spiramirabilis

Oh, I definitely have the interview notice too. It's on Wednesday the 16th (I accidentally said Thursday the 17th in my original post). I just didn't know in advance because it apparently got caught up in the mail for several weeks. The issue is filling out the I-693 before the interview, given I only found out about the interview the week before! (As well as money, if it turns out to be unnecessary.)

At this point I think I will just bring my DS-3025 along and see what they say.

Thank you! I'm honestly not sure if I submitted the DS-3025 or not...this was back in 2016. I know I submitted a package that included medical stuff when I entered the US on the K-1 Visa.

I've attached a pic of my letter. I'm not sure of the difference, but it does actually say 'Request for Evidence' at the top.

I guess the question of whether I can actually do it before the interview is moot because it's next week, but it's good to know that if they need it, it just won't get approved until I provide it (and that I won't be otherwise punished). I mean, I've waited unusually long already for this interview.

So I finally got my interview date as well as a letter saying I need to bring a form I-693 along signed by a civil surgeon.

According to the instructions on I-693 itself, I actually don't need this. I entered on a K-1 visa and had my medical done back in Australia. I have my vaccination worksheet here and it was marked 'US vaccination requirements COMPLETE' and they didn't catch any other medical issues. I definitely submitted my AOS within a few months of getting that medical, although it has now been a little over two years since I submitted the AOS in the first place.

The letter itself is an RFE. It says 'You must provide the following information in order for us to make a final decision on your case' and says I must complete Form I-693, Report of Medical Examination and Vaccination Record.

The kicker is that apparently my interview notice got lost in the mail for a few weeks... I only got it this week and my interview is on the 17th (next Thursday)!! I don't know if I have time to sort this out before my interview. If I show up with just my vaccination form and all the other proof I have that I already did the medical, will they deny my request?

I know there's a lot of questions about this form but this situation has me stumped and I wonder if someone who knows their stuff has any advice.

Hey everybody, I went to my InfoPass appointment today.

So at first when the agent looked me up, she asked me if I had rescheduled an interview and I was confused because my status never changed since March 2017 and I wasn't sent an interview date. Anyway, something about my status seemed to indicate that but when she looked into it further she figured someone might have been scheduling me and then had to delete me? :s She said I am in a queue for an interview appointment now...not sure if that means soon or not, but at least nothing is wrong with my case.

She also said I can try to expedite my advance parole request by sending in documents etc. It's not emergency travel so I don't think they'll do it, right? I might as well try anyway if they said so... (or maybe she misunderstood my reason for travel).

**Whoops, I thought this was in a different forum and I'm not sure how to delete

17 minutes ago, pajobra said:

I certainly hope you get some answers. I only filed late December 2017 but I also have a long wait as my field office says something like processing times 14-34 months. I wish EADs came that fast now. lol I am still waiting for that just over 4 months now.

I've seen a bunch of people around here saying EAD is slow.... I also wonder what implications that has for EAD renewal. I have until early July before my automatic 180 day extension wears off and I really hope there's no gap because I really can't afford that.

22 hours ago, Californiansunset said:

Yes, it still works perfectly. I never have to put my info in again. 

After you get to your field office scheduling page you turn the auto refresh on and it will keep on refreshing this site (see pic I attached). The detector will notify you once this screen looks different. Also I forgot to tell you that once it detects something and you want to book your appointment, quickly turn the autorefresh off (it's literally one click) otherwise it refreshes while you put in your info. 

 

I used to having to wait for weeks to get an appointment and now I usually get one within 2 days when I use this method. 

Thanks so much for the tip - I set it up properly this morning (with both the mail alerts and the browser one with sound) and hey presto! Just got an appointment on the 14th!

If it's helpful information at all to anyone, the appointment popped up around 11.15am EST today (a Saturday). No idea if that's a normal time in general/for this office/etc.

1 hour ago, Watahoot said:

My wife has been waiting on her EAD/AP approval for 168 days now.  We filed AOS/EAD/AP back in early November, and received NOA1, Biometrics appointment, and NOA2 all before January 2018.  We have since been forced to endure over 5 months of radio silence.

 

Like you, we purchased round trip flights months ago for Australia.  Our flight is currently scheduled for next month and we still don't have AP approval.  We know your pain!  We are currently looking into all options, in addition to just holding out hope that the US Government comes through in the next few weeks.

Geez, I'm sorry. I at least got my EAD after about 3.5 months last year.

