Sharing AOS interview rescheduling experience - Santa Ana office

[thoko 6]

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to share my AOS interview rescheduling experience for anyone out there that may benefit from it.

My wife (who came in on a K1 and was on advanced parole) were one month out from leaving for our honeymoon when we got the our first interview notice. When we opened it up, the date was dead in the middle for when we were going to be out of the country. After spending hours and days reading through people's experiences, we decided to file for postponement. While the USCIS website provided no clear guidelines at all for this procedure, the recommendation I received from the help line was to write a letter to our local field office explaining the situation. Following their advice and based on what I read online, I wrote a simple letter to the field office explaining our situation along with supporting documents (booked flight itineraries with dates clearly highlighted and a copy of the interview notice. i kept the original interview notice). I made copies of everything and then mailed it priority with tracking and a successful delivery return receipt. The next step I took was to wake up around 6AM everyday and keep checking the infoPass website for openings. We managed to snag an appointment one week before our departure. I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend this step and you will see why below. Most of the experiences I read online said not to worry about it but with DHS getting so much leeway on how they enforce rules and officers having more discretion on rejecting cases, we took all precautions possible.

 

At that point we just waited. When we didn't hear anything back for 3 weeks, I started to panic. Luckily, we had our appointment already scheduled the for the next week.

We showed up at our appointment time and waited half an hour past before we got called in. Now remember, since this case involves a K1, your spouse MUST be present when any details about your case are discussed.

We explained out situation to the officer who looked up our case on his system and said that he has no record of the field office receiving our letter. He then asked us if we had copies of anything we had sent. Why yes i do!! I showed him all the copies of what I had sent in along with the USPS delivery receipt. He then informed us that since our case file had not arrived from the service center, that is probably why our letter was languishing somewhere in their delivery room. He said the case file typically doesn't arrive until a few days before. So I asked what can we do. He said he will file our postponement request right away in his system and then pass it on to the scheduling department. The best he could do was provide us with a notice that confirms we can in to request postponement along with a list of the documents we provided and the reason why. He then told us not to worry and that since we had come in confirmed our situation and provided all the documentation, that we will be okay. Very very rarely do they deny postponement in a K1-AOS case. If the couple claims they need more time to prepare, then that is the the only situation where they will deny it. We felt a little bit easier but obviously still anxious since we didn't have an approved postponement request. I basically felt like we gambled.... but hey..glorious honeymoon awaits!

 

Fast forward after our trip, we didn't have any issues coming back in to the country. We both followed up with the field office via another InfoPass appointment and they confirmed that our postponement request was received and approved. They asked us to wait for the next available date. Our original date was for mid-May. We received our next date for mid-August.

Given how stressful the whole experience had been, we showed up at the interview to realize only 10 mins before that we had forgot to pack our medical packet. Anyway, we went in, and before we got started, informed the officer that we forgot to bring it in. She laughed and said no big deal. She will give us 2 options; either mail it in, or go home and drop it off today. I chose the latter. Interview went well with all the standard questions. She said she obviously cannot approve today because of the medical, but if we drop it off today that she will approve by the end of the week. After we got done, we raced home and returned with the medical document and dropped it off at the interview room. I politely requested that they please inform the officer that we had dropped it off. They said they will do so since she was busy with someone else at the moment.

We went on our way being twice as anxious as before the interview. an hour later, I received a text message update regarding an update on our case. When I checked the status online, it said a card production was ordered. Not believing it i called the helpline to confirm but they they claimed they don't see any update on their end. Frustrated to no end my wife and I decided to just let it go for the weekend. By Monday I was more anxious than her. However , we got a nice little surprise in the mail by Monday next week :)

 

Writing therapy done!

Hope this helps anyone out there who might be looking to postpone their interview for valid reasons!

 

 

[JoJoJoJo 170]

5 hours ago, thoko said:

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to share my AOS interview rescheduling experience for anyone out there that may benefit from it.

My wife (who came in on a K1 and was on advanced parole) were one month out from leaving for our honeymoon when we got the our first interview notice. When we opened it up, the date was dead in the middle for when we were going to be out of the country. After spending hours and days reading through people's experiences, we decided to file for postponement. While the USCIS website provided no clear guidelines at all for this procedure, the recommendation I received from the help line was to write a letter to our local field office explaining the situation. Following their advice and based on what I read online, I wrote a simple letter to the field office explaining our situation along with supporting documents (booked flight itineraries with dates clearly highlighted and a copy of the interview notice. i kept the original interview notice). I made copies of everything and then mailed it priority with tracking and a successful delivery return receipt. The next step I took was to wake up around 6AM everyday and keep checking the infoPass website for openings. We managed to snag an appointment one week before our departure. I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend this step and you will see why below. Most of the experiences I read online said not to worry about it but with DHS getting so much leeway on how they enforce rules and officers having more discretion on rejecting cases, we took all precautions possible.

 

At that point we just waited. When we didn't hear anything back for 3 weeks, I started to panic. Luckily, we had our appointment already scheduled the for the next week.

We showed up at our appointment time and waited half an hour past before we got called in. Now remember, since this case involves a K1, your spouse MUST be present when any details about your case are discussed.

We explained out situation to the officer who looked up our case on his system and said that he has no record of the field office receiving our letter. He then asked us if we had copies of anything we had sent. Why yes i do!! I showed him all the copies of what I had sent in along with the USPS delivery receipt. He then informed us that since our case file had not arrived from the service center, that is probably why our letter was languishing somewhere in their delivery room. He said the case file typically doesn't arrive until a few days before. So I asked what can we do. He said he will file our postponement request right away in his system and then pass it on to the scheduling department. The best he could do was provide us with a notice that confirms we can in to request postponement along with a list of the documents we provided and the reason why. He then told us not to worry and that since we had come in confirmed our situation and provided all the documentation, that we will be okay. Very very rarely do they deny postponement in a K1-AOS case. If the couple claims they need more time to prepare, then that is the the only situation where they will deny it. We felt a little bit easier but obviously still anxious since we didn't have an approved postponement request. I basically felt like we gambled.... but hey..glorious honeymoon awaits!

 

Fast forward after our trip, we didn't have any issues coming back in to the country. We both followed up with the field office via another InfoPass appointment and they confirmed that our postponement request was received and approved. They asked us to wait for the next available date. Our original date was for mid-May. We received our next date for mid-August.

Given how stressful the whole experience had been, we showed up at the interview to realize only 10 mins before that we had forgot to pack our medical packet. Anyway, we went in, and before we got started, informed the officer that we forgot to bring it in. She laughed and said no big deal. She will give us 2 options; either mail it in, or go home and drop it off today. I chose the latter. Interview went well with all the standard questions. She said she obviously cannot approve today because of the medical, but if we drop it off today that she will approve by the end of the week. After we got done, we raced home and returned with the medical document and dropped it off at the interview room. I politely requested that they please inform the officer that we had dropped it off. They said they will do so since she was busy with someone else at the moment.

We went on our way being twice as anxious as before the interview. an hour later, I received a text message update regarding an update on our case. When I checked the status online, it said a card production was ordered. Not believing it i called the helpline to confirm but they they claimed they don't see any update on their end. Frustrated to no end my wife and I decided to just let it go for the weekend. By Monday I was more anxious than her. However , we got a nice little surprise in the mail by Monday next week

 

Writing therapy done!

Hope this helps anyone out there who might be looking to postpone their interview for valid reasons!

 

 

Thank you for sharing your experience.

 

I was just wondering why you needed medical if your spouse came with K-1 (did you not file AOS within one year of getting married or did I miss something?).

 

While reading your story, I felt really nervous for you. Congratulations!!!

 

[thoko 6]

On 10/29/2018 at 6:02 PM, JoJoJoJo said:

Thank you for sharing your experience.

 

I was just wondering why you needed medical if your spouse came with K-1 (did you not file AOS within one year of getting married or did I miss something?).

 

While reading your story, I felt really nervous for you. Congratulations!!!

 

Thank you!! We were told by our lawyer to redo the medical because  the new interview date fell past one year after her initial K1 medical was done. Even though we did file the AOS a month after she got her K1, the lawyer was of the opinion that it is the time of the medical test that counts regardless of when the AOS was filed. I can't say who is right. We did it anyway because it wasn't costly and we wanted to be on the safe side just in case.

[ineedadisplayname 442]

On 11/1/2018 at 4:34 PM, thoko said:

We did it anyway because it wasn't costly

Not sure where do you live, but here a full AOS medical is around $500--$600 which I would say it's not a small amount....

 

On 10/29/2018 at 2:10 PM, thoko said:

Now remember, since this case involves a K1, your spouse MUST be present when any details about your case are discussed.

I am not sure if that's necessarily accurate. I went alone to the info pass (the applicant/immigrant/whatever) to find out about my RFE and they provided all the info I needed.... The AOS interview itself it is a different story, there both the applicant and his/her spouse (US citizen) must show up....

 

[thoko 6]

On 11/3/2018 at 12:08 PM, ineedadisplayname said:

I am not sure if that's necessarily accurate. I went alone to the info pass (the applicant/immigrant/whatever) to find out about my RFE and they provided all the info I needed.... The AOS interview itself it is a different story, there both the applicant and his/her spouse (US citizen) must show up....

I can tell you that when i presented the documents at the counter, they specifically pointed out that my spouse needs to be present with me. They asked if she was there with me. That's when I pointed to my spouse and they then proceeded forward. The same thing happened as well at the counter where the IO sat. So, what is or is not accurate on what is required is besides the point. Not much you can do other than argue when asked at USCIS> Even then, for something like this, if the person at the counter is stubborn what options DO you have left at that time?