I want to share my plastic card story.
My I-485 was approved by the Nebraska Service Center on March 1, 2002. On March 18, 2002 I went to the Chicago INS and had my (first) passport stamping done. I was told that my I-89 paperwork will be forwarded to NSC and that I should get the card within 6-8 months.
After about a year has passed I went to Chicago again and renewed my passport stamp in February 2003. At that time I was told that my I-89 documents are at Nebraskaand that I should expect to receive the card really soon.
Since August 2002 I have sent several G731N forms to Nebraska inquiring about the status of my card and got mostly non-responsive replies to the effect that if I have done passport stamping, I should just wait. Some of these replies (e.g. in February 2003) said that my green card is in production and that I should expect to receive it within the next 6-8 months.
In June 2003 when I called the National Customer Service Center, they forwarded my request to Nebraska and I got a letter from them saying that my I-89 documents still have not been received from Chicago.
I went to Chicago again with that letter and on July 14, 2003 I had my I-89 re-done in Chicago (photos, fingerprints, signature, etc).
After that Nebraska stopped responding to my subsequent G731N inquiries (I filed several more) and untill the middle of March 2004 I had no information from them.
Moreover, since August 2003, whenever I called the National Customer Service Center, they refused to forward my inquiries to Nebraska on the grounds that my case had been approved and they only deal with pending cases. I was told that the only thing I could do was to file another G731N.
I got the same answer in Chicago when I went there in early March 2004. (They gave me yet another passport stamp which I needed to get a German visa for a summer trip to Germany ending after July 14, 2004, which was the expiration date of my previous stamp).
After that I wrote to the senator from Illinois, Richard Durbin and things started happenning very quickly. His staff called Nebraska, and NSC dug out my file and put it in for an expedited production. On March 18 my case-status message changed from "This case has been approved on March 1, 2002" to "On March 18, 2004, after approving your application, we ordered you a new card". And then on March 24 it changed to "We have mailed you your card on March 24".
The card actually arrived on March 26!!
Moreover, almost simultaneously with the card, I reseived responses from NSC from several of my old G731N inquiries (in particular one from September 2003), which they have "miraculously" dicovered.
My I-485 was approved by the Nebraska Service Center on March 1, 2002. On March 18, 2002 I went to the Chicago INS and had my (first) passport stamping done. I was told that my I-89 paperwork will be forwarded to NSC and that I should get the card within 6-8 months.
After about a year has passed I went to Chicago again and renewed my passport stamp in February 2003. At that time I was told that my I-89 documents are at Nebraskaand that I should expect to receive the card really soon.
Since August 2002 I have sent several G731N forms to Nebraska inquiring about the status of my card and got mostly non-responsive replies to the effect that if I have done passport stamping, I should just wait. Some of these replies (e.g. in February 2003) said that my green card is in production and that I should expect to receive it within the next 6-8 months.
In June 2003 when I called the National Customer Service Center, they forwarded my request to Nebraska and I got a letter from them saying that my I-89 documents still have not been received from Chicago.
I went to Chicago again with that letter and on July 14, 2003 I had my I-89 re-done in Chicago (photos, fingerprints, signature, etc).
After that Nebraska stopped responding to my subsequent G731N inquiries (I filed several more) and untill the middle of March 2004 I had no information from them.
Moreover, since August 2003, whenever I called the National Customer Service Center, they refused to forward my inquiries to Nebraska on the grounds that my case had been approved and they only deal with pending cases. I was told that the only thing I could do was to file another G731N.
I got the same answer in Chicago when I went there in early March 2004. (They gave me yet another passport stamp which I needed to get a German visa for a summer trip to Germany ending after July 14, 2004, which was the expiration date of my previous stamp).
After that I wrote to the senator from Illinois, Richard Durbin and things started happenning very quickly. His staff called Nebraska, and NSC dug out my file and put it in for an expedited production. On March 18 my case-status message changed from "This case has been approved on March 1, 2002" to "On March 18, 2004, after approving your application, we ordered you a new card". And then on March 24 it changed to "We have mailed you your card on March 24".
The card actually arrived on March 26!!
Moreover, almost simultaneously with the card, I reseived responses from NSC from several of my old G731N inquiries (in particular one from September 2003), which they have "miraculously" dicovered.