 2004. Havent received any notice from either on of the offices yet. I need to apply for an EAD extension as it is due to expire in Dec04. DO i have to apply the EAD extension at the Vermont Service cneter of at the Philadelphia Local Office.. Appraciate your response..

Shabbu77
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recent approvals.. have a question.

has anybody who had their interview and approval recently in late october or early november (at philly office ) receive any welcome letter or the actual card yet.. i just read someplace that they got the card in 10 days after approval??? please post.. thanks..
 
Mine and my wife Cases are transferred from VSC to Philly

Approximately how many months will take to get the Interview from Philly Local office.
my Transfer date is 12/02/04
Priority Date :10/24/2001
I-140 Approved on June 11 th 2004
I-485 ND:08/18/03
2 EADs and 2 APs.
FP1:10/30/04
LUD:11/04/04 ( status changed FP results received and case resumed) 11/15/04 ( no change) 12/02/04 ( Transferred from VSC to Philly)
 
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Philly: transferred AOS cases

gcwaiting2001 said:
Approximately how many months will take to get the Interview from Philly Local office.
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Realistically speaking, about a year.
The "official" processing date posted on the USCIS site is 8/23/03 (i.e. case that were filed at the Philly office or filed elsewehere and received by Philly CIS Field office by that date).
The IIO's answer is "12-15 months from the date your case is received here, in Philly."

Miracles do happen though.. Occasionally cases appear to be processed out of order.

And, BTW, more often than not, they never send your a transfer notice from Philly. The only piece of correspondence you'll see from them is an interview letter. You should receive a transfer notice from a regional Service Center though. Hold on to it.
 
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Today i got mail from uscis
"On December 6, 2004, we transferred your I485 Application to Register
Permanent Residence or to Adjust Status to an office in PHILADELPHIA
Our office in PHILADELPHIA, PA will send you a written
decision as soon as processing is complete".

Does any body know PA Time frames? Recentely i moved from IL to Pittsburgh,is there any problem if they move from nebraska to local office?

Thanks
 
Today my application was transfferred to Philly ... so I'm joining you guys. It looks like there is no organized tracker for the Philly cases, I'll try to select the cases that were transffered to Philly in the last year to monitor their progress ... any info abt the trend in the last months, is going better or worse that before ... what are the estimates?

If somebody wants to help with the scan, I'll modify the scanning program to save only the cases transferred to Philly but it will take a lot for the initial scanning, I already have the cases for every fifth day, so if somebody wants to join let me know. Does somebody know if a case gets approved after interview in Philly is the online status changed?
nemessis

EB2 - RIR
I485
ND - 7/22/2003
TD - 12/8/2004
 
Philly tracker

Hi guys,

As I posted above my case got transferred to Philly today ... so far I did not decide what I am going to do ... to continue or abandon the case. Until then I compiled all your 28 pages of discussions and I came with this tracker that I attached. The only statistics I was able to do was the average and standard deviation for the waiting days after the transfer. I did also a year-by-year analysis to see if the things are going better or worse. The big values for 2002 are because of 2 cases with > 700 days of waiting, and that is reflected on SD also, for 2003 looks like the numbers are more homogenous (small SD - and that's bad news), but for 2004 there are only 2 cases ... On the last column I copied the waiting time for the ppl who are approved and for the ones who are not I calculated the time between today and the transfer data ... this is a little bit biased also because of the last 3 recent transfers (including mine).

I have the opportunity to scan all the cases filled at VSC that were transferred to Philly for the FY 2003 (I already have several hundreds), but I am not sure that if a case is approved by the local office they update the online message ... if somebody has this info please post it here so I won't waste my time, it will take several weeks to do the job, but it's doable,

Good luck to everybody ... including me, luck is what it's missing.
nemessis
 
If a case got transferred in Philly and approvded by Philly office, the online status will not change.


nemessis said:
Today my application was transfferred to Philly ... so I'm joining you guys. It looks like there is no organized tracker for the Philly cases, I'll try to select the cases that were transffered to Philly in the last year to monitor their progress ... any info abt the trend in the last months, is going better or worse that before ... what are the estimates?

If somebody wants to help with the scan, I'll modify the scanning program to save only the cases transferred to Philly but it will take a lot for the initial scanning, I already have the cases for every fifth day, so if somebody wants to join let me know. Does somebody know if a case gets approved after interview in Philly is the online status changed?
nemessis

EB2 - RIR
I485
ND - 7/22/2003
TD - 12/8/2004
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Thanks a lot monkey2003,

It make no sense then to start the scanning.

It looks like this thread is not very active ... how many ppl are here? ... let's keep in touch closer, we'll be helpfull for all of us.

Do you have any idea when I should expect the Philly center to send me the transfer letter. Also my wife's application was't transferred (yet) ... it is usual to transfer it later ?

What do you think guys abt the fact that they are extending the 90 days pilot program to all the centers, it will speed up the processing? How abt the retrogression of the dates for EB3 ... do you see any improvements in processing because of the decrease in the workload?

Thanks a lot,
nemessis

monkey2003 said:
If a case got transferred in Philly and approvded by Philly office, the online status will not change.
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Hi tiger,

What happened with your interview? Did you get approved ... please post so I can update the tracker...

tiger1234 said:
After the interview, I will post my experience. Our case was transfered to Philly in 08/04. But my RD is 08/01.

Tiger1234
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nemessis,

Great job with the spreadsheet. My RD is July 2002, if you want to update the .xls.

Also, no kind of notification comes from Philly. I only received one for each applicant from VSC indicating the transfer. After 3 months i realise we cannot do much except ask lawyer to make a formal enquiry at Philly local office. If you have EAD or AP renewal coming up then a visit (take an Infopass appointment) to their office might be soothing, but do not expect much from them.

I wrote to congressman Jim Greenwood and his office responded that I need to be patient and if i do not hear anything within 12 months I should contact his successor.

So my wait continues.
 
Thanks a lot sgi. Looks like not very good news. I updated the tracher + min/max values ... looks a little bit encouraging compared with the 2003 cases, I hope they are going to to even better in the future,

I do need to renew the AP, should I do it now or wait 2-3 months and apply after that ... I need to travel in April, how long does it takes to get AP approved in Philly?
Thanks again,
nemessis

sgi said:
nemessis,

Great job with the spreadsheet. My RD is July 2002, if you want to update the .xls.

Also, no kind of notification comes from Philly. I only received one for each applicant from VSC indicating the transfer. After 3 months i realise we cannot do much except ask lawyer to make a formal enquiry at Philly local office. If you have EAD or AP renewal coming up then a visit (take an Infopass appointment) to their office might be soothing, but do not expect much from them.

I wrote to congressman Jim Greenwood and his office responded that I need to be patient and if i do not hear anything within 12 months I should contact his successor.

So my wait continues.
Click to expand...
 
nemessis said:
I do need to renew the AP, should I do it now or wait 2-3 months and apply after that ... I need to travel in April, how long does it takes to get AP approved in Philly?
Click to expand...

3 days if you're eligible for AP processing by the Philly district office (i.e. your EB case was transferred here).
 
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