big_promise

Just to provide an update, we had the interview in Boston and my wife passed with flying colors. They were, however, unable to schedule her for a naturalization ceremony due to the address. The officer gave us a form confirming that she passed the interview and recommended that we schedule an InfoPass in our current state (MD) as soon as possible to confirm that our case has been properly transferred and get an estimate as to when they might be able to schedule a ceremony. 

As for the mystery of how we ended up being called back to Boston - my understanding of my wife's account of her conversation with the officer is that basically their system was showing us residing at both addresses simultaneously. Basically, they added the new address to our file per the online AR-11 but for whatever reason did not delete the old one. It sounds as though Boston noticed that our case was overdue last month since they had already cancelled an appointment in September and decided to call us in, not realizing the reason for the original cancellation.

As Maryland has a substantial backlog, it seems like it was actually a major blessing that it worked out as it did and at least gave us the opportunity to get the interview phase out of the way sooner rather than later. The officer was at first a little puzzled as to why we decided to travel rather than bringing the situation to our local office's attention, but she agreed that we would have likely ended up in a substantial queue if we requested a local appointment given a huge disparity in processing times at the moment.

We were online filers, and I have some suspicions that filing online may have played a role in what happened as there were no physical papers to transfer, allowing for Boston to think that the case was in Maryland and vice versa. It is interesting, though, that their system seems to allow for multiple addresses to be on file simultaneously... given the reported costs involved in digitizing the N-400 process, one would think that such bugs would have been fixed by now.

Well, it looks like this is the thread for me. My spouse had no choice but to move out of state and file AR-11 a few days after receiving an N-400 interview appointment in Boston in August. (We were truly in a tight spot with an expiring lease and a new job, so we couldn't find a way to legitimately extend our residency in MA up to the interview date.) CIS promptly cancelled after receiving our AR-11 and told us to wait for a new appointment letter that finally arrived today at our new address. We assumed that they were transferring the case to the state/district in which we now reside, but sure enough they're telling us now to go back to Boston for the interview. Since the new interview date is only a week later than when we would be able to get in for an InfoPass appointment and travel is cheap, we're thinking that we'll go ahead and show up in Boston and hope for the best. Yet, I'm still scratching my head as to why they would cancel the appointment two days after we told them that we moved, only to reschedule four months later at the exact same location...

Are people still getting notices on this?

I suspect my wife may have been affected - her "resident since" date was the date of her embassy interview rather than first entry - but the dates are only a few days apart and I can't understand for the life of me why replacing such an expensive document would really be warranted. We procrastinated on filing the N-400 and would have been eligible to file based on either date. We haven't been contacted yet about the recall, so hopefully they just let this one go...

My read of the System of Records Notice on Regulations.gov is that they are basically adding fields to the database that houses the "A-files" that are used to track lawful immigrants. I think there would have to be a Paperwork Reduction Act notice and appropriate comment period to amend the N-400 or any of the I-prefix forms to actually collect this data in writing. My best guess is that they are looking for a place in their systems to store and analyze data that State may be sucking up through the new DS-5535 "Supplemental Questionnaire for Visa Applicants" (Regulations.gov is still taking comments on that one through October 2nd, by the way) or information they informally pick up through interviews and/or background checks. But the System of Records Notice in and of itself does not signal that they will be collecting this data for everyone - rather, most applicants will probably have those fields left blank in their A-files unless and until DHS gets "forms clearance" to start collecting this metadata.

Such rarely-used fields exist in many federal data systems. For example, I noticed in the data dump CBP sent me when I FOIA'ed my own passport control records that TECS II appears to have fields for bank account and financial information. As a native born USC who would have to be extraordinarily renditioned (rendered?) before voluntarily divulging such information to CBP, those fields were of course blank.

To be clear, I absolutely think it's worthwhile for privacy advocates to use this opportunity to comment on this administration's push to expand the use of social media in security matters. But I didn't read the System of Records Notice in and of itself as requiring the provision of social media handles for all petitioners or beneficiaries, at least not in the short term. I could be wrong, but some of the headlines claiming that DHS will start collecting this information from all applicants starting October 18th strike me as misleading. I also understood the language about search results as being in reference to the government's prior inquiries into one's social media activities, not an attempt to acquire an actual list of queries one has made on, say, Google.

1 minute ago, Lemonslice said:

Ruling is a bit different in federal court here

http://www.wbur.org/news/2017/01/29/boston-ruling-trump-executive-order

 

 

I'm also trying to figure out what the Massachusetts ruling means. My read of it is that Iranian tourist, student, diversity and other visa holders should be able to board the Turkish or Emirates flights direct to Logan and be OK for the next seven days, but have no idea whether CBP or the airlines/contractors/IAP are adopting the same interpretation.

