Hello everyone,
I want to share my story about how long I've been waiting for GC...
So, I paid an immigrant visa fee on 30th October 2021
Then I arrived in USA on 9th November 2021
I was informed that I must receive my GC within 90 days of my entry.
I hoped that within 90 days I will receive my GC, but after 90 days I received nothing...
I submitted a request about 'outside of normal processing time' and after about 30 days they responded to my request, but without any specific information about the delay... In the response, there was like "We need some additional time for processing your case..." After that, I submitted another request and after a few weeks, they finally responded with information that my case is blocked because they "Did not receive Immigrant Visa Packet IV"... and I need to make an appointment to the local USCIS office and submit it in there.
So, I found out that the reason of all that delay was that the border officer at the airport made a mistake and returned Visa packet IV to me... HE SHOULD HAVE SENT it to the USCIS but he did not...!
My advice to all who will come to the USA soon for the GC.. ALWAYS ASK border officer about this Visa Packet IV. Make him double-check it if he needs to collect it or not! Otherwise, you may have a very big delay if he just returns this packet to you!
Now the second part of the story!
After I knew what's the problem I made a request for an appointment in the local USCIS office (in my case it's Chicago).
The USCIS has 30-days term for providing an answer on the request for appointment. Within this period they must call you and set up an appointment for you.
So, after a 2 or 3 weeks, the representative called me by phone and told me: "No available appointments at the moment" and I need to make another request for an appointment...
I submitted a second request for an appointment, but after 3 weeks the situation was the same!! The Representative called me on the phone and instead of setting up an appointment to me he just told that "No available appointments at the moment"...
After that, I made a third request and told them that I already made 2 requests so I really need this and I was assured by the representative that this time "I will finally get an appointment - I just need to wait when they will call me back within 30 days"... I waited for another 30 days... but this time nobody even called me back...!!! 😨 So, after that I called them again, and on 4th time they finally escalated this to an "emergency" situation because of too many requests that I made, and on the next day, the representative called me on the phone and finally set an appointment on 8 June 2022 for me.
So, it took me more than 2 months just to get to the local USCIS office...
And now the worst thing among all this.. Today in the morning I was in the local USCIS office and submitted the "Immigrant Visa Packet IV". The representative told me that they will not process this packet in the local office - they will just mail it to the main office and the main office will deal with it.
Then I asked the representative when will I finally receive the GC as I finally provided this packet to them? He told me that I may receive GC... from 6 to 9 months since today!!! I told him that I had already been waiting for more than 200 days, but he told me that all that previous time that I waited doesn't matter! The process will start only when USCIS will receive this packet.. So, I asked him why 6-9 months?? Why not 90 days..?. He told me that "90 days" range is no longer available, and now the processing time for this is 6-9 MONTHS!!! And if by that time my temporary Visa stamp will be over I need to set up another apointment to extend my temporary visa... Now it's only 5 month left until it will be expired... and I know how bad is experience of setting up an appointment to them...
I'm literally shocked at the moment...
So, I'm on my 212 day now, and as I understand I still need to wait 6-9 months more... I'm absolutely upset and disappointed...