DRKALEMAR

7 minutes ago, Ash.1101 said:

Part of me is curious if they sent the RFE before and it didn’t get to you or why they waited to send the RFE with such a small expiration time frame. 

 

Usually they give you you more than 30 days from the day they draft a paper to respond to them. I believe the norm is to allow for almost 12 weeks to respond. 

 

But ya it can take them a few weeks just to get to your packet to put it in the system, so to them they don’t have anything. 

I have no way of knowing. The website has shown "we received your fingerprints on December 11, 2016". It's been stuck on that status for years. Since then, we had an interview and RFE. Also since my lawyer and I are both supposed to obtain the same notice, one of us would have received something prior to this recent notice.

I was shocked they only gave us a month to submit our I-693. It cost me $500 to expedite and haul a$$. 

I'm having a new lawyer drop off an appeal in person first thing tomorrow. Crossing my fingers.

6 hours ago, Ash.1101 said:

First do what @geowrian says.

Second, It's also possible that since the RFE due date was Feb 1st, and it's only Feb 20th, that even though you sent it 2 weeks ahead of time, the paperwork hasn't actually made it to anyone's desk to process. It's not the first time they've sent out denials fairly quickly after the expiration date. I believe that they do this because they don't expect anyone to wait so close to send things. You did say in January that you JUST got the RFE. When did you actually receive the RFE in the mail? Did you move addresses at any point between the interview and now?

Also note that bio metrics and vaccinations are not used interchangeably. They mean two different things, but in your profile and timeline you use them as the same thing.

OP's timeline:
K1 Medical: Pre-May 2016
K1 Interview: May 30, 2016
K1 Visa enterance: July 3rd, 2016

Marriage: Aug 12, 2016

AOS NOA: DEC 16, 2016

AOS RFE: Jan 07, 2017
AOS Interview: July 28, 2017
AOS RFE: (Somewhere late 2018-JAN 2019?)

 

The OP was told that the vaccinations were not complete, and then just a back and forth arguing ensues over how they did do vaccinations and this and that.  According to this post below they.. walked across the street to a civil surgeon and got it all done, but in the timeline it says they walked over to the biometrics place and were told it didn't need to be done.
 

The OP leaves the office and then hears nothing until this RFE.

It's possible they wanted a new I-693 because the DS-3205 had expired in the system. It's also possible they wanted all of the vaccinations done. This isn't the first time I've seen people asked for new medical paperwork if the AOS interview occurs more than a year after the last medical done. There have been people asked to complete a new one post interview, this isn't new or surprising.

It also does seem like there was some miscommunication on both ends. USCIS should have given them the RFE right there since she knew exactly what they needed.

The IO straight up told them the vaccinations weren't complete, they then started arguing that they didn't need to do the Civil Surgeon again (calling it biometrics) because they were K-1.

They either then went and got some vaccinations and turned it in, or they went to a biometrics support office and were told they didn't need to get vaccinations done. (Unclear due to conflicting information in interview review and forum posts)

They went back and argued with the IO some more because they bumped into her, and then just kept contacting USCIS over and over.


Overall, from the fact that it's hard to even understand what fully happened based off the OP's own posts. It's possible that every interaction they're having with USCIS is leaving everyone tired and confused and USCIS has DEFINITELY made things difficult for people who have done this in the past. There have been plenty of people on VJ who have had USCIS basically just not want to deal with them anymore unless they -had- to, so... they simply just didn't. It's a powerplay and it sucks when it happens, but it always seems to happen to peoples who's stories are convoluted or people who openly say they just sat there and argued with workers.



Again as a stressing note, Biometrics is just where they take your photo, do your fingerprints, and take down basic info to enter it into the USCIS system. Biometrics has nothing to do with vaccinations and the I-693.
If you want to make everything more clear, just call the vaccination "vaccination" or "medical" and biometrics "biometrics".

Hello, appreciate your advice. It actually assures me a bit that this is a common error. Also, to answer your question, the RFE was dated 12/31/2018 but I didn't receive it until January 11th. My lawyer received his copy sooner and that is why I was able to take action sooner. As a matter of fact, my husband sent his I-693 the day we received our own hard RFE copy! Although I paid $15 to expedite the letter's arrival w/signature, they still didn't receive our documents until 1/17th. 

