Green card delivery data points

[Hornswoggled 17]

Just had a friend of my wife's over today. She's another K-1; she met my wife at ESL school. She had her rescheduled AOS interview around the 22nd of July, also at the Tampa FL USCIS office. (Interview was originally scheduled for a few days after the offices closed nationwide in March due to Covid-19.) She followed the case status online, and saw that she was approved after the interview. Things are going slower now, but green cards ARE still coming out (at this time) for AOS. While my wife got her card about 5 days after the interview in 2019, our friend's took about 20 days.

 

Interesting thing was that her husband got a tracking number last night for the incoming envelope containing the green card. It showed a Friday delivery date this week. While she was here today (Wednesday) around noon, she pulled up the USPS website to track the envelope, and was confused by the status. They called to me (in another room), I looked at it and it had today's date and her local post office showing up as last location. It said "Insufficient address; return to sender." I told her to get down to her Post Office (like NOW!), cause maybe they still have it! She did that; got to the counter clerk, explained the situation, and the initial reaction was to tell her to go online for (whatever.) She insisted they check and started asking for a supervisor, and then it started to ring some bells with the clerk. She told her to wait a moment, went in the back, and came out with the envelope a few minutes later. Clerk said it would have gone out the door and back to the sender at 3pm! All of this due to a missing apartment number! (Not sure if that was due to her submitted forms, or if USCIS (or it's green card contractor) missed it.

 

Friend is very lucky to have her green card in hand now, as she's departing on a trip back to Thailand starting this weekend. Although she already has a parole card, my understanding is that those become void once a green card is issued. At any rate, it's certainly preferable to have that green card in hand when leaving the country. It pays to track these when they're sent!