dealerofhappiness

3 minutes ago, asianculture said:

Hello All,

   I hope everyone is doing great! Advance Happy Thanksgiving!

I know this question was asked before.

My 1 year extension is about to expire on 11/17/17, I am not planning to go outside USA, do I need still need to get an info pass or just leave it and do nothing and wait for the 10 year GC?

Thank you for the info!

 

You certainly don't have to get a stamp, just majority of the people feels safer that way. It does not affect your actual status in any way.

(However, it was pointed out by someone earlier that technically residents MUST have proof of their status with them at all times, and technically it is considered a misdemeanor if you don't. With this being said, I have never in my life heard that anyone had any issues with this. I did the stamp, but I am obviously not going to carry my foreign passport on me every time I live house...)

6 minutes ago, thmohds said:

So I am on this NO dignity journey that is so stressful and shitty path hitting almost the 4th anniversary of my marriage. We can't even plan for my life, We can't decide if we should buy a house or or or. I don't even Know if they will say tomorrow: Hey you are out. The situation is really really bad  and I feel I can't deal with this waiting anymore, we deserve to know what is going on with our applications, I pay big amount of taxes every paycheck , we follow the law and pay money to file these applications.. and every time new application we need to collect million papers from Banks, employers, ...

 

it's crazy and insane and when you call them they say it's within the processing time. My driver license gonna expire soon  and then I have to go to DMV and deal with them again, last time i had to explain for them the whole immigration process.

 

I don't know , I am sorry but I swear it's is ridicules process 

Amen

2 minutes ago, insipidtoast said:

Can you make the infopass appointment for the passport stamp AFTER your extension letter has expired?

Yes. This is pretty much the whole point of the stamp

3 hours ago, Laurynsan said:

Well I don’t know... VCS confused me... I’m a late October filler and nothing yet! 

I am October 5th filer and nothing yet. I know for the fact that there are plenty of people from September without a decision yet...

7 minutes ago, Zombie69 said:

I wonder if it is possible for those of us who applied for 400 with 751 pending to get a 751 approval very close to the 400 interview date without necessarily being combined?? Like a week or two before the 400 interview. I guess it is possible since USCIS is so unpredictable.  It is going to sting knowing I might be skipped over when others(None 400 751 filers) are being approved, but I guess I am mentally ready for that because my focus is the 400.

Sorry to bring your hopes down, but I don't believe this scenario is possible, as both 400 and 751 using same physical file and it is only one.

I think thats why USCIS call center not recommending to apply for 400 before you got results on your 751(Although, you are edible to do so).

Also applications has priorities and 400 is higher priority than 751, therefore when you applying for 400 while 751 is pending they simply take away all necessary documents from 751 to 400.

I saw someone from VSC who is from June (or July, I don't remember) who didn't get any reply on 751 yet(VSC is currently on October/November), and not surprisingly this person did apply to 400 as soon as he got eligible...

I do not believe it is possible to "speed up" 751, if anything, applying for 400 will stop it. However, if your end goal is citizenship then there is no harm at all, you just most likely will never receive an actual green card and will be naturalized instead (and possibility of "double" interview)

52 minutes ago, Bulerias said:

I have been waiting for my green card for over a month since I received the approval letter. I called USCIS yesterday and they told me to wait  60 days, before calling them again.  This is just so frustrating. The officer was so rude.

I am a big advocate for saying that USCIS call center is useless, however....

I also called few times only to hear some complete nonsense, but last time I called I got lucky and there was an actually decent person, who took initiative to submit a service request for me (without me even asking for it) and said that I can call them everyday if I want to to check on a status of request/case.

Its just like you said, this person was just rude. Don't listen to it and call them whenever you have a need of it. You are a "customer" of USCIS and you certainly can call them anytime you want. 

With this being said, it does not mean that you will get someone responsive from the first try, nor does it mean that they will actually have any updates for you, but they certainly cannot restrict you in to not calling them for 60 days...

5 minutes ago, keepgoodvibes said:

Am I still qualified for I9 requirements? Is stamped I551 good enough for my next employment? Please advise and thank you so much for your help

Yes. I551 has the same "power" as a green card, its just a temporary version of it while you wait for an actual card. Does not affect your actual status whatsoever.

4 minutes ago, Chime19 said:

Right now I'm leaning towards listing the new address as my own current physical address, but leaving his mailing and physical address as our original address. Then I'm answering the question 22 affirmatively and listing the address and explanation in the "Additional Information" section. 

This way both addresses are accounted for, but I explain that we have both been back and forth, and maintain a residence in both locations, but  consider the original address our permanent address and our mailing address. 

This is exactly how we done it. I think it makes sense.

I have somewhat similar situation. We actually live in 2 different states, so there is 2 separate leases (Me and my wife in both leases). 

To make it a little worse, my wife is a resident of one state and I am of second (we work in different sates and constantly traveling to first or second state)

Our lawyer wrote an addendum (explanation) letter that we included in our ROC package, that describes that our jobs require us to be in different states time to time, therefor we have 2 different residences.

Will we face negative questions? - Probably, but you have a good way to explain it, and it is certainly better than lie about it...