So between the awful usps turn around and uscis, they just rushed us and denied us. Oddly enough, the denial letter we received ON TIME (same day as my lawyer).

Now I will say, my husband and I had a wonderful experience during our interview and neither of us have a criminal record whatsoever. I genuinely believe this is simply careless handling. 

Thank you for clarifying biometrics and vaccines. I should have led with I-693 rather than the word biometrics.

12 minutes ago, geowrian said:

Make an Infopass appointment (you may need to call in to do so with some field offices now) and present evidence of submitting the RFE response.

Worst case a Motion to Reopen or Motion to Reconsider (MTR) can be provided.

Hold on to that tracking number. Also, I'm assuming you have evidence of completing the medical. Neither proves you submitted the I-693 on time, but it is pretty compelling evidence (who gets a medical done & submits a package to USCIS for no reason)?

 

Don't do this. You'll either waste your time and/or get in some trouble with security. Nothing good will come from this.

Thank you, yes. I have a receipt that indicates the $500 expedited fees I paid for his medicals which was done literally across the street from their offices.

i'm on the phone now in hopes I can make an appointment.

14 minutes ago, K1visaHopeful said:

Oh okay I see now. You did not mention that you have been interviewed already at all and only mentioned you had filed for AOS and your time line states from a K1.

As per your query then, have you called USCIS and asked? They may request you show them that you have evidence that when you tracked your RFE package to them, it was signed for and received. It would also show the date you complied by as it would state the date the package was received.

Have you tried that at least?

No i haven't. The developing news is the letter my lawyer claimed to have received is an actual denial letter. I will need to somehow prove that we indeed sent our paperwork on time if not early. I will call for now but going to visit the office and somehow insist that I see a person. 

I'm besides myself. My husband received a letter of denial for failure to respond to the RFE. However, we sent everything 2 weeks early from the deadline of 2/1/2019.

Any advise on what I should do??

They are saying USCIS never received his I-693 on time and therefore we abandoned the case. I have a tracking number that both our post office gave me straight from their computer system.

They most certainly received the document but how on earth do I prove this???

I'm so upset because it's just unfair they made us wait 2 years and even after getting my Senator involved, no one has been able to help us.

I'm tempted to go to the offices and just park myself there until they allow me to see a living person who will help.

1 minute ago, K1visaHopeful said:

You cannot get an RFE for a medical exam because a medical exam is not a required submission before the AOS interview (you can submit it at the interview).

You likely received a COURTESY LETTER merely reminding that at the AOS interview you will need to provide your medical exam results.

As a K1, all you would have to provide at the interview was your copy of the DS3025 Vaccination Record and the interviewing officer would retrieve your original K1 medical exam results that were collected at your POE and put into storage in your personal A-file FROM your A-file.

 

Post your :RFE" letter please. You likely did a whole lot of extra work for nothing.

I wish it were true and that I am wrong. But we had our interview in 2017. This isn't a courtesy letter. I'm attached a portion of the letter. We have been waiting for a decision since our interview and it wasn't until just now that we received a letter. But the issue I'm worried about is that we received another letter saying they haven't received our i-693 within the deadline. How could that be? I have a tracking number and even my mailman showed me that it was delivered too. I don't even know how to handle this.

29 minutes ago, DRKALEMAR said:

Just when things couldn't get worse. After waiting over 2 years for my husband's adjustment of status, we finally received an RFE requesting he resubmit an I-693 for medical examination and vaccine records.

This is after we did indeed submit his vaccines within the allowed 12 month period.

But ok, we had them redone and sent them as per their instructions to 26 Federal Plaza.

 

RFE deadline - 2/1

Documents confirmed via USPS tracking - 1/16 (2 weeks early)

 

Now I received a letter saying they never received our documents!

 

I am total lost. I don't know what to do at this point?? Luckily I have iPhone pictures of the actual sealed envelope with stamp and tracking number.

