Mia7980

Hopefully this will help those that are having a hard time scheduling an appointment on infopass
 
You probably have seen this message "Currently, there are no available appointments. Please check again tomorrow." every time you try to use infopass to get an appointment.  Like you, it was very frustrating because it seems like there just isn't any appointments no matter what hour of the day you try, and even if you do get lucky, the appointment date seems are weeks away.
 
Here's what I did to get an appointment and hopefully it will help you too. 
 
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.  I use chrome and the extensions I added is called SuperAuto Refresh and Visualping. 
go to the infopass page where you see the message "Currently, there are no available appointments. Please check again tomorrow."  and set it to auto refresh.  then set Visualping to monitor to check it every minute.  it will notify you with a pop up when the page appears with appointment dates. 
 
I did this while at work, and while I was doing other stuff on my computer, a message popped up and i was able to get an appointment. 
couple thing i noticed was, it gave me an appointment that was 2 days from now, which I was very surprised.  but I screwed up and hit back and that appointment date and time was gone.  my guess was someone canceled so there was a spot available but because i was too slow someone else took that spot.  so, make sure you stop the auto refresh as soon as the appointment calendar pops up so it doesn't refresh again.
Another thing I noticed was that for 2 days while I try this, the only time it appeared was in the morning between 8am to 10am Pacific time for the Los Angeles USCIS location.  It didn't appear for the rest of the day while I was working and had it running the whole time.
 
I need to get Advanced Parole, but the dates didn't work for me, so I still ended up just showing up at USCIS without an appointment.  They didn't seem too happy that I didn't get an appointment but still took me in.  Your mileage may vary depending on where you are, but hopefully this info will help someone who need to get an infopass appointment.
 
It also seems like it doesn't matter which USCIS location you go to.  At the LA County USCIS, there's 2 lines, one is for those that are within their jurisdiction (they check by zipcode) and another is for others, maybe trying to get an appointment at another location or set two browsers with on autorefresh and try to get whichever appointment is the earlier one..  Good Luck.
 
 
 

Hey dear VJ's …it's been a loooong time (almost 2 years )
We are back with some updates on our case. But before that let me go over our story really quick in case you don't really wanna read entire thread lol.
So after our interview in August 4th 2014 local office approved us. Day later they sent us a letter that our case is re-opened and not too long after that we got another letter of INTENT to DENY our I-130. That was very shocking for all of us, but my lawyer decided to appeal their decision. Within 30 days we sent appeal and 2 months latter USCIS is sending us official denial letter stating that since we never appealed their decision they will deny our I-130
Even though we sent appeal we didn't have proof we did (imagine that they never received it WOW) and there was nothing left to do then to make appeal with BIA, which we actually did. 6 long months later BIA APPROVED our I-130 and that was final decision.
After our approval we requested master hearing with IJ to close removal proceeding and we applied for EAD. EAD was approved and sent 2 months later and we got notice of hearing with IJ for January 5th 2015. Seeing IJ was very successful. It leased 5 minutes where IJ closed removal proceedings, wished us good luck and made a joke that he hopes to never see us again We were like oh yeahhh i hope so!
Right after that we got letter from USCIS that our form I-485 was reopened (since it was administratively closed) and we only had to wait for either decision or interview date.
In February we got RFE, they needed new medical exam but they stated NOT to send it back at this point. In that moment my lawyer knew they will call us in for another interview. And in March we actually did get notice of our interview date for April 19th 2016.
Interview date:
Ufff that day was nerve wrecking hahah It was set up for 8.10am in our local immigration office. We brought our entire file to the interview just in case they needed something. Especially new documents that were never submitted, like new life insurance policy, joint tax returns for 2015, new apartment lease etc etc.
Finally 40 mins after 8.10am we got called in. IO was very scary at the beginning but later on he smiled which was very pleasant to see. He asked us a few questions about our marriage, like:
How long have we been married, how did we meet, where did we meet, do we have kids, do we work and where, how long etc etc. Then he asked for medical exam and if we brought in some additional documents. We gave it to him and he picked a few pictures from our 300+ photos. Then he went trough all questions from I-485 form and after that he asked to give him a few minutes to updated our file. He turned to his computer and was typing something. Then he stood up and said CONGRATULATIONS your case is approved and explained us that we should be getting green card in mail in about two weeks. Then he punched a hole in my EAD and said we won't be needing this anymore. He gave us Interview Results paper and escorted us out
Sooooo here we are after almost 6 years of battle with USCIS. We are nervously waiting for our GC to arrive in our mailbox. I just wanted to THANK each and every one of you guys for your support. WE FINALLY WON and thats exactly what we wish to YOU!
If you guys have any questions please feel free to ask!

I'm a legal permanent resident, filed an I-130 petition for my wife in May 2016. Case was denied in June 2017. My lawyer believes that we have a very good chance of convincing USCIS/BIA (Board of Immigration Appeals) to reverse the decision.
We filed an appeal on July 14th 2017, a week ago. In the appeal, we indicated that - as an alternative - USCIS can treat this as a Motion to Reopen (MTR) . Given the existing evidence (original documentation filed in I-130 packet), new evidence and the brief, we believe that USCIS may reverse the decision without having to forward the case to the BIA.
 
My questions:
- Does USCIS (The service center's director, who made the original decision) actually review the appeals before forwarding them to BIA? Do they consider them for an MTR? 
I was under the impression that the answer is "Yes", until I talked to a tier 2 officer this morning, and the officer said that USCIS does NOT reopen I-130 case, and they forward the case to the BIA and I should expect to receive a new case number in the mail within 3 week. The officer confirmed that USCIS never considers I-130 case for a MTR (Motion to Reopen/Reconsider). Can anyone confirm?

- How long does USCIS take to review appeals before?
Again, I was under the impression that USCIS takes 60 days to review the appeal/make a decition; if they are not going to reverse the decision, they will forward the case to BIA.
 
- How long does BIA take to make a decision?
I understand that the answer is "It depends" ... I just want an average, people with similar cases (LPR appealing I-130) to give us some hope ... given that our original case took 13 months (average is 5 months).
 
- Would it be wise to file a new I-130, in addition to the appeal?

- If yes, What if both the new case and the appeal get approved, Do we got to keep our original priority date? 
 
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
PS: