What to do when: Notice Was Returned To USCIS Because The Post Office Could Not Deliver It

[Michaela K. 93]

Hi guys, I thought I'd share my experience about USPS not delivering my green card interview notice and sending it back to USCIS for an unknown reason. I saw a few other people posting about the same issue in the past but I didn't see any update about them solving it in the end. Hope this will help to anyone who has the same issue in the future and makes it less stressful.

 

May 15: My case status changed to interview scheduled

May 21: I got an email notification from "USPS Informed delivery" with a scanned front of the envelope from USCIS saying it's coming that day

May 27: Till that date the notice didn't appear in our mailbox. I called both USPS and USCIS. 

- USPS said they don't see a reason why it wasn't delivered, especially when my husband's last name name (matching my last name) is on the mailbox. Just to be sure for the future, afterwards I registered with USPS as a new resident and also taped both of our names on the mailbox.

- USCIS tier 1 officer had no clue what to do. He couldn't even see that the interview was scheduled. All he saw was that they requested my local field office to schedule it and was kind of clueless about what I should do. Thanks to VJ I knew I should ask to speak to the tier 2 officer who can see more information in their system. They put me on "call back". They called me after 5 hours of me being incredibly stressed about this as no one was able to help by that point.

Basically they told me that if I didn't receive the notice by June 18th, then I should call them with a fax number and they would fax the notice to me. They told me the interview was June 24th. 

 

Here it got stressful again.

 

June 10: My case status changed to: "Notice Was Returned To USCIS Because The Post Office Could Not Deliver It".

June 11: I decided not to wait until June 18 since now I knew the interview notice wouldn't be delivered for sure by then and I called them to fax it to me as I was told to. I spoke to tier 2 officer and he said he will NOT fax it and that I should do an e-request as my case status says. He said that he doesn't even see that the interview was scheduled in the system. I was panicking at that moment. I thought I had this safety net of them being able to fax it and now the guy was saying he could not do that.

So I went and quickly did the e-request but it said to expect a reply by July 3rd (more than a week past our interview date). It meant we could potentially miss the interview (you can't go there without the notice) and get denied because of this or at least get our case delayed.

 

My husband frustrated just as much as me said we would just call them every day until we got on the phone with a person willing to fax it to us. He didn't want to risk it not being sent soon enough or not delivered again by USPS for some reason. We needed to receive it in 10 days at this point including a weekend.

 

June 12: I called USCIS again and spoke to a tier 2 again. I'm shocked how the answers differ also for the tier 2 officers! I had such a different experience! Before me even saying anything about why I was calling the guy summarized that I was scheduled an interview and for when and that he could see the notice was returned to them. And I was like yes, I called 2 weeks ago and was told to call back in couple weeks if I don't receive the notice so you could fax it to me. And he is like we usually fax it if it is 5 days before the interview, for you it's 12 days now but I'll put in the request and you should hopefully have it faxed today. He wished me good luck at the interview too. Such a nice guy! 

 

We got the notice faxed within 30 minutes! I felt so incredibly relieved!

 

To sum up, my advice is:

1) GET INFORMED DELIVERY: If you don't have informed delivery set up yet, I encourage you to do it. It will help you to identify the issue early on. If I didn't have it, I'd just call on June 10 when my status changed to the notice being returned to USCIS. I'd call and get on the phone with the guy who told me to do e-request. I wouldn't know anything about the option to fax it. 

2) KEEP CALLING UNTIL YOU TALK TO A PERSON WILLING TO HELP YOU: I was truly shocked how different experience I had with two different tier 2 officers. One just told me what my case status said, while the other one was willing to help and fax the notice to me that day

 

 

[Moon&Stars 172]

Thank you for sharing! I never saw a point for informed delivery, but this makes a good case for it.

 

What website were you checking to see your status with USCIS? I hope your interview goes well!

[Pitaya 2,576]

You are so correct.  People have to get involved and engage USCIS, nothing is going to be handed to anyone on a  silver platter. Be proactive.

 

YMMV

Good luck on your immigration journey.

[Michaela K. 93]

55 minutes ago, Moon&Stars said:

Thank you for sharing! I never saw a point for informed delivery, but this makes a good case for it.

 

What website were you checking to see your status with USCIS? I hope your interview goes well!

Thank you! I created an account and opted in for email notifications on: 

1) https://egov.uscis.gov/casestatus/landing.do

2) https://my.uscis.gov - this one never got updated for me though and still is on "your case was received" till this day