 

I've written my Senator and my lawyer is somehow going to get involved but is there something else I can do to fix this????

 

Thank You
 

I-693 Form was requested for his Medical Examination and Vaccines.

To be clear, I resubmitted the I-693 form which is for the Medical Examination and Vaccine Record.

2 minutes ago, Diana & Justin said:

Biometrics and vaccines are something completely different, what did they actually ask in the RFE? 

I-693

16 minutes ago, K1visaHopeful said:

Sorry the RFE requested him to redo his biometrics but you redid his medical instead? 

Can you post your RFE? 

We were asked to resubmit an i-693.

Just when things couldn't get worse. After waiting over 2 years for my husband's adjustment of status, we finally received an RFE requesting he redo his biometrics.

This is after we did indeed submit his vaccines within the allowed 12 month period.

But ok, we had them redone and sent them as per their instructions to 26 Federal Plaza.

RFE deadline - 2/1

Documents confirmed via USPS tracking - 1/16 (2 weeks early)

Now I received a letter saying they never received our documents!

I am total lost. I don't know what to do at this point?? Luckily I have iPhone pictures of the actual sealed envelope with stamp and tracking number.

I've written my Senator and my lawyer is somehow going to get involved but is there something else I can do to fix this????

Thank You
 

On 1/29/2019 at 6:20 PM, banana_princess said:

Hi! Sorry about your situation.

If you got a request to do biometrics again then it’s a good sign, they were probably about to approve, found out that biometric expired and had him do it again. But in case I’m wrong keep reading.

We were just going there every two weeks and talking to different people, I don’t remember the details, but our office is divided into infopass area and area where interviews take place.

Once someone from infopass told us to go upstairs (interview area) and ask them. So we did. 

We told them that people from infopass told us to come up so they called someone. We talked to one of the supervisors, I don’t remember what she said, but nothing happened so we went back. I think we told to her again....then nothing happened again....then we went back and talked to someone else..... repeated this many times.

They don’t like you coming to the interview area where all the offices and supervisors are. What really helped is that one of the supervisors gave us his business card (shocking!) and told us the name of our officer’s supervisor (also shocking!) , for future reference let’s call him Mike. So after that we were just coming in, showing them this business card and telling them that this person whose card it is told us that we need Mike. They became a lot more friendly and were actually calling Mike for us. Sometimes it took hours to wait for Mike. We saw Mike many times before our case got approved. So, it took a lot of effort.

I wish the best of luck to you!

Excellent advice. thank you very much

On 12/18/2017 at 7:07 PM, banana_princess said:

Miracle finally happened : )

Timeline is in my signature.

Last things that happened - we went to talk to our officer's supervisor again (not info pass) 2 months after they received my medical, which was December 11. We generously gave them 60 days to make a decision on their own lol, but they didn't appreciate it :-D Anyway, he said they will make a decision on the same day and we will find out by Wednesday. Nothing changed on the website by Wednesday, so i called uscis number on Thursday before heading back there, asked to talk to a tier 2 officer and i was told that the petition has been approved and the card is ordered. Received the approval notice today (date on the notice - December 12). I was waiting for the notice before telling you all, just in case (what if i hallucinated that phone call? lol).

 

1008 days total. Or 2 years 9 months and 2 days this AOS took. Anyone knows someone who waited longer or am i the winner? lol

 

As of today the website is still not updated, in fact it hasn't been updating since 2015.

 

Our officer made many mistakes. Everything on the NOID was incorrect. She asked for the same documents two (even three) times, and still missed a lot of information. One of the lawyers i talked to knew her and told me she is very disorganized, which seems like true. So, i am sure that we just got a bad luck. C'est la vie.

