ashp

if so then yes

That's good news, I hope I'm right and it doesn't get rejected for lack of payment!

It's so frustrating waiting so long without hearing anything. Five months now since they adjusted the status, and I see people who filed long after me have had their interview and been adjusted.

I filed for my I-485 sometime back in August 2007, and the last status update was back in January. My EAD expires in November, and I figured that as it's about 120 days until then it's time to start the renewal process as I certainly don't expect to hear anything on my I-485 before then.

So my question is, do I have to pay the $340 fee when I file for a renewal? I was trying to make sense of the rules listed in the instructions, and in 7.A it takes about adjustment applicants whos status is pending. In the bit about renewal it says you don't have to pay a fee if:

5. ©(9) or ©(16) adjustment applicant who filed for adjustment under the fee structure implemented July 30, 2007.

I know I had to file under the new (higher) fees as I was upset about it at the time! Does this mean I get my renewals for free? Any help would be appreciated!

I'd just love to know who has 7-12 months of 'savings' to live off after paying all these fees on top. It's like they are trying to force us to leave the country. Very xenophobic to restrict everyone from working for months and months in an attempt to whittle down those of non-independent means.

Argh, I'm so frustrated right now. I just got an RFE for more documents from my joint sponsor, and they have started holding up EADs based on this RFE. There's a lawsuit being filed in Texas over this because it's unfair to hold up a totally seperate application over a RFE for something else, but this claims I won't get my EAD for 90 days post RFE receipt. Is this really the case or is this wording just covering their ###?

I hope this makes sense to you, I'm really upset about this because it's hard to go 7 months without working when I'm the primary breadwinner, how the hell do they expect people to survive? This whole system is so insane.

I got the same ####### letter yesterday, and I also have the same story, that my salary is something we're counting on getting.

I sent them all they are asking for now, when I mailed the application in September, but now ofcourse have to do it again. This at least postpones my case for 3 weeks, as it took their letter 1 week to get to me, it'll take my father in law at least a week - 10 days to send me this stuff again (he's a busy man) and then a few days for my mail to get to them.

I hope my employer will look the other way when my work stamp expires on Nov. 16th, but if not then I guess I'll be sitting at home for a few weeks, the worst is that I can not go shopping around for a more permanent workplace since I don't have the EAD, but only a stamp close to expiration.

I think I've seen that this 90 day ####### is not real, but it is a nuisance threat, and I could totally see USCIS sending these out to save their own asses, when they're running late in processing and feel that they need to get themselves additional time.

They are required to give out the EAD within 90 days, by law, but hey if they send out an RFE then they can get themselves 90 additional days for slacking! (Yippee)

Ofcourse it is a totally bogus way to do processing.

I don't even have a work stamp, I was told it wasn't worth applying for as I was applying for my EAD and that it would expire 90 days after my K-1 was granted (I arrived at the end of July, so it would be expired already). Luckily my father is supporting me while I'm here as he can afford to, but it still puts our entire married life on hold. they want me to provide all kinds of evidence of our relationship together but we can't afford to do more than hole up in the house and watch TV. So disappointing.

Argh, I'm so frustrated right now. I just got an RFE for more documents from my joint sponsor, and they have started holding up EADs based on this RFE. There's a lawsuit being filed in Texas over this because it's unfair to hold up a totally seperate application over a RFE for something else, but this claims I won't get my EAD for 90 days post RFE receipt. Is this really the case or is this wording just covering their ###?

I hope this makes sense to you, I'm really upset about this because it's hard to go 7 months without working when I'm the primary breadwinner, how the hell do they expect people to survive? This whole system is so insane.

I have a little worry about the need to re-do the sponsorship. My fiancee doesn't work, I'm the person coming from the UK to marry her. I've been putting money into our bank account there, about $1000 a month, stepping up to $2000 lately, to cover all our costs and regular household stuff while we've gone through this process.

My concern is that we're using a cosponsor as she doesn't make enough, and as she doesn't have an income we haven't filed a tax return for her. I don't fully understand the tax system (at all!) but my belief was that this is already taxed income I'm just moving to her account, so it's not really income as such and as such she doesn't have any income to file for.

