Consolidating Multiple Case Numbers

[ErinM 0]

My Husband and I had our Green Card/ AOS interview on April 24, and were expecting to hear back soon about our Green Card because the interviewer told us she would recommend us for approval. When we didn't hear anything for 3 or 4 weeks I made an Infopass appointment. Our case status online didn't even show that it had been touched since before our interview, and we were getting worried it got "lost" or there was another problem.

When we went to our infopass appointment 5 or 6 weeks past our interview date, we found out that they had sent our case out to be consolidated with another file, as we had "multiple case files" or something like that. We did apply for a I-129F back when we lived in Greece, but then moved to the US and got married and went the AOS I-485 / I-130 joint application route. We were told by a lawyer not to cancel our other case (the fiance visa). Not sure if this is what they meant by consolidating them, but anyway, the clerk told us that it was just then being sent back to the Baltimore office, where it would be put on our immigration officer's desk again, and that commonly these files get put at the BOTTOM of the stack and aren't even looked at again for a few months... maybe two or so.

We were so frustrated because we've been hoping to get the green card (we didn't apply for a advanced parole / travel documents) soon so we can book a honeymoon! We are having our "public" wedding on September 1 and were planning on going maybe to Thailand for our honeymoon, but hadn't booked anything for fear the paperwork would not be completed now.

The clerk allowed us to write a personal hand-written note to attach to her note, which she would give to our officer, mentioning that we did come in to check our status and see how it was going, and that we were hoping to get it looked at sooner rather than later. In our note we kindly asked if she could please consider our case soon as we were planning a honeymoon out of the country.

I don't know if it helped, but just 15 days later, we got an update on CRIS that Card Production is ORDERED!!! YAY!!!

I cannot stress enough, this is the second time it's happened to us, that when things seem to be moving slowly (more than a month when it should only have been a few weeks), that it's worth your time to make an INFOPASS and go ask about the status!! In both cases I feel it's helped us tremendously, last time it saved us months of waiting (we never would have heard from them, we only waited 2 months but could have waited 3 or more before calling, as per their recommendation) and this time we were able to add a note that might have saved us 2 months of waiting!

Just wanted to give a heads up again.

Good luck everyone!

YAY GREEN CARD ON THE WAY!!! woooo Pop the champagne! or at least sparkling wine...

[DanielParul 50]

Congratulations and here's to a wonderful wedding and a honeymoon...