USCIS SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements)

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Abhatti

Active Member
Please share your experiences with USCIS SAVE , time line , approvals , denials etc.

I will start with mine, I am a new Approved Asylee (July 2025) . I have been here for 5 years and hold a Limited Duration Driving License (REAL ID Compliant) in Virginia

I do renew my license every year since pending asylees get max 1 year on validity if REAL ID is needed. For non-REAL ID , you get whatever your status says, like if you hold an EAD , the DL matches the expiration date of EAD

This all comes from USCIS SAVE system, basically DMV send your documents for additional review which are submitted / uploaded to USCIS save system,

you can even check the status of your case using Alien#

SAVE

save.uscis.gov save.uscis.gov

I remember my 1st DL license verification came in 10 days, and the year after and after and after i used to get my verification within same day (sometimes within 30 minutes ) Based on pending asylum

This time, i submitted my approved i589 along with new i94 (approved asylee status) , its been a week now and there is no response so far .

DMV says they take 60 days to conclude documents verification which is exceptionally lengthy time

How is it going with you all ?
 
I was granted in June 2025, on the same day I got my new i-94 I went to both SSA and DMV to get unrestricted social and virginia real id.

I went to SSA first who claimed they can't verify my i-94 and will have to go through SAVE verification, I went to the DMV expecting them to say the same thing since both are verifying the same document through the same SAVE system but to my surprise the DMV verified my documents instantly and gave me a receipt that had my license expiration sometime in 2032 and I got my license 7 days later in the mail.

For the SSA, the SAVE online status stayed pending for a week then said returned to agency, I called SSA but they said it's still pending and they haven't received a response, I checked on reddit and online and people with the same issue said that SAVE returns to SSA but SSA will claim nothing came back for weeks. I received my new EAD with A5 category after a week of receiving my i-94 so I went to SSA and applied again and this time they verified my EAD instantly and I got my unrestricted SS card in the mail within a week and also cancelled the first pending application.

Hope you find this info useful.

Side note: all of this got me thinking, if the physical document stating your immigration status has no value unless the agency you are presenting it to verifies it with DHS before approving you for anything, then what's the point of DHS issuing documents to immigrants when I can simply go to DMV and claim that I am a permanent resident or asylee or claim whatever and they verify it with DHS before approving my application. Same with i-9 and SSA and unemployment and medicaid. What's the point of a physical green card or EAD or i-94 if such document doesn't get you benefits unless you pass a verification? Stupid system and outdated laws and very few people understand them and how to work around them. Not lawyers, not Americans and surely not government workers, only immigrants who do everything on their own.
 
patoot10 said:
I was granted in June 2025, on the same day I got my new i-94 I went to both SSA and DMV to get unrestricted social and virginia real id.

I went to SSA first who claimed they can't verify my i-94 and will have to go through SAVE verification, I went to the DMV expecting them to say the same thing since both are verifying the same document through the same SAVE system but to my surprise the DMV verified my documents instantly and gave me a receipt that had my license expiration sometime in 2032 and I got my license 7 days later in the mail.

For the SSA, the SAVE online status stayed pending for a week then said returned to agency, I called SSA but they said it's still pending and they haven't received a response, I checked on reddit and online and people with the same issue said that SAVE returns to SSA but SSA will claim nothing came back for weeks. I received my new EAD with A5 category after a week of receiving my i-94 so I went to SSA and applied again and this time they verified my EAD instantly and I got my unrestricted SS card in the mail within a week and also cancelled the first pending application.

Hope you find this info useful.

Side note: all of this got me thinking, if the physical document stating your immigration status has no value unless the agency you are presenting it to verifies it with DHS before approving you for anything, then what's the point of DHS issuing documents to immigrants when I can simply go to DMV and claim that I am a permanent resident or asylee or claim whatever and they verify it with DHS before approving my application. Same with i-9 and SSA and unemployment and medicaid. What's the point of a physical green card or EAD or i-94 if such document doesn't get you benefits unless you pass a verification? Stupid system and outdated laws and very few people understand them and how to work around them. Not lawyers, not Americans and surely not government workers, only immigrants who do everything on their own.
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Thank you

This is pretty useful insight .....Let me ask a few things

1. I visited SSA (Manassas) is where our SSA office is, they turned me away saying they take customers by appointment only. When i tried to book appointment after calling them, there is no slot available for next 3 months .... How did you manage to visit them just like that ?