6 minutes ago, medicalguy said:

In other news, they just announced that Green Card holders will no longer be affected by this dumb @$$ policy going forward, but who knows if they change this again:

The administration announced that green card holders are eligible to request exemption from blanket inadmissibility on a case-by-case basis, not that they won't be affected. It sounds like they may still be subject to far more extreme vetting than they would have received a few days ago. Various tweets from the activist community indicate that hard secondary with bizarre sets of ideological questioning and electronic media searches may now be mandatory for blacklisted green card holders. (Actually, CNN is reporting that some in the administration may want those electronic media searches to extend far beyond the seven countries from the original VWP enhancements list...)

Thanks for the replies. I'm actually a little uncertain of the exact nature of the mix-up myself, as I'm only getting second-hand accounts of what was posted on a Farsi-language social media group. SusieQQQ and Jennifer are basically confirming what I had surmised - it sounds like nobody is aware of a specific precedent of DOS contradicting itself in this sort of situation. It thus looks like they are in a very unfortunate situation indeed. Ah, consular nonreviewability (*sigh*)...

They are pretty distraught at the moment and are asking for my help, but not being an immigration or consular professional myself I fear that I can't really do anything more than candidly advise them of the costs involved if they want to spend the rest of the DV cycle fighting this one to the bitter end.

Thankfully, this is not a situation that directly affects my family - rather it is a situation that was brought to my attention by a family member who participates in a social media community for Iranian DV2017 winners that I was asked to inquire about here. A poor applicant had an interview at Embassy Abu Dhabi that seemed to go well, though the conoff noted that one of his photos seemed to be mixed up - a situation that sounds extremely similar to another Abu Dhabi case discussed here earlier this year. He was sent away for what he was told would be routine administrative processing. A week later he received a form refusal letter offering "212(a)(5)(a): Disqualifying Diversity Visa Entry" as the only reason for the refusal. I understand that 212(a)(5)(a) seems to be a blanket category for reasons not otherwise spelled out in the INA, even though it specifically deals with labor certifications that should not be of concern in DV cases.

In the previous thread the VJ community was quite pessimistic about the chances of a reversal, seeing as protocol seemed to be on the conoff's side. However, it sure feels like an argument could be made that a switched photo was an immaterial omission that was probably not fraudulent in intent. Does anyone know of any similar cases that led to any sort of administrative review through State's advisory opinions process or supervisory review in the field? If so, what was the outcome?

We are planning to advise the refused applicant that a legal case would be an epic long-shot in this instance given consular nonreviewability, though it is possible that someone, somewhere in the bureaucracy might hear him plead his case if he is persistent enough.

Yes, it does appear that there has been a second draw per official DOS sources - found something about it on the Embassy Baghdad website this morning. Does anyone know if this is a normal practice for the DV program? I don't see how this can possibly be good news for high number selectees likely to face AP down the line... this whole program is so bizarre, but with the EB-5 and H1-B programs constantly hitting their caps it still feels like my family's only hope...

There's a lot of serious questions and frustration vented on this forum, so here's something funny to report (and a reminder to check the DS-260s of your foreign friends and family carefully, no matter how well they seem to speak English!).

My brother in law wrote that he is an officer in the Iranian army in the space about military service. I told him that I thought he was a contentious objector and he was like, "of course, I sat in an office during my service so I was an officer!" Turns out that he thought you could take any task or place in the English language, add -er to the end, and get the name of the relevant occupation. Glad I caught that one!

It got worse, though. He wrote "secret" in the occupation box for his wife. I was like, really, you're going to tell Embassy Ankara that her occupation is a secret? He explained that he thought "secretary" was too formal of a title. Wow. Moral of the story: always check your friends and family members' work on these forms!

Just my $0.02 on Phillamb's situation - Obviously we don't have the full record of what you said and wrote to them, but from this it looks like the congressional staffer and the CIS liaison didn't really get the point of the inquiry (or maybe the CIS liaison understood but pretended to be aloof on the topic to avoid admitting that the whole auto-expedite phenomena as it occurs now is embarrassingly inconsistent). You are completely within your the right to fight for the auto-expedite that I and hundreds of others on this thread alone have received. We don't have control over where our cases get processed, so "Nebraska isn't doing it" isn't an acceptable excuse. I had only established residency in Turkey a couple of months before I received mine when the Syria crisis was already well underway, so telling you that you need a high risk pregnancy or to report to your nearest recruiting station to be considered is pure BS.

What we really need is a consistent written policy on the criteria for auto-expedite. Until that comes along, I'd feel free to shove the evidence that this is happening (this thread is a great place to start) in their faces and ask them hard questions about why some citizens abroad are getting preferential treatment.

I wouldn't worry about matching up with o*net for this question. That matters if you are specifically trying to qualify through work experience and requires other evidence at interview. For the DS260: If the job requires a bachelors, then yes is the correct answer as it requires more than 2 years of training.