I have not received any questions/decisions so far, so cannot say for sure if this creating any issues...

44 minutes ago, Lemon23 said:

I would say it's not safe specially if the developer of the apps is unknown.

Would you happen to know who is the developer of visajourney.com?

Yet, you provided them with your name, location, email, password (that most of the people reusing the same password for many logins) and VJ "developers" able to see your IP which in 2017 can pretty much be equal to your exact address (unless you are using a lot of professional software to hide/change your IP)... 

Security is important, but lets not make it to the point where it is in the way of convenience.

Hackers don't want our case numbers.... I can barely even look at my own, have been staring at it for over a year now.

For me this app brings a little calm to my anxiety... everyday I check 500 cases around mine and everyday I see changes... one by one applications being approved. I personally very grateful that this app exist and even free.

I am sorry for going so far away from what this forum intended to be, but I also wanted to mention that to publish application in the apple app store you have to go through a lot of checks, and apple will look at the code to see what the app is doing and what information it is collecting. It is not easy at all to get your app trough all the checks. With this in mind, there is no other way to install anything on your apple device rather than "breaking" it illegally which has to be done by owner of the device... so if you installing it like any person would from app store, you are 100% safe.

I cannot comment regarding android devices, because I don't have experience with them, but something tells me that it goes through very similar security checks.

I understand that you don't want to use it, but please don't confuse people by saying that it is not safe, because it is absolutely not true.

8 minutes ago, Lemon23 said:

Regardless, that is why you're getting blocked to use the app when you track different case number because technically its not allowed, and your IP address was being monitored because it's illegal tracking someone else's case number even for viewing purposes or not.

 This reminds me of my wife. She likes to "teach" me how some cars are better than others because of the color... Still love her though...

I am 100% agree with Ketsuban, if you suspicious that it is not safe, you don't have to use it. And it is locking your IP(temporarily) only when you do over 1000 checks in a short period of time, just to prevent overload of servers, nothing else.

This information is not private and therefor not protected.  EAC1700551261 is a real case number, you can take a look at it. Please let me know if you can "use" any information from it.....

1 minute ago, Lemon23 said:

Well for me, my case number is valuable and secret information that should not be just given to anyone. Apps can be connected to the website thru API connection but should be allowed by allowed first by both parties and I dont think USCIS allows these apps developer to connect to their API. So that is why these apps are not safe to use specially not release by USCIS.

1 minute ago, Lemon23 said:

Well, apps cannot be connected to the website just to gathered information, apps is different platform than website but they can pull up information in one database but it cannot be connected to each other since they are both different platform.

I think we are going way off topic here, but I strongly disagree with this statement (I actually work in IT for a very large corporation)

Bottom line is apps were created for people convenience and they are free... hard to complain about something that is free.

Also, I am not sure what is the security concerns here? EAC numbers is public information that you cannot really do anything with, its not a social security number....

Its easy to get real case number that actually belongs to someone - example:

EAC1700551261 - now lets assume I am a bad guy (I promise I am not) what can I get out of it? I can see that this is a case for removal of conditions that been accepted by vermont office on October 6. Thats pretty much all i can get..... No names, no addresses, no possibility to change anything..... This information is only valuable to its owner who is tracking his case, for everybody else this is absolutely useless. 

This is exactly the reason that case tracker is public information, you don't need to enter any passwords or prove your identity, that is why those apps can "connect" without any issues at all. 

From technology prospective those apps extremely simple and straightforward (probably created by fellow applicant who was frustrated with the wait times)

1 minute ago, Lemon23 said:

Looks like to me, all the information that these apps provided is not legit if its not connected to any USCIS database. In the world of technology, you cannot have an accurate and legit information if the system or apps is not connected to the legit source like the USCIS, specially if the creator of these apps were not officially from USCIS and not release by USCIS, so it's not safe to use since there are many hackers and scammers. Just my two cents.

Yes and no. I guess I can agree with the statement that it has to be "connected" to the source of information, however the source is public.

https://egov.uscis.gov/casestatus/mycasestatus.do

When you enter your case number to the official website of USCIS (link above) it send you the "answer" with your case update. The way those apps works is they simply do it for you. Let's say your case number is EAC1700500000 (obviously I am using random number), so what this app will do is enter each case separately from EAC170050000 to EAC1700500500 (they can do maximum 500 at the time). The app entering those cases to the same USCIS website that you do manually, its just the app can enter those numbers way too faster and then compile the results in informative manner. Results from those apps is just as legit as results from USCIS site (and yes, many people reported that USCIS website having delay up to two weeks)

22 minutes ago, Lemon23 said:

if these apps is not officially released by USCIS then how these apps is connected to the database of the USCIS to pull up the case number? 

They are not connected to any database. The app is simply entering case numbers to USCIS website in sequential order and showing you results. The only difference is that the app can do 500 cases in 1 minute, while it will take a human 5 hours. Those apps not any safer/more dangerous than USCIS website itself. 

