patelmenow

My wife’s experience using her extension letter so far in 2022
 
January 
Port: San Pedro, California 
Method travel: cruise ship
Carrier: Royal Caribbean 
Destination: Mexico 
Departure experience: 
 
We presented her green card (which was going to expire the day the ship arrived in Mexico) and extension letter.  The check in clerk ignored her extension letter. The clerk kept scanning her  green card and typing away and then said: “your green card expires before you return to the USA”.  We pointed at the extension letter.  He had no clue what that was.  He summoned help.  They were equally clueless. 
 
We were moved to a separate check in desk for “special” situations.    No less than 5 carrier employees were confounded by the extension letter. The 6th one managed to complete our check in. 
 
Port of entry experience:
 
Ensenada, Mexico
 
Arrival
 
 As is normally the case with cruise ship travel,  no immigration  officer awaited us as we left the ship.  
 
Departure 
 
As is normally the case with cruise ship travel,  no immigration  
officer awaited as as we boarded the ship. 
 
Note that at foreign cruise stops my wife willfully and unapologetically does not carry her green card.  Her green card goes into the State room safe as soon as we arrive and stays there until we check out.  5Do not misconstrue this as advice to break USA law regarding the requirement of green card holders to always have their green cards with them.)
 
Thus if at a cruise port she were challenged for her green card, I’d have to go get it for her.  I do carry my passport card all the time.  
 
Return experience:
 
The CBP officer just glanced at her green card and waved us through. He didn’t ask for her extension letter.  Perhaps he didn’t notice the green card expired the day before.  
 
February:
 
 
Port: San Francisco International, California 
Method travel: commercial aircraft
Carrier: JetBlue  
Destination: Mexico 
Departure experience: 
 
We presented her expired green card  and extension letter.  The check in clerk had no clue. Her co-worker,  knew exactly what it was and indeed had traveled with a relative to the Philippines and back with such a letter.  However  his concern was whether the Mexican government would  accept  her extension letter. The clerk called her station manager who asked for photos of the letter and green card to be texted to him. We permitted.  The manager approved the check in.  
 
At the gate we were required to do a document check.  And we got a similar process accept this time the concern was whether the USA would admit my wife using the extension letter. I told them we’d been through this already a check in and the USA would admit us even if I had to walk us out of Tijuana into California.   That was acceptable.  
 
 
Port of entry experience:
 
Arrival
 
Cancun Airport.  
 
The immigration officer was competent and processed my wife’s passport, green card, and extension letter without comment.  
 
Departure
 
Suffice to say, this horrible experience documented in 
 regarding the incompetence of airline employees of Spirit and American Airlines with regard to I-551s that aren’t in a green card form factor was my biggest fear during this trip and it certainly it tempered the joy of the vacation and meeting up with my uncle who was staying at the same resort. So this is how it went down …

Check in at Jet Blue: the clerk knew exactly what an extension letter was and quickly checked us in. Utterly anticlimactic 
 
Mexico or at least Cancun doesn’t have formal immigration exit controls. There is an I-94-like strip of paper you get when you arrive at  Cancun airport that you are supposed to safeguard. This paper was stapled to our boarding pass and collected by the JetBlue gate clerk as we boarded by tearing our boarding passes in half.  Naturally we’ve yet to receive credit for the return flight in our American AAdvantage accounts.  
 
Return experience:
 
At San Francisco International we didn’t bother with the kiosks as we didn’t expect her green card to be accepted and there is no machine readable code on an extension letter.  The CBP officer looked at her green card and extension letter, stamped her passport, and wouldn’t collect out customs card. We made a verbal declaration of what we brought. We collected our bags and no one collected our customs card. No secondary.  
 
 Conclusions
 
1. The web abounds with urban legends that insist Mexico doesn’t accept extension letters and there are reports that Mexican consulates misinform travelers of the same.     While I think that  might have been true 5 years ago, it is not true today.  
 
2. Carriers  are where one will continue to have the most difficulty traveling with extension letters.  Get to the airport early, hope for the best, and arm yourself with this one page document from CBP that directs  airlines to board LPRs with valid extension letters on flights back to the USA: https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/assets/documents/2021-Dec/Reminder- LPR Boarding 20210305.pdf
 
“Airlines should not be determining admissibility of a travel outside the parameters of the document requirements.”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The forum messages suggest otherwise. Even cards such as Chase Sapphire Reserve with $550 annual fee and Amex Platinum with $695 in my experience flag perfectly legit transactions as fraudulent from time to time. Do you have recommendations? My recommendations is to NOT use credit cards for USCIS payments and rely on tried and tested technology this old fashioned agency is familiar with - personal or cashier's checks. Just because something is allowed doesn't always mean it's a good idea to do it.

I did notify my credit card company capital one about the upcoming charge they told me there is no way they can pre authorize the charge or change their security system. I called twice and spoke to 2 different managers same conclusion. I even took their employee ID and the call reference ID for the recordings. The charge came in as "ELGIN LOCKBOX" there is no way you can predict if the security system will flag it or not you can just hope it doesn't. I am just saying why take the risk and be in limbo if your cc will get declined or not just use another payment method to be safe. 
 
As for me filing it earlier I agree it is all on me in regard to that but even if you file a month ahead and have no issues with your payment the cases get accepted quickly especially if you make sure your package is scannable right away with no clips or anything else. 

wow. just wow... IOEs are fast 

You need the original extension notice to re-enter US.
 
Once I showed a copy of my latest immigration notice at the US airport immigration and they didn’t let me. Luckily I had my previous original notice with me, which was still valid and that got me cleared.

This is for all march submissions and also for future filings below is my current timeline for I-751 and a very close call and mistake I hope everyone in VJ avoids moving forward. 
 
DACA to AOS (DONE THROUGH ATTORNEY):                                                                                                                                   
•    11/05/2019 - AOS (I-485, I765, I-131 Mailed)    
•    11/07/2019 - AOS (I-485, I765, I-131 Received)  
•    11/18/2019 - AOS (I-485, I765, I-131 NOA’s received in mail)  
•    11/29/2019 - AOS (Fingerprint notice received)  
•    12/13/2019 - AOS (Fingerprint appointment)  
•    02/24/2020 - AOS (I-131 Approval notice Received)  
•    02/25/2020 - AOS (I-765 Approval notice Received)  
•    02/05/2021 - AOS (I-485 Interview notice Received)  
•    03/10/2021 - AOS (I-485 Interview appointment)  
•    03/10/2021 - AOS approved on the spot and status changed to card in production.   
•    03/12/2021 – Green card received in the mail. 

REMOVAL OF CONDITIONS ON