I'm advising a family member in a self-employment situation of basically the same thing: technically (and surprising to me, as someone who works with O*Net on a regular basis in my day job) being a fashion designer is job zone 3, despite the fact that some fashion designers are deemed by CIS to be so highly skilled that they manage to snag EB-1 visas. We are going to check the box and explain that it takes more than two years to build a brand and learn the advanced techniques she uses to design high quality products. Answering "no" in her case would be a bit of an insult to her business and profession and not convey the general impression of someone who is well prepared to integrate into the US labor market, though we are quite certain that it will be a moot point as she definitely qualifies for the DV on the basis of her educational background.

The only problem we had was with the airline staff in our home country while we were checking in. At first, they didn't understand that the immigrant visa was now a temporary green card but they eventually let us go.

That was basically our experience. We were the last to board despite being elites on an Air Canada puddle hopper out of LGA because the agent was reluctant to take our I-130 sticker as a green card for the purposes of transiting Canada, despite having spent over half an hour sorting it out with a supervisor at check in (and *really* pissing off everyone behind us in the priority lane!). Our CBSA officer at Toronto Pearson also seemed unfamiliar with the fact that the sticker can be used for travel, but was very reasonable when we pointed to the language on the sticker about it serving as a I-130. One warning to the OP if returning via Ataturk with or without the sticker: Turkish Ground Services is particularly awful at US visa-checking, and Gozen is not much better. We literally got into an argument with Turkish Ground over whether LHR is in the Schengen zone and whether green card holders can transit Canada, which seem like things that you really need to know if you're going to work in a role like that. Having Timatic Web printouts ready helps a little in those situations, but we still had our green card FedEx'ed straight to Istanbul as soon as it arrived at my parents' house because we decided that it would be worth $80 to save ourselves from another argument with the gate dragons...

I did add the phone number for the CBP Regional Carrier Liaison Group to my phone contacts just in case we ever got to that point, but so far haven't had to use it - not that I'd expect them to be all that responsive to the pleas of an "ordinary" traveler...

Whether or not the form gives you the impression you can choose, you don't. USCIS automatically assigns you to the closest consulate to the current address on the form. We've seen a number of people caught out by this in the past.

OK, so in your experience they just throw away your response to that item? Wonder why they even put it on the form then. (Not that all of the items on the DS-260 really make sense...) Embassy Ankara was indicated on our letter, but we would strongly prefer any of the other posts that specialize in handling Iranian applicants (particularly Yerevan), and thus got excited when we saw the drop down list of available posts. I would say that my treatment by Ankara as a USC petitioner, from extremely simple emails to the Diplomatic Security contractor at the door, ranged between patronizing and downright hostile - definitely want my family to avoid that place if at all possible!

Congrats to M88, Lcgracia, and everyone else! Just learned today that my brother in law's wife won the 2017 lottery. The fact that we didn't even bother to check until today gives one some idea how much of a long shot we assumed this one would be! She's Iranian, lottery number is mid-5000's (in the Asia queue). Trying to be realistic about the fact that not everyone gets a green card in the end just to keep any hearts from from getting broken. My brother in law seems like he may be a candidate for AP solely on demographic grounds, but hopeful that with that number they'll still be able to slide in before the cap is hit next spring...

Now I guess it's time to get to work on their DS-260's. At first glance this one looks like a piece of cake compared to the CR-1 petition. Would be incredibly awesome if we could do this instead of pursuing one of the less desirable options that we had on the table before today, such as moving to Canada, waiting 12+ years on family reunification, pouring 500k into an EB-5 project, or taking a shot at tiptoeing around OFAC to get them in on an E-2...

1. Country USC resides in: Turkey
2. Is there a USCIS field office in this country / Is DCF still possible? No
3. When did you file the I-130: Express mail while in the US for a conference on August 9th
4. How long had you been living abroad: 2 months, though noted several prior long tourist visits
5. Do you reside in the country legally? Sort of... been abusing Turkey's generous tourist visa policies until now, but submitted evidence of an appointment with the police to adjust status to an extended tourist visa with my I-130.
6. What is the reason for your residence: Live with my wife while telecommuting to my job in the US (academic research, not related to Turkey in any way!)
7. Did you list your foreign address on all forms in I-130 package? Yes
8. Did you send I-130 package from abroad? No
9. Did you include evidence of your residence abroad in the I-130 package? Presented evidence I'm in the process of adjusting my Turkish immigration status (no certified translations though!) and had my parents mention it in their affidavits.
10. Did you mention the fact you reside abroad in the cover letter or write a letter describing your current situation and the evolution of your relationship with your spouse (mentioning your residence abroad)? No, but encouraged my parents to mention it in their sworn affidavits
11. Has your case been "auto-expedited"? How long between NOA1 and NOA2? Apparently so! NOA1 August 13th, NOA2 August 27th - 14 days, learned of it via mail sent from CSC August 28th and arrived in Istanbul today. Completely unexpected as I had planned to avoid checking my status (and far less this website) for at least 3 months to preserve sanity