 

If anyone is in a similar situation right now and made a 100500 info pass appointments and service requests, i advise you not to waste your time on them anymore, they don't know anything. I mean seriously. I was told once by info pass that my case is taking too long because there is no visa number available - which is incorrect, i don't need a visa number. I don't know how the offices are organized but skip the info pass and tell someone you need to talk to your officer's supervisor. Of course don't do it 2 weeks after the interview. They will give you a bunch of ####### - you'll learn to work/talk around it haha : ) You don't have a right to demand a green card but you have a right to ask for a decision, you paid them to work on your case, they are obligated to make a decision and such a long wait is unreasonable. Good luck : ) (also try your best to find a meaning in this situation, it helps. PM me if you need help with that : ) )

Question to everyone who received a GC in the past. I only have my last name on the mail box, will the post office deliver it still? I heard form someone that it was a problem, the GC was returned and and the person had to put their first and last name. Anyone only had a last name, were there any problems?

And since the website is not updating and i can't see if my card was shipped - those who received a GC recently please mention how long it took since the day of the decision. Thank you : ) Im planning a trip abroad and i read on tripadvisor that some airlines don't know about the passport stamp and people had problems boarding planes, so i'd rather wait for the card. 

And also thank you all for your support during all these years! I am very glad that i got to know all of you, which wouldn't have happened if my case didn't take this long. ❤️ Hope my story will be helpful to someone. Actually i hope no one will ever go through anything like this : )

Hello,

Bumped into your post and I'm in a similar situation. My husband filed for AOS on 11/2016 and we just received an RFE asking to redo his biometrics. It's been 2 weeks since they have received it but we haven't been given a notice of receipt or next steps. The website is completely useless as well and in NY, they are not even accepting info pass appointments. Calls Only. How did you locate your officer? Where could I find my officer and contact? THANKS

I've written this forum a handful of times and I'm still in disbelief to say we are still waiting my husband's AOS approval.

We interviewed July 2017 and our status hasn't changed since. 

Since then, I have made appointments to the USCIS office, called their offices, asked my lawyer to get involved and finally wrote my senator (in NY).

Thankfully my Senator was able to expedite his EAD renewal but said he was still not outside of the "standard" processing timeline. This was back in June.

I just really can't believe we're still waiting....

1 minute ago, Lilz said:

Did they put a sticker behind his passport? Usually when they give back the passport, they're requiring more information and that would've shown on the documentation. 

21 hours ago, Nuj said:

You have very helpful insight thank you. I have been trying to tell my spouse all the bad things to balance the rosy view lol . I will try your advice 

Definitely Agree to the point made earlier! You have to share the good and bad in order to properly prepare your spouse.

I live in New York and I made sure i took plenty of pictures of the arts but also the dirty streets and recorded a few of my morning commutes.

It's silly but my husband appreciated my honesty. I was worried he would never really understand until he arrived here. Best of luck!

On 6/11/2018 at 4:49 PM, DRKALEMAR said:

FYI - Wrote my letter both NYC congressmen. THANKS!

Even better news, Senator Gillibrand is having our EAD expedited! Unfortunately, our I-485 is still considered within normal waiting period.

That's is wild to know we still need to wait this out but at least it's one more assurance that nothing funky is happening to our case.

THANKS For the advise!

On 6/8/2018 at 2:33 AM, Teemo said:

 

Frustrating situation. NYC is backed up but to not hear something 11 months AFTER the interview, that's ridiculous. 

 

Options I can think of: 1) contact the ombudsman, supposed to be a neutral party (www.dhs.gov/topic/cis-ombudsman); 2) reach out to your congressmen (you have 2 senators and a congressman) and have them inquire; 3) request a FOIA (www.uscis.gov/g-639) to get all the info on your case - it's free, however this could add to the delay because the FOIA people have to pull your physical records; 4) call USCIS again and again and ask to speak to tier 2 representative; 5) make an infopass appointment to try and hurry them along (https://my.uscis.gov/appointment); 6) start the process of filing court action against them. I've seen a couple cases where just the threat of this speeds them along. 

 

What are they telling you when they call? Is it in administrative processing? Did the CO conducting your interview indicate you'd be approved or that there was something more he needed?

 

Can you also post your review of the interview? I'm an NYC filer as well so would love the input. (http://www.visajourney.com/reviews/index.php?cnty=&cty=New+York+City+NY&dfilter=5)

FYI - Wrote my letter both NYC congressmen. THANKS!

