Case Approved but no card yet...traveling abroad

[Scandi 3,977]

They seem to have many different ways of saying that your card is in the works of being shipped out. In my case, the very first status was "card is being produced", a day or two later it changed to "case was approved" and yet a few days later it changed to "card was mailed to me". 

Maybe you just missed the first status about your card being produced, sometimes the status updates quickly right after each other within a minute even.

Edited February 1 by Scandi

[Thrillhouse 193]

22 hours ago, 854Turbo said:

Oh good, so we have very similar dates of approval - please keep me updated when (if) you get the Card was Produced status update. I'll do the same.

 

I got an update last night that the card had been mailed (dated Feb 1st even though it was still Jan 31st, but ... whatever). Haven't yet seen any update that it's with USPS or what the tracking number is, but it should happen soon. I expect it'll arrive early next week. EDIT: I can now see the tracking number in Informed Delivery!

 

3 hours ago, Strontium said:

Ours didn't update to "card mailed" until after 7 days this time around, unlike AOS which was very quick (1 day).  Someone said they have fewer people working at the card production facility, now.  Which would explain it taking longer.

 

Interesting. This go 'round for me also took longer than AOS did (8 days from "Approved" to "Mailed" vs 3 for AOS).

Edited February 1 by Thrillhouse

[OldUser 5,060]

17 minutes ago, Thrillhouse said:

 

I got an update last night that the card had been mailed (dated Feb 1st even though it was still Jan 31st, but ... whatever). Haven't yet seen any update that it's with USPS or what the tracking number is, but it should happen soon. I expect it'll arrive early next week. EDIT: I can now see the tracking number in Informed Delivery!

 

 Same happened to me. I could see tracking number in Informed Delivery before USCIS updated tracking on their website 😃

[JKLSemicolon 331]

I’m glad the card is arriving soon.

 

In case anyone reads this later on I wanted to share a somewhat similar experience of a green card arriving while the GC holder was out of the country:

 

After my wife entered for the first time with an endorsed CR-1 visa with an I-551 stamp good for a year, the physical card took 4 months to arrive and as a result came in the mail when she was out of the country. When she returned to the US, the airline rep was confused with the still-valid stamped visa and called the number for (I think) CBP where the person on the phone wanted to know why she didn’t have the GC that had been issued. Although it took some explaining, eventually everything was fine. She was told that the next time she traveled she needed to use the GC instead of the stamp. I don’t see why there actually would have been a problem traveling with the stamp again while it was still valid, but we didn’t need to find out.

 

Based on that one would imagine that the expired GC and a still-valid extension letter would work the same way even after a new GC is issued, although if using that to travel it wouldn’t hurt to budget some extra time for the check-in process at the airport.

Edited February 1 by JKLSemicolon

[854Turbo 20]

Card arrived yesterday in the mail. I was panicking for nothing. Thanks for all the replies!

[Viridian 10]

On 2/4/2024 at 9:12 PM, 854Turbo said:

Card arrived yesterday in the mail. I was panicking for nothing. Thanks for all the replies!

Glad this all worked out for you!! I’m in a similar situation right now but on a tighter turnaround - got my approval notice for i751 in the mail yesterday and have travel planned for February 16th, with Case Status still stuck on “Case Approved”. I already booked an appointment with USCIS for an ADIT stamp, but after reading this thread I’m wondering if that was necessary. 

[Viridian 10]

On 1/30/2024 at 4:24 PM, mindthegap said:

Yes, assuming your extension letter is still within its validity period, your extension letter in conjunction with your expired card will remain valid for travel purposes, if for some reason your new card has not arrived.

A stamp will also work just fine should you manage to navigate the muppetshow of actually getting an appointment. 

 

In the grand scheme of things it’s a nice non-problem to have really. Don't worry about it. 

For anyone else worried about this, I just want to confirm that the above advice is accurate. The 10-Year GC arrived the same day I landed in the UK, but I was able to reenter the US on Sunday without any problems using the expired conditional GC with extension letter.