Case denied last year at consulate

[ScottThuy 140]

A friend of mine was denied CR1 at the HCMC consulate last year. He provided documents to the consulate addressing the denial, but they refused to reconsider. The issue is that the original case file cant be found at any agency (USCIS, NVC, HCMC) over 6 months later.

Can he file a new CR1 addressing the issue that prevented the previous filing? will NVC approve the CR1 petition with the original petition still floating around who knows where?

Anyone had this issue before? What can be done when the file goes MIA?

[ScottThuy 140]

nothin?

[Darnell 8,478]

Ya - he can file a new I-130, making reference to the prior I-130 in the form.

At some point, he'll also want to send off a letter to withdraw that original I-130 petition - suggest RIGHT AFTER receiving the NOA-1 on the new petition.

This has happened a few times, for Guanghzou-bound petitions/casefiles, and the 2nd I-130 petition was approved at USCIS much faster than the 1st one. I think is anomoly (faster processing), not something to rely on.

Edited May 4, 2010 by Darnell

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

Scott, I tried to research an answer to this when you first posted it, but I came up empty handed. I expect that there is some policy that a missing petition will be considered dead and buried after some specific amount of time, but I was unable to find any clear policy on this. Without any clearly written guidance, I suppose it's possible they could consider the case to be in limbo indefinitely, unless he could press them to make a final decision on it.

If it were me, I'd be rounding up the usual support from my representatives in the federal legislature, and try to pressure USCIS to make a final decision on the first petition. Without actually having the petition in hand, I would think the only decision they could make would be to nullify the petition, and solicit a new petition. Until a decision is made, they could theoretically hold up a second petition pending the outcome of the first petition.

[ScottThuy 140]

gotcha... I was thinking if he sent the second, then he has a 50/50chance they will accept andprocess it.. if they do then he may be in decent shape to get a second go at the consulate... I emphasized that he needed toaddress the cause for the initial denial. thoroughly