On the form can I just put her income as 0, not add IRS transcripts and list that as the reason, and have the burden on the cosponsor? This is how we did things in the K-1 filing, but we didn't need tax returns, just bank statements.

Hi,

Not an expert on the affadivit of support, but I would think that it would be ok to put her income as 0, not add her IRS transcripts, indicating that she was not required to file tax return(s) for the past year(s).

Now, the question about the tax status of money you are putting in the account is indeed tax free for her. In the first paragraph, you say "our bank account there" and in the second you say "moving to her account." If you are putting money into her account that doesn't have your name, then it is considered a gift. If you were putting money into a joint account with both of your names, then its not considered a gift at all. You are just depositing into your bank account (which just happens to be a joint account).

A person receiving gifts in the US (even if it is large sums of cash) does not have to report and pay taxes on it. Makes sense if you think about it. Your fiancee got a gift, doesn't make sense to be taxed on it. A burden imposed as a result of your gift would diminish it. This, there is no gift tax or income tax on the gift to the recipient . The gift tax applies to the giver of the gift. But, since you were not a US person for tax purposes, you are not subject to the US gift tax. None of this applies now, as after you are married you may gift any amount to your spouse without needing to file a gift tax return or paying gift tax.

If you were interested in how the gift tax would work out, it would be something like this: If the giver of the gift gives gifts with a total value of more than the annual exclusion amount, which varies from year to year, but was $12,000 for 2006, they are required to report the total value of the gifts to the IRS by filing a gift tax return, IRS Form 709. The amount you gave over the $12,000 may be taxable to you. This only gets more complex. You are given a lifetime credit of $345,800 to apply to gift and estate taxes. So you would figure your tax on the amount over $12,000, then subtract that from 345,800 on your Form 709 so that the IRS knows how much you have outstanding for you estate and future gifts. The tax varies from 18% to 47% depending on how much over the exclusion amount you gave. This is designed to prevent the rich from gifting all of their money to their children prior to death to avoid estate taxes.

Cheers

Wow, an awesome response! Thank you very much, that makes perfect sense and settles my mind completely. You clearly know a lot about taxes, as an incoming brit, I'm going to need to get up to speed on these, is there any certain guide you'd recommend for getting to grips with the tax system? It's fairly complex, compared to our system here of 'taxes automagically happen', and I'd like to get to grips with it and understand some of the ramifications during the lesuirely three months or so I get before my EAD will arrive!

I have a little worry about the need to re-do the sponsorship. My fiancee doesn't work, I'm the person coming from the UK to marry her. I've been putting money into our bank account there, about $1000 a month, stepping up to $2000 lately, to cover all our costs and regular household stuff while we've gone through this process.

My concern is that we're using a cosponsor as she doesn't make enough, and as she doesn't have an income we haven't filed a tax return for her. I don't fully understand the tax system (at all!) but my belief was that this is already taxed income I'm just moving to her account, so it's not really income as such and as such she doesn't have any income to file for.

On the form can I just put her income as 0, not add IRS transcripts and list that as the reason, and have the burden on the cosponsor? This is how we did things in the K-1 filing, but we didn't need tax returns, just bank statements.

Well, after my nightmarish time in the system I think I have finally got everything cleared up!

I had a phone call from the consulate today to say they had received my dutch police certificate and all I have to do is courier them my passport for them to issue my visa, thank god it's over! For people that don't know, I turned up to my interview on the 11th to be told they would have to file for the dutch police certificate and then my application was on hold, with no idea when it would be completed.

Well, the courier comes on the 3rd so they should have it processing away by the 4th of July! I'm recovering from wisdom teeth surgery so I probably sounded crazy on the phone due to all the painkillers, but I'm so glad to have it finishing up.

Well,

I had my interview today and left with my application suspended. The london consulate never applied for my dutch police certificate, then asked me for it at the interview. I pointed out they have to apply for it, and he said "oh yeah!". So here I am stuck waiting an unknown length of time for yet one more piece of paperwork.

I'm so gutted and upset and just sad about everything right now.

