My mom filed for the petition of my eldest brother last september, but didn't get any reply or notice of action, so yesterday she decided to call the uscis. The woman that she spoke to said that they haven't gotten my brother's application yet, maybe because it's still piled up with the rest of the applications. When she learned that my eldest brother will age out on June 2008, she suggested to file I-824 instead of the I-130 filed earlier, since that application would be faster in terms of processing than the latter one.

So my question is, can we refile my brother's petition since they haven't gotten the first one yet? and will we encounter problems later on since we filled two applications? my mom's friend said something that the immigration would cancel the first application. i'm not really sure, so anyone can enlighten me about our case?

for expediting my brother's case who'll be aging out in a few months, aside from writing a letter attached to the application form informing them of my brother's aging out. do we need to send anything else?

Thank you!!

I-824 is for action on an APPROVED petition, you don't have an approved petition yet to file the I-824 on. Filing I-824 wont make things go any faster, once approved the I-130 gets sent on to NVC automatically. I-824 is used for K-3 cases where USCIS holds the approved I-130 and sends the approved I-129F, or it is used to get a replacement copy of a NOA2 letter.

You may want to read: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/men...0004718190aRCRD

There is a tremendous back-log at USCIS due to the rush to file before the fee-increase last July.

omg this is really confusing.. anyway.. thanks for the link