My flights are in June too. I've broken it to my mum that I might not be coming, and honestly I've been increasingly depressed about it as the date approaches. I don't know if I can afford other tickets any time soon (or afford to take time off, due to various job circumstances).

4 hours ago, Californiansunset said:

You'll likely end up waiting forever until a slot opens. This is how you get an infopass appointment faster:

Set up an auto refresh and website change detector on your browser, you can find this add-on/extension to notify you as soon as the webpage changes.  For example if you use Google Chrome as a browser the extensions would be "SuperAuto Refresh" and "Visualping". 

Then go to the USCIS infopass page where you always see the message "Currently, there are no available appointments. Please check again tomorrow."  and set the plugin to auto refresh.  Then set Visualping to monitor to check it every minute (one minute usually works the best).  That's it! It will notify you with a pop up when the page appears with appointment dates. You can also set it to get an email sent to you when it changes. It personally worked best for me if I was at work and online for 9 hours a day anyways to instantly check it when I got the notification as sometimes it's just an ad popping up that led to the alarm. 

 

Even though people say that appointments are added overnight. I always got my infopass appointments around 1-3pm PST. 

 

 

Thanks for the tip. Have you tried this method lately? I only ask because if I manually refresh my browser, I have to enter all the details again (inside US > zip > pick location > view appointments).

Also, it previously had no calendar when I looked yesterday. Today, it has a calendar row of this week with today highlighted and the 'Next week' option is unclickable. I assume that just means there's nothing available but it seemed weird - I tried it in a few different browsers though, and opened it with developer tools to be sure.

4 hours ago, .yana said:

My AOS took 1 year (almost to the day). I was one of the August 2016 filers, and about the only one who didn’t get an interview within the first five months, so I can totally relate to your frustration. 

 

I made an infopass appointment after waiting for 7 months. They couldn’t tell me much. I contacted my senator after 9 months of waiting, they responded few weeks later and gave me few reasons why my case could be taking a while.

 

I received an interview notice few days after I heard from the senator’s office. Overall, I think it was definitely beneficial to reach out to them and ask for assistance though I can’t tell you whether it was a natural course of action or the senator’s office phone call that triggered the interview appointment. 

 

And as as far as your travel plans go - sometimes airlines allow you to exchange the plane tickets for airline credit that you can use in the future. It is not something they mention online but depending who you call in customer support - they are able to extend this courtesy to you. And if the first person strictly denies this to you - sometimes calling again and talking to someone else helps as things like that often depend on the person’s mood.

 

Good luck to you! I hope you get good news soon.

Thanks - that gives me hope that contacting someone might push them along.

I think at this stage I'll have to look at getting credit, so thanks for the tip. It's better than throwing money into a void. Although the main reason I'm disappointed is that I can't see my family.

1 hour ago, Brittani said:

We're going through the K1 process now and will be doing AOS through Atlanta...I guess I should expect a hard time?

I don't think Atlanta necessarily means a bad time. Part of my issue is that I see K1/Atlanta people who submitted after me getting approved, including a bunch of people being approved last year. For some reason, I have been disregarded.

2 minutes ago, Adam&Allison said:

 

Don't let up. I've been told the same thing, the key with them is to absolutely not let up. They will hide behind processing times, but just keep pushing. I have an Infopass today and plan to get answers because you're right - seeing people who filed after you get approved, there's absolutely no excuse for it in my books. 

Thank you. My partner emailed our representative and I guess I'll keep checking for InfoPass appointments.

Update:

My partner called them today (still no InfoPass appointments have appeared on the site). They basically said to come back when it's been 29 months instead. They also said because it hadn't yet been 29 months they weren't obliged to respond to my request for information.

They also said something about processing cases from Dec 2015 at the moment. I know this isn't true because if I look up Timelines I can see K1s in Atlanta who applied after me getting approved last year even.

I feel really hopeless now.

3 minutes ago, NikLR said:

Good lord Atlanta is a black hole isn't it?! In 2013 when I-130s for IR1/CR1 visas were being adjudicated by local offices, Atlanta was the only place not doing a thing.  If your case has been too long don't hesitate to get in contact with the ombudsman and your representatives.  A year without any notification is too long!

Yikes... that's not good news.

I'll get an appointment with them as soon as any appear on the InfoPass site and see what is going on.