Hi,

Just a quick question, are there any stats on how many people get rejected at the interview stage? My fiancee has decided to freak out at the last minute, 4 days before my interview, and I think she's worried I'll get rejected. On a recent trip to america I got secondary checked, and even that guy referred to my 'approved visa', so personally I wasn't panicing. I have the financial sponsorship requirements met, so I don't see any major problems looming.

So my question is, has anyone had problems at this stage, is it a terribly intensive grilling? I heard it's not so bad, just to ensure you're not obviously out to defraud them.

I just realised the DS-157 applies to ALL males, not just ones from certain countries! Has anyone here ever left a form out of a packet 3 filing and had any problems getting it included, so as to not delay the case? I'm going to email them asking if I can perhaps email, fax or post the form over to be added into my file.

Will they just reject it and send the whole thing back for me to try again?

Wow, this is just awful! It seems to be a 'trend' lately for the various offices to just outright 'lose' cases. I don't know what's going on, but mine and another poster here lost theirs at the VSC, and now this one at CSC. It's a depressing trend, call your local senators office now, get them involved, it's unacceptable for them to 'lose' anything!

Hi,

I managed to drag out of my fiancee that we have a case number from the NVC for my case that's been forwarded to london. It starts with 'lds', I assume the l is for london! Is there anywhere online that this lets me access to get further case information? I can't find anything about this listed..

On the notice from NVC, there will be the USCIS number and the NVC number. I assume it is the LDS# that you have because mine begins with MOS (Moscow). Anyway, on NVC's website there is a phone number you can call for automated info. I had no luck with that and called and spoke to a representative who told me when they received our petition and when it was forwarded to Moscow. The automated phone info told me that there was no record of our Petition. Hope this helps.

You caught me before my edit , It's lnd not lds, it's just 0145 here so my brain isn't going full speed. Thanks for the info.

Hi,

I managed to drag out of my fiancee that we have a case number from the NVC for my case that's been forwarded to london. It starts with 'lnd', for London. Is there anywhere online that this lets me access to get further case information? I can't find anything about this listed..

Finally, a reason to bump the thread!

The lady from the senators office has done an astounding job. They have magically retrieved my case, and after having a supervisor 'investigate what went wrong' for several days she informed us today that it has already left the NVC after her chasing, and has been forwarded to the London Consulate.

She's promised to expedite it again at that stage to try and make up the _6 months_ it was lost for! I'm finally a huge step closer, and what a relief it is.

(And, the house we tried to rent and lost out to another couple on two weeks ago, the house that was perfect for us? They phoned us back this evening to say the other couple renegged, and it's ours!)

Well, my everlasting journey has progressed again!

Originally they called to say they could reissue us, then called again to say they'd changed their mind as mentioned in my original post, and then again to say "Well, wait, maybe it's in Harrisburg?"

So, we waited another two weeks without hearing anything, and then last night my fiancee emailed me to let me know they have rediscovered my file, it's _at_ VSC and the supervisor is investigating, and once she's finished it'll be sent to the NVC (by friday!) where upon arrival our local senators office will request it's immediately expedited to try and help us make the time back!

So good news!

Does anyone know if that expedite request makes it all the way to the consulate in London and bumps me up the interview priority?

I am VERY surprised - that is such a crock!!!! They damn well better not make you pay the $170 again!

Yes - you're lucky it is Vermont, but they still ought to expedite it through.

And chain it around someone's neck when it goes from VSC to NVC...

Apparently they said we won't have to repay and she mentioned a 'special address' so it may not be awful, it may be a case of I send all the paperwork to one person somewhere who immediately does it. However, as they have an EAC approval number recorded for us, it's unfair for us to have to do it at all.

Well,

As I talked about in my other thread, VSC 'lost' my petition when attempting to mail it to the NVC, back in November. We escalated this to our local senator and they eventually admitted it was lost, but they had an electronic record and they would reissue and expedite it.

They just called us back today to inform us this won't happen and we will have to refile. My fiancee was too upset to make sense of the whole thing but they are apparently emailing us some special instructions.

THIS IS SO UNFAIR, because of their screwup I now have to refile my entire petition, regather all the paperwork etc. I have a duplicate of it all in my house in the UK, but I now have to send this over, she has to get some stuff re-signed and so forth.

This is the most upsetting day ever and I have lost ALL faith in their ability to do a damn thing for us.