2. I keep checking save and it looks like DMV hasn't even submitted my verification to DHS / USCIS , all i see is my verifications from last few years (case returned to agency) ..... I visited DMV last monday and they said they have submitted my i589 and i94 for verification through scanning those documents .... not sure where it went but it certainly isn't with USCIS

But yes, none of agencies are auto inter-connected to each other
 
1- Regarding booking a time, I am also located in Northern Virginia and appointments are booked for months ahead, only thing you can do is apply for replacement card online or if you visit the office they will give you a QR to scan for online application, once you complete it you can schedule an appointment, you can keep trying different zip codes until an office has an appointment, book it even if its months out or a location you are not willing to go to, then you will receive an email with a link to change your appointment, keep checking everyday specially in the morning and around 5pm until something opens up at any of the offices. There is one in Reston, one in Alexandria and 3 in DC along with a bunch in Maryland. In my experience the ones in DC are least busy. Try all offices until you get lucky. I did this for both the times I went there and sometimes you can score an appointment the next day.

2- If you go to SAVE website you can check your cases using A number or other documents info, try them all cause depending on how DMV submitted it, it may not show with your A number although 99% of the time checking with A number and date of birth is good enough. Now if you keep checking and no new case with DMV comes up then you are correct and they never submitted anything with DHS and nothing will move forward for you, this happened to a friend of mine back in California with their DMV where the dumb agents told him they submitted to DHS only for him to find out months later that he needed to sign a disclosure at DMV authorizing DHS to release his immigration status to DMV, once he completed that disclosure with DMV things moved along. I didn't need to complete that disclosure with SSA but maybe DMVs do it differently, I recommend you go back to DMV and ask to speak to manager and bring up that disclosure thing, you can also contact your local state or Virginia assembly representative since you can't reach out to congress folks as Virginia DMV is not a federal agency. Don't wait too long for those fools if you think things are not moving along, they waste our time while getting paid by our taxes but you have options to keep pressing.

Hope this is helpful!
 
patoot10 said:
1- Regarding booking a time, I am also located in Northern Virginia and appointments are booked for months ahead, only thing you can do is apply for replacement card online or if you visit the office they will give you a QR to scan for online application, once you complete it you can schedule an appointment, you can keep trying different zip codes until an office has an appointment, book it even if its months out or a location you are not willing to go to, then you will receive an email with a link to change your appointment, keep checking everyday specially in the morning and around 5pm until something opens up at any of the offices. There is one in Reston, one in Alexandria and 3 in DC along with a bunch in Maryland. In my experience the ones in DC are least busy. Try all offices until you get lucky. I did this for both the times I went there and sometimes you can score an appointment the next day.

2- If you go to SAVE website you can check your cases using A number or other documents info, try them all cause depending on how DMV submitted it, it may not show with your A number although 99% of the time checking with A number and date of birth is good enough. Now if you keep checking and no new case with DMV comes up then you are correct and they never submitted anything with DHS and nothing will move forward for you, this happened to a friend of mine back in California with their DMV where the dumb agents told him they submitted to DHS only for him to find out months later that he needed to sign a disclosure at DMV authorizing DHS to release his immigration status to DMV, once he completed that disclosure with DMV things moved along. I didn't need to complete that disclosure with SSA but maybe DMVs do it differently, I recommend you go back to DMV and ask to speak to manager and bring up that disclosure thing, you can also contact your local state or Virginia assembly representative since you can't reach out to congress folks as Virginia DMV is not a federal agency. Don't wait too long for those fools if you think things are not moving along, they waste our time while getting paid by our taxes but you have options to keep pressing.

Hope this is helpful!
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Thanks, it is very helpful

i will start process for SSA the way you said, and see how lucky i get


For DMV, let me visit them tomorrow and ask again

I did try all other methods on SAVE and nothing pops up other than my A number which is from last year, so i am pretty sure nothing has moved from DMV side ....
 
Visited DMV today .... and they turned me away saying there is no they can help because it is pending USCIS review

Reached out to their customer service and they said it started this year only and USCIS has a long que for Real ID verifications , i told them my DL is expiring starting 1st week of august, if i knew it is taking that long, i would have applied 2 months in advance ... but they had no answer to that

The solution they gave me is to get driving privilege card , which require no verification from USCIS.... i need to provide them my EAD card and Tax return from last year

Frustrating !
 
