AoS I-485 I-130 I-765 I-131 Package Denied and Returned 3 Times So Far... Are We the Only Ones? Congresswoman has been contacted

[vespa12 9]

A little background for no reason. My husband came to the US at the end of November of 2020 on the VWP from Australia and by Christmas... found out I was pregnant. So we decided to get married and he adjust status after consulting multiple attorneys for advice. This was the first time we had met in person after two years of an online relationship and naturally we are worried about how our case will be received because of how little evidence we have of a "true" relationship together.

 

We had to get an attorney on short notice and just went with the first one to take our case that would do it the fastest and by fastest that still meant a super long wait. He was supposed to leave February 18th 2021. We were married February 9th 2021 and we were notified by the attorney that they filed the first package while I was at the hospital having just given birth on August 19th 2021. I don't hear from the attorney again until the day before I receive a rejection notice in the mail for the "address field was not completed" and the entire package that was filed is being returned and had to be refiled. Well my attorney says to me that they have proof that they had three people go over the papers before sending it and everything was correct. So they send it again. I don't hear from her again and then the September 17th I receive another rejection notice for "Address field"  again. But my attorney states that they were sent back the package with it saying a page was missing but it was actually out of order so they were going to resubmit it with a letter to the IO AND a flash drive with a copy of the paperwork on it and the paper package. Then I get another call the other day from my attorney saying that the package was returned again. Because a page was missing again but when it was sent back it was sent back out of order? I have yet to receive the rejection notice in the mail yet so I don't know if it says "Address Field" again but my attorney says that she is going to file online and by mail but online is bad because it "doesn't tell the full story"? and that she called and waited hours to talk to USCIS and see what was going on because she is frustrated and she has heard from other attorney friends that this is happening to their clients as well. Is this happening to anyone else or is this just me and my attorney is making mistakes? My husband is overstaying WAYYYY past and he needs this submitted now. I contacted our local Congresswoman and she is submitting an inquiry on my behalf so we will see what she gets back from the Chicago lockbox on why they keep being returned I guess. Sorry for the long post.

Edited October 13, 2021 by vespa12

[Allaboutwaiting 2,503]

First of all, you didn't need an attorney. Second, that attorney you got is BAD. Any decent immigration attorney would know that USCIS would never accept a flash drive. Having your package rejected 3 times is unacceptable. 

 

So, fire her and do it yourself following the guides in the forum and the instructions for the forms you're filing. 

 

Your husband will have no issue as soon as those forms are accepted.

 

P.S.: Demand a refund of whatever fee you already paid. 

Edited October 13, 2021 by Allaboutwaiting

[vespa12 9]

3 minutes ago, Allaboutwaiting said:

First of all, you didn't need an attorney. Second, that attorney you got is BAD. Any decent immigration attorney would know that USCIS would never accept a flash drive. Having your package rejected 3 times is unacceptable. 

 

So, fire her and do it yourself following the guides in the forum and the instructions for the forms you're filing. 

 

Your husband will have no issue as soon as those forms are accepted.

If I fire her can I get my fees I paid her back 😅 and will she give me the money for the forms I need to file back? That was so much money and I can’t afford to just throw it away.
I’ve had such sketchy feelings about her since the beginning and especially since it took so long to get the package together and sent and it was returned but I kept thinking we needed an attorney since we had such little evidence of our relationship. 

[Allaboutwaiting 2,503]

1 minute ago, vespa12 said:

If I fire her can I get my fees I paid her back 😅 and will she give me the money for the forms I need to file back? That was so much money and I can’t afford to just throw it away.
I’ve had such sketchy feelings about her since the beginning and especially since it took so long to get the package together and sent and it was returned but I kept thinking we needed an attorney since we had such little evidence of our relationship. 

She totally must give you what you paid her plus the money for the forms! It is clear she's not just incompetent but clueless. 

The checks are not cashed if the forms are rejected; hope you're not paying every time she's tried to refile.