Yes, I meant to say that too - I'm VERY interested. I'm sorry you've had to go through it, obviously, but at least now, we all know this CAN happen - and potentially what to do to resolve it (and how USCIS/NVC will handle it when it has happened).

I think my most important lesson was that due to how things are setup it's best to start as high as you can, with a senator, and have them bring down weight, or they will lie to you! Still, I hope this thread one day helps someone else trapped in a similar position, don't give up hope! My fiancee has been so upset about this that the news was fantastic for her.

Well, here we are 19 days later and once again nothing has happened. We called Senator Collins this morning and she said if she hasn't heard from them by Thursday (I didn't make the call, but my understanding is she had it flagged for them to respond to her as well) she's going to .. well, do something.

How disappointing, even a senator can't get the USCIS to get their butts into gear and fix problems. She's been really helpful and I'm sure glad to have her on my side, because if she can't get them to act, what hope do the rest of us have?!

Hi ashp, it took them 30 days on my case for them to retrieve it from the storage facility, reapprove it and get it to me. Hopefully yours is just around the corner. I know you had the same exact problem as me, they had me wondering for a while also.

Well, I know nobody is that interested but finally a POSITIVE result (in a way!). The senators office called us back to tell us the USCIS has 'lost' our petition. Completely lost all paper trail, only retaining a computer record. She took some details from my fiancee and they are going to 'reissue the NOA2', which sounds a lot like what happened to lookywhatifound. She then said it'll be 'expedited'. Anyone else had this happen and did it make much difference to when you got the interview date?

It sounds like you are in Administrative Review just like I am. Mine was "flagged" at NVC and proceeded to the big black hole they call A/R or A/P. Mine has only been that way for two months. One other VJ'r has been in A/R for 9 months and the record is 8 years.

We never made it to the NVC, they still say it hasn't been received. The problem we had was USCIS 'failed' to post it to the NVC, and that's where we got jammed.

Well, here we are 19 days later and once again nothing has happened. We called Senator Collins this morning and she said if she hasn't heard from them by Thursday (I didn't make the call, but my understanding is she had it flagged for them to respond to her as well) she's going to .. well, do something.

How disappointing, even a senator can't get the USCIS to get their butts into gear and fix problems. She's been really helpful and I'm sure glad to have her on my side, because if she can't get them to act, what hope do the rest of us have?!

Well,

Just to cheer everyone up we got in touch with Senator Collins office in Maine, and within 15 minutes she located my petition, they promised to take it out of the 'storage facility' its in (that they already wrote me a letter to promise me its not in), and as a bonus she requested they expedite it to make up some of the delay!

So, as I was told and others have said - if you get any grief from the NVC your senator is the person to go to. I know someone getting my vote in the future

The Congressman will find out what happened for you. I personally don't have faith in NVC becaue all they did for me was send a canned letterhead with a box checked that said check with the consulate. They did that based on my faulty NOA2 that said it was 'forwarded to the listed consulate', so none of them really know the overall process cause the top department, DHS obviously didn't do a good job informing anybody.

So don't wait 3 weeks for the NVC to send you a stupid notice that says check with somebody else!

Only way now is your Congressman or Senator! Good luck mann!

Well, we left our details as the person who deals with this type of thing was out of the office, but they promised to pass over our details for them tomorrow. Being up in Maine they can't be _that_ busy, *grin*, so hopefully we'll hear back.

I had the same problem, when i filed for my wife around a 1yr and 1/2 ago they sent my paperwork to the wrong location, i remember calling VSC and NVC and got all the run arounds what i did to solve my problem was call my local senators office and explained my problem that I was haveing, in 15min they called me back and explained that my paperwork was sent to the wrong place and that they would locate the paperwork and expedite my case. so call your local congressmen and senator and make sure you tell them you voted for them.......

Well, I sailed over the 90 day processing limit, I guess this means my case is 'offically lost' for the time being. I'm going to ask my fiancee to call her congressman as that's one thing I don't think I can do on her behalf, and I've emailed the NVC to state it's over 90 days, along with a scan of my NOA2. Not sure what else I can do. Waiting on their phonelines to open right now.

Very very disappointed, the VSC/NVC have really let me down.