Also, don't play with those apps too much in a single day (over a 1000 cases) as USCIS will temporarily block your IP (for about 24 hours) - if this does happen and you still need to check something, simply switch to a different device or connect to different Wi-Fi (this will change your IP)

8 hours ago, technoman said:

We finally have an appointment. What did you need to bring to get your stamp? Do we just need to bring our NOA1 and foreign passport?

 

I had with me my expired green card (they kept it), extension letter (gave it to me back) and my paperwork from biometrics(she did not look at it, so I am assuming its not needed). And obviously a passport.

1 minute ago, Bo7 said:

Hi everyone It's almost 15 months no response or update yet?? Anyone wait like me? how long it will take to get approved??? I file n400 in july 2017

Anyone have the same case like?

Vermont

Thank you

Vermont currently processing October fillers, so if you have not heard yet I would I assume it is exactly because of N400 as it requires same A file used by USCIS. You can try to give them a call (they usually not very helpful), but you most likely won't hear until your N400 will be reviewed and most likely you will have "combined" interview for 751 and 400. 

Its been reported by multiple people that n400 "steals" documents necessary for 751, therefor it cannot be processed. I am assuming that your end goal is citizenship, therefor you should be fine, but you did not speed up the process by filing both at the same time.

Thank you for adding me in the list.

Today I had appointment to get my stamp, which went well, officer gave me one year without any questions. I asked her to check if she is able to see anything regarding my case, since tomorrow will be precisely 365 days since my NOA1. She looked at it and said that she doesn't see any updates and it is within "normal" processing time. I asked her to clarify what is normal, she said well right now Vermont looking at August 15th so you are about 2 month away from hearing anything back.... I politely asked if she is sure that is is current processing dates and not as of July 31(which it obviously is) and she with straight face said she is sure about it. (wow, just wow....)

Also she did say that all 751 will go thru the interview now, however she is not sure if it is applicable only to a new applicants of for the people who wait now as well (so basically she doesn't know nothing).

To summarize, ladies and gentleman, don't let them confuse you, as they don't know absolutely nothing and will tell you any nonsense so that you leave them alone...(same applies to Tier 1 and Tier 2 call center)

Wish everyone luck!

5 minutes ago, dnp2014 said:

When you called you just asked for Tier 2 ? 

 

I am also Oct 11 filer. Due to error bio-metrics was taken second time in Dec. I don't know the one month delay will cause my case to be pending until Nov. 

 

Just to note there are thousands of Oct filers... getting few in here approved does not mean they covered all the Oct filers 

You are absolutely right, there is a lot of pending October cases. You can use free application called "case tracker" (apple app store) to search the range of 500 cases, there you will be able to see that October is not done at all (I even saw some end of September cases being untouched). The only thing is you need to keep in mind that online status updates with delay (some people reported up to 2 weeks of delay).

5 minutes ago, A&L2017 said:

We called the USCIS support line 4 times now, and they all refuse to connect us to a Tier 2 agent, and simply tell us the case is still being processed and to follow the processing timelines posted. We are September filers, and this is beyond frustrating for us. Especially seeing others having luck with getting responses. 

Sharing the same level of frustration with you, especially seeing that some people with almost a month later submission date getting approvals...

However, there is an ugly truth about customer call center at USCIS - they are a third party company that don't know much at all. They trained to tell you very generic answers and simply telling you to wait as it is "within normal wait times" (don't know what they consider normal). I spoke with Tier 2 a few times and they just as useless as Tier 1...... 

Personally, I would recommend using app called "case tracker"(in apple app store) where you can see a range of up to 500 applications and their status. I think this will give you much better information than Tier 2. Just keep in mind that a lot of people reported that online system is delayed (some reported up to 2 weeks delays), so the chances are that you will find out any news from physical mail first.

Interesting... Each quarter they receive almost double amount of applications comparing to number that they process(approved/denied) and their backlog growing by 20,000 petitions every 3 month..... Thats a bad statistics... if this tendency will continue, people who will apply at the very end of this year will have to wait almost 2 years, which simply doesn't make any sense because you can get your N400(naturalization) faster than that.... and in this case, what is the point of I751(apart from receiving fees from us)?  

They need to stop approaching this as a business(which it is a business as USCIS funded by application fees entirely) and bring some more effective structure. And if this is a business, then we need some alternatives, such expedited processing?!?

Good day fellow October 2016 applicants!

I am a long time lurker and would like to my experience so far.

First off my dates:

751 sent: 9/29/2016

NOA: 10/05/2016

Bio: 11/04/2016

Approved: I wish...

Called today to USCIS and ask to talk with Tier 2, after a few questions why I want to talk to them, they did transferred me. Tier 2 person told me that they cannot see any more details that is available online...(I find it very hard to believe) and basically told me that last update they see is from October 2016 and should go ahead and do appointment for the stamp in my passport. Also, she did say one thing that confused me a little: "Your application is still in Vermont service center and has not been transferred to a local office YET". Not sure what this means, because I was pretty sure that in case interview not required then Vermont approves it without any local offices... One thing I am very sure about is that both Tier1 and Tier2 are useless and even claiming that they cannot see details if file been "touched" and only see if it is approved or scheduled for interview...