13 minutes ago, Diane and Chris said:

I looked at your timeline. We, too, have been waiting for AOS through the Atlanta office. However, we filed early June 2017. Almost a year. Still nothing. I thought that was a long time. A couple of thoughts and questions for you. Since your EAD was approved last April 2017, hasn’t it expired?  My husband’s EAD card is only good for a year and that will end in October.  At that time his drivers license will expire here in Georgia. Do you have that problem as well?  Did your EAD and DL both expire already?  Another question for you has to do with your physical. The physical is only good for a year after you apply for AOS.  So I’m assuming you will need to get a new physical before you can be approved for AOS. Do you know anything about this?  Will you get another physical or did you get a new one already?  I wish you luck in finding out what is taking so long and hope that you get approved soon. Let me know what you think and keep us updated. 

I've applied for a renewal of EAD which hasn't been granted yet - since I applied before it expired, it gets automatically extended by 180 days. I don't drive so I don't have any issues bridging the gap there.

I didn't know the thing about the physical. I got mine in Australia in probably mid 2016 so it has been well and truly over a year. I'll have a look into it...although I'm not sure why they'd need to check me for TB and so on when I'm already in the country? Although it could be for other things.

1 minute ago, SB5130 said:

Mine didn't take that long. But based on my AOS experience, my INFOpass was very helpful. I asked the field officer where is my file and is it still intact. He told me that my physical files were intact and had been sent to the field office. On queue to be assigned. I was told to wait for 3-4months because that is the usual trend. It was atleast comforting knowing where my file is at and that it wasn't lost. 

 

Also, have you created an account to check your case online? 

https://myaccount.uscis.dhs.gov/

Does going through an account get a different result from the regular page where you enter the case number? (https://egov.uscis.gov/casestatus/)

The result I get there just says they received my information in early March 2017 and will continue processing (and has been that way since that March).

2 minutes ago, SB5130 said:

Did you tried getting an Infopass and see where your physical file is at? 

I didn't know of such a thing - I'll look into it. Thank you. It feels a bit weird asking them like that but if they won't respond to my information request, I'm not sure what else I can do.

29 minutes ago, mushroomspore said:

Have you contacted your senator, congress person and/or the ombudsman?? 

I'm not sure I'm meant to take such drastic action given their 'don't bother us until this amount of time has passed' timelines are extremely long. But I can see other people getting interview dates and getting approved so it's alarming.

13 minutes ago, Sunnyland said:

You have been waiting for the AP since March 2017?

No, March 2017 was just the last AOS update. I applied for AP seperately much more recently.

At the time I didn't really understand that I was allowed to apply for AP without specific plans due to their confusing documents talking about emergencies etc. I did apply for employment authorization at the time of my AOS application though and it was eventually granted.

I'm really worried and I wondered if anyone had any advice.

I filed for AOS in December 2016. I had my biometrics appointment early Feb 2017 and submitted some extra info which I can see they received early March 2017. Since then, no updates.

I put in an online case inquiry request which said I would have an answer by April 12. I've still got nothing. I just don't know what to do to find out why I can see a bunch of cases in people's timelines getting interviews and I'm not, and why they're not even responding to my request.

I'm freaking out because I have plane tickets to go and see my family. I stupidly thought it would be fine. I applied for AP but given current timelines, I don't think I'll get it in time. I just don't know what to do now.

I filed end of 2016 and still no sign of an interview. There's no logic to the order, it seems.

outlifeuncharted - This isn't about the time it takes them to send, but the CEAC website has said 'In Transit' for me since before the consulate even received my petition. It also said I had been given my interview (or whatever ambiguous wording) since before it even landed in Aus. I believe the last time they update that is when they send it off to your country, so I wouldn't go by that site at all.

Hooray, I was able to submit using lplplpx3's method too. Thanks so much.

The photo even worked this time around.

I should have known something was weird about that timeout when I had to shut the entire window to be able to log back in properly.... I wonder if I should let them know. I'm sure some people will on Monday.

I'm having the exact same problem... tried Chrome, IE and FF to no avail.

I was able to get past the photo bit by selecting 'confirm photo' at the side instead of the 'Next: Review' at the bottom, which caught me in an endless loop on the photo page.

After the Review, I wasn't able to continue to the signing page as the option was greyed out. I actually cheated by manually enabling the button myself to see if that worked and I managed to get to the signing page... but then I wasn't able to sign (clicking the button just brought me to the DS-160 front page).

I don't suppose anyone has spoken to someone or has a method to get around this yet?