[SalishSea 17,928]

10 minutes ago, vespa12 said:

If I fire her can I get my fees I paid her back 😅 and will she give me the money for the forms I need to file back? That was so much money and I can’t afford to just throw it away.
I’ve had such sketchy feelings about her since the beginning and especially since it took so long to get the package together and sent and it was returned but I kept thinking we needed an attorney since we had such little evidence of our relationship. 

You need to thoroughly research and read the guides here on VJ.  That is unbelievable.

 

Even if you had a good attorney, they cannot do anything about "little evidence" of a relationship.  They basically assemble and send packets.  The rest is always up to the petitioner/applicant.

 

And what do you hope the congress person can do for you?  They can help by making an inquiry to a federal agency when a process is taking beyond stated processing times.  That's it.  They can't help with your choice of lawyer or that person's mistakes.

Edited October 13, 2021 by Jorgedig

[vespa12 9]

7 minutes ago, Allaboutwaiting said:

She totally must give you what you paid her plus the money for the forms! It is clear she's not just incompetent but clueless. 

The checks are not cashed if the forms are rejected; hope you're not paying every time she's tried to refile.

I just read over the agreement I signed at the beginning of our services with her and apparently my flat fee with her $2500 is nonrefundable. And there may be accrued interest for time spent that I’m not aware of for resending the packages and FedExing them again and again and having their paralegal and assistants go over the packages if I’m reading the agreement correctly. So it’s seeming kind of scammy like they’re messing up on purpose so they can accrue time spent money or something. Idk. Maybe im reading into it but it seems like I’m going to be spending more money than I originally thought. 
i also thought it was weird when she said file online and through mail? I thought maybe I heard her wrong because I don’t know why you would file twice. Especially because she seemed against filing online because “it loses the full picture of your story”

[vespa12 9]

9 minutes ago, Jorgedig said:

You need to thoroughly research and read the guides here on VJ.  That is unbelievable.

 

Even if you had a good attorney, they cannot do anything about "little evidence" of a relationship.  They basically assemble and send packets.  The rest is always up to the petitioner/applicant.

 

And what do you hope the congress person can do for you?  They can help by making an inquiry to a federal agency when a process is taking beyond stated processing times.  That's it.  They can't help with your choice of lawyer or that person's mistakes.

I truly don’t know. I just reached out. Someone at her office that handles immigration matters said he was going to inquire about what was going on to have them denied so many times and find a receipt number for my most recent filing because my attorney never shares them with me.

[Allaboutwaiting 2,503]

8 minutes ago, vespa12 said:

I just read over the agreement I signed at the beginning of our services with her and apparently my flat fee with her $2500 is nonrefundable. And there may be accrued interest for time spent that I’m not aware of for resending the packages and FedExing them again and again and having their paralegal and assistants go over the packages if I’m reading the agreement correctly. So it’s seeming kind of scammy like they’re messing up on purpose so they can accrue time spent money or something. Idk. Maybe im reading into it but it seems like I’m going to be spending more money than I originally thought. 
i also thought it was weird when she said file online and through mail? I thought maybe I heard her wrong because I don’t know why you would file twice. Especially because she seemed against filing online because “it loses the full picture of your story”

I-130 can be filed online, I-485 must be paper based. So at least she got that right. 

The rest sounds like a plan to rip you off indeed. 

Not sure what you can do against her if you actually signed a contract accepting all those conditions.

 

So again, fire her not before making clear how useless she is. And start filling up those forms to send them yourself. 

[SalishSea 17,928]

12 minutes ago, vespa12 said:

I truly don’t know. I just reached out. Someone at her office that handles immigration matters said he was going to inquire about what was going on to have them denied so many times and find a receipt number for my most recent filing because my attorney never shares them with me.

I have never heard of the lockbox/USCIS rejecting forms that are correctly filed.  If they were correctly filed and rejected, I guess the congress person can help.

 

If they were incorrectly filed and correctly rejected, they cannot help with that and it is honestly just wasting their time.

[Allaboutwaiting 2,503]

19 minutes ago, vespa12 said:

I truly don’t know. I just reached out. Someone at her office that handles immigration matters said he was going to inquire about what was going on to have them denied so many times and find a receipt number for my most recent filing because my attorney never shares them with me.