On 6/8/2018 at 2:33 AM, Teemo said:

 

Frustrating situation. NYC is backed up but to not hear something 11 months AFTER the interview, that's ridiculous. 

 

Options I can think of: 1) contact the ombudsman, supposed to be a neutral party (www.dhs.gov/topic/cis-ombudsman); 2) reach out to your congressmen (you have 2 senators and a congressman) and have them inquire; 3) request a FOIA (www.uscis.gov/g-639) to get all the info on your case - it's free, however this could add to the delay because the FOIA people have to pull your physical records; 4) call USCIS again and again and ask to speak to tier 2 representative; 5) make an infopass appointment to try and hurry them along (https://my.uscis.gov/appointment); 6) start the process of filing court action against them. I've seen a couple cases where just the threat of this speeds them along. 

 

What are they telling you when they call? Is it in administrative processing? Did the CO conducting your interview indicate you'd be approved or that there was something more he needed?

 

Can you also post your review of the interview? I'm an NYC filer as well so would love the input. (http://www.visajourney.com/reviews/index.php?cnty=&cty=New+York+City+NY&dfilter=5)

Thanks for the input! So far, I tried requesting an FOIA but now I think i'd like to try calling USCIS again to ask for "tier 2". That's something new I haven't tried.

Infopass is nearly impossible in NY. They haven't had open slots to meet in person in months and the one time I was able to speak to someone in person, they gave me the same exact information as the website. 

I don't know why i've been hesitating on writing my congressman but I definitely think that will need to happy very soon.

Thanks again and I will certainly post a review on our interview (although I think i didn't include that on my profile).

It's now a year and 1/2 since we first applied for our AOS and we are at a standstill.

Now the EAD is held up as well (filed in February 2018 to renew).

Two weeks ago, I requested a status on the UCIS site. They said they will not respond until June 8th.

Since our interview (July 2017), I have visited UCIS offices and called to inquire on our status countless times. No one is able to give us a status and although many folks are suffering over the same issue, I just can't rest easy until we receive his green card. 

Wouldn't we receive an RFE by now if there was anything missing?

I have pondered up at least 8 to 9 scenarios as to why we're having to wait this long. One being simply being because we interviewed in New York and NY offices are overwhelmed with cases.

Anyway, just thought I'd share a bit of what my husband and I are experiencing should anyone be in the same predicament.

Thanks

4 minutes ago, Sarah&Facundo said:

I hear you on that! My husband and I have been going a bit stir crazy as well. We haven't had to remain in one place for a long time! But as far as I know, we can travel around while it is pending. Basically if he doesn't have to show a passport and it is domestic, he is good to go! We are considering traveling in the next few months around the US too. 

Ok! Great to hear. I'd be happy with a quick trip to the canyons or palm beach. ANYTHING! Enjoy your summer.

12 minutes ago, Roel said:

You can travel within the US.

Just make sure you check your case status online or have someone check your mail in case you get RFE or interview invite or any communication from USCiS.  

Thanks! You always give great advise.

Hi Everyone,

Wondering if it's safe to travel within the US while having a pending status for my husband's i-485.

My husband and I have been sitting tight since we arrived to the states on his K1 and we're going a bit stir crazy.

Would be nice to take a little vacation to Florida or Hawaii but would certainly not want to take any risks!

Had anyone had trouble traveling within the status?? Advice would be greatly appreciated.

THANKS

1 minute ago, missileman said:

You applied for EAD with AOS, but you didn't file for Advance Parole, correct?

Correct. We were advised to wait it out until we received his residency. 

3 minutes ago, missileman said:

So your husband has his EAD, but no Advance Parole?  I ask because almost everyone files for both at the same time when filing for AOS.  There is no down side because there is no fee when filed along with AOS.

Yes he has his EAD, it's expiring soon so we applied for renewal. We initially applied for both together but the AOS is still pending so we needed to renew his EAD.

2 minutes ago, Boiler said:

Are they old enough to fly independently?

They are 12 and 13 years old. I was planning to visit them in DR and hopefully bringing them back with me for the summer.