Just checked SAVE

USCIS returned my case to DMV .... like in last few minutes

Apparently there is no status saying "pending " or " submitted" etc

It only updates when case is returned

I will wait for DMV email now
 
Congrats.

I think its possible the DMV never submitted a case and when they did it was verified instantly, that's why you never saw pending.

Pending is surely a status that me and others saw. But maybe they never ran you through Save to begin with at the time you applied for real id initially, could it be the agent saw you are not a citizen and decided to escalate to their back office right away without even attempting, possible!
 
patoot10 said:
Congrats.

I think its possible the DMV never submitted a case and when they did it was verified instantly, that's why you never saw pending.

Pending is surely a status that me and others saw. But maybe they never ran you through Save to begin with at the time you applied for real id initially, could it be the agent saw you are not a citizen and decided to escalate to their back office right away without even attempting, possible!
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Thats what i figured

Agent simply pushed me to main office in Richmond where it was just sitting and waiting for someone to work on it , upon me calling them triggered it and i got approved within seconds

I went to DMV this morning , they got me a temp license (standard practice till i get my actual license in mail within 7 days) .... valid through 2033 ...

8 years

The reason why i started this thread for people to know post asylum issues in government agencies where SAVE is used to verify them and others can share their experiences
 
I will start working on SSA part now .... i tried going online on my SSA account and tried to place order to replacement card

System says ... you are not a citizen .... please call office to book appointment
 
patoot10 said:
You don't need to be a citizen to start the process.

Here is url that will get you going


You will probably need an online account on SSA.gov which requires ID.me but give it a try
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Thanks ,

I already have my SSA online account since day 1, thats where it says you need to contact local office to book an appointment
 
Heads UP, Virginia DMV is taking 90 days now to verify submitted documents through USCIS
I had submitted my kids documents and they are still pending

If your DL or anything with DMV is going to expire, make sure you reach out to DMV 3 months before expiration and start process, otherwise you will end up losing validity
 
Heads up .... its been more than 90 days now ..... DMV finally gave up and said they got nothing .... this whole situation is 2nd time in last 15 years .... they made an internal escalation and asked me to wait and see
 
Abhatti said:
Heads up .... its been more than 90 days now ..... DMV finally gave up and said they got nothing .... this whole situation is 2nd time in last 15 years .... they made an internal escalation and asked me to wait and see
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It appears that USCIS is taking significantly longer to process applications these days. I submitted a typographical error for one of my pending applications in June and completely forgot about it. Today, I received an email informing me that they are unable to respond at this time. I’m not certain if this relates to your SAVE application, but I believe they are not responding promptly enough.
 

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Hellosfo said:
It appears that USCIS is taking significantly longer to process applications these days. I submitted a typographical error for one of my pending applications in June and completely forgot about it. Today, I received an email informing me that they are unable to respond at this time. I’m not certain if this relates to your SAVE application, but I believe they are not responding promptly enough.
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True ,

But in DMV Virginia's case, they haven't even submitted verification to SAVE system yet,

I keep checking it almost every day

When i contacted them on phone and brought this to their attention, they said SAVE is "one of many methods" they use to verify , I then told them about myself , that my verification was submitted to SAVE in 3 weeks and i got my verification with few seconds,

The rep said, (or may be she made up a story) that children's verification through USCIS has a different method, and for now she is putting escalations notes internally , its been another week now
 
Abhatti said:
True ,

But in DMV Virginia's case, they haven't even submitted verification to SAVE system yet,

I keep checking it almost every day

When i contacted them on phone and brought this to their attention, they said SAVE is "one of many methods" they use to verify , I then told them about myself , that my verification was submitted to SAVE in 3 weeks and i got my verification with few seconds,

The rep said, (or may be she made up a story) that children's verification through USCIS has a different method, and for now she is putting escalations notes internally , its been another week now
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Sounds like the real holdup is the DMV since they haven’t even sent the SAVE request. The explanation they gave you doesn’t seem very solid, but at least the escalation might push it forward. If nothing moves soon, it’s worth calling again and asking for a supervisor.
 
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