If the forms were returned, there's no receipt/case number. 

[vespa12 9]

5 minutes ago, Jorgedig said:

I have never heard of the lockbox/USCIS rejecting forms that are correctly filed.  If they were correctly filed and rejected, I guess the congress person can help.

 

If they were incorrectly filed and correctly rejected, they cannot help with that and it is honestly just wasting their time.

Well I guess if it’s wasting their time then he would’ve let me know instead of bothering to follow through with it after talking with me and knowing all of the details.

5 minutes ago, Allaboutwaiting said:

If the forms were returned, there's no receipt/case number. 

Do you know of a form I-944?

[Allaboutwaiting 2,503]

7 minutes ago, vespa12 said:

Do you know of a form I-944?

That form is discontinued. 

[aaron2020 11,651]

Completely incompetent.  There is NO WAY that the US Government would accept a flash drive that may contain a malicious virus.  It's online submission of the I-130 on their platform and paper submissions ONLY.  

Cut your losses and move on.  Report the attorney to the local land state lawyers association. 

You can either take the time to learn the process and file on your own or find a quality competent attorney.  First one available is not the best choice.  

Good luck with everything.  

[Ayrton 965]

6 hours ago, Allaboutwaiting said:

If the forms were returned, there's no receipt/case number. 

That's not always the case. I've seen a few cases here of people that got assigned a case number for a rejected application. They inquired through Emma, she gave them a case number, and when they checked it said the package was rejected.

[Ayrton 965]

7 hours ago, vespa12 said:

A little background for no reason. My husband came to the US at the end of November of 2020 on the VWP from Australia and by Christmas... found out I was pregnant. So we decided to get married and he adjust status after consulting multiple attorneys for advice. This was the first time we had met in person after two years of an online relationship and naturally we are worried about how our case will be received because of how little evidence we have of a "true" relationship together.

 

We had to get an attorney on short notice and just went with the first one to take our case that would do it the fastest and by fastest that still meant a super long wait. He was supposed to leave February 18th 2021. We were married February 9th 2021 and we were notified by the attorney that they filed the first package while I was at the hospital having just given birth on August 19th 2021. I don't hear from the attorney again until the day before I receive a rejection notice in the mail for the "address field was not completed" and the entire package that was filed is being returned and had to be refiled. Well my attorney says to me that they have proof that they had three people go over the papers before sending it and everything was correct. So they send it again. I don't hear from her again and then the September 17th I receive another rejection notice for "Address field"  again. But my attorney states that they were sent back the package with it saying a page was missing but it was actually out of order so they were going to resubmit it with a letter to the IO AND a flash drive with a copy of the paperwork on it and the paper package. Then I get another call the other day from my attorney saying that the package was returned again. Because a page was missing again but when it was sent back it was sent back out of order? I have yet to receive the rejection notice in the mail yet so I don't know if it says "Address Field" again but my attorney says that she is going to file online and by mail but online is bad because it "doesn't tell the full story"? and that she called and waited hours to talk to USCIS and see what was going on because she is frustrated and she has heard from other attorney friends that this is happening to their clients as well. Is this happening to anyone else or is this just me and my attorney is making mistakes? My husband is overstaying WAYYYY past and he needs this submitted now. I contacted our local Congresswoman and she is submitting an inquiry on my behalf so we will see what she gets back from the Chicago lockbox on why they keep being returned I guess. Sorry for the long post.

What bothered me the most is that the attorney keeps refiling the same forms that have been rejected several times. If it was rejected for any reason besides payment method, it means that there's something wrong with the package and you and the attorney should go over the forms. Has your husband even signed the forms? Have you even signed the 864? Did you check everything on the forms before they submitted them?  A lawyer will only put on the forms what you tell them to put on there. They are not the ones going through the process, so they don't know specific details of the application unless you both tell them and make sure it was added to the applications.

 

The good thing about this is that rejected forms are not charged by USCIS. They return the payment method, so you didn't actually pay for 3 AOS application. Go meet the attorney, go through every single question of the form and I'm sure you will find where the mistake was.

Edited October 13, 2021 by Ayrton