brahmachari99
Registered Users (C)
I got approved last week (received the email on Monday morning, Aug 23, 2004 - who says Mondays are bad?), and had been waiting for the approval letter in the mail everyday since. I wanted to get our passports stamped as soon as I got the letters, and since I live about an hour and a half away from Milwaukee, I had to plan early. In anticipation, I had the photographs taken (full frontal) and had everything ready. The approval letters arrived last Thursday at 12:00 noon. As soon as my wife told me the mail had arrived, I took off from work and darted back home. Surprisingly, the letter asked the photos to be 3/4 view, so I had to go back and retake the photos.
I live about an hour and a half from Milwaukee, and the Milwaukee office closes at 2:30pm. By the time we retook the photos, it was 1:00pm, but we managed to reach the INS office by 2:25pm. Went straight to the second floor and took our number. There were hardly 3-4 people there and at least 3 windows were open. As soon as we sat down to take a breather, we were called in by the nice lady at the window. I slid our approval letters underneath the window, and she promptly took out the stamp and asked for our passports. She also asked for our APs, EADs, etc since we didn't need them. We gladly gave them to her. She asked us to fill out a sheet of paper with name/address etc (for easy data entry, she said). Then she said she'd stamp my wife's passport first (she's the derivative, I'm the primary). It didn't look like she checked or verified anything, just a quick glance at our approval letters (courtesy copies) was sufficient. I had taken employment letter, bank statements, etc, but she didn't ask for them. The only question she did ask was about what kind of work I did, and that too was more of a friendly chit-chat question rather than an immigration interview question. Since I had both kind of photos, she took the full frontal ones, even though the letter said 3/4 view. In all, it took about 15 minutes. A very pleasant experience, highly recommended! Thank you, lady at the window at INS Milwaukee office!
The next day I went to the Social Security office to get new SS cards that don't have the "Not valid for work without INS authorization" written on them. They said they'd verifiy our new permanent resident status with INS, and that it takes INS up to ten days to update their databases. Luckily, when she put our Alien #s in the computer, our names came up, so our new SS cards should arrive in 2 weeks.
I live about an hour and a half from Milwaukee, and the Milwaukee office closes at 2:30pm. By the time we retook the photos, it was 1:00pm, but we managed to reach the INS office by 2:25pm. Went straight to the second floor and took our number. There were hardly 3-4 people there and at least 3 windows were open. As soon as we sat down to take a breather, we were called in by the nice lady at the window. I slid our approval letters underneath the window, and she promptly took out the stamp and asked for our passports. She also asked for our APs, EADs, etc since we didn't need them. We gladly gave them to her. She asked us to fill out a sheet of paper with name/address etc (for easy data entry, she said). Then she said she'd stamp my wife's passport first (she's the derivative, I'm the primary). It didn't look like she checked or verified anything, just a quick glance at our approval letters (courtesy copies) was sufficient. I had taken employment letter, bank statements, etc, but she didn't ask for them. The only question she did ask was about what kind of work I did, and that too was more of a friendly chit-chat question rather than an immigration interview question. Since I had both kind of photos, she took the full frontal ones, even though the letter said 3/4 view. In all, it took about 15 minutes. A very pleasant experience, highly recommended! Thank you, lady at the window at INS Milwaukee office!
The next day I went to the Social Security office to get new SS cards that don't have the "Not valid for work without INS authorization" written on them. They said they'd verifiy our new permanent resident status with INS, and that it takes INS up to ten days to update their databases. Luckily, when she put our Alien #s in the computer, our names came up, so our new SS cards should arrive in 2 weeks.
Last edited by a moderator: