Experience of Emergency Advance Parole in Chicago field office

[TotoroPenguin 0]

Background: Filed AOS for my dad in February 2017. We never thought of applying for advance parole (I-131) (my fault) because we didn't think my retired dad needs to travel. In August, we learned that my dad's brother had back pain in China. We didn't think it was serious. Then he was bed bound and then some relative forced him to check into a hospital late August and then all of a sudden hospital issued critical condition notice Sep 4. Turns out that he has tumors everywhere in his bone marrow and digestive system and he was sustained by IV and blood transfusion and his speech started to slur. My dad desperately wanted to see his brother before he dies. He was so worried that he could not sleep at night. He was ready to leave the country no matter what. To quote him: "my brother won't die a second time!" I scheduled infoPass at the Chicago field office on Sep 13 and was told that I had to file I-131 first. I immediately filed an expedited I-131, but every minute that passes risks my uncle passing away, so we decided to walk-in for emergency AP on Sep 21. We didn't have an appointment because we could not afford to wait for another two weeks (which is the earliest appointment date). By this time, I have got the receipt number (MSCXXXXXXX) for I-131 already.

 

First advice: do not do walk-in if you can. I naively thought if I show up at 7:30am right when they open I will get to talk to a person earlier. No. If you do not have an appointment, you get assigned a number that starts with G, rather than A, and you are supposed to wait until all the appointments finish that day, so my guess is  it will be after noon before we can see a person. So we sat there, feeling completely hopeless. After an hour, I started to sob in my chair. After another hour, I cautiously asked a guy at a window whether it makes sense for us to leave and come back a few hours later. He, a god-sent, paused for a second and said that he will see if he can deal with our case now. Luckily I have all documents ready (explained below), he took those in and listened to the situation and took the case to some supervisor. He also said there is no charge for it in our case. After a little more wait (5 minutes?) he came back and took my dad's picture and finger printing. After some more wait (10 minutes?), he told us to go to the second floor to wait for the document. We went up in a pretty empty space and waited for an hour and half and a lady came out and handed over the approval paper with my dad's picture on it. It is good for 45 days. Overall, everyone I met were very courteous, but there were still what felt like a million hoops you have to jump through. Luckily my husband took the day off to watch my two toddlers and I didn't have to teach that day. (I am a teacher)

 

Below is the documents you need when applying emergency advance parole, copied from a handout I got from the first infoPass appointment.

 

- Proof of filing initial I-131 at the service center by a printed receipt. 

- A completed and signed Form I-131, Application for Travel Document.

- The correct I-131 filing fee (Money order, cashier's check or personal check, no cash)

- Evidence to support the emergency request (e.g. medical document, death certificate)

- Two passport-style photos

- Copy of Passport, including biographical page and visa page

- Airline tickets or itinerary

 

Final advice: apply I-131 early (ideally with the AOS), you don't want to be in the situation that we were in. Good luck!

 

[Crazy Cat 41,979]

Great story.  Thanks for sharing.  I'm sure your experience will provide a great deal of help to others who might need emergency AP.....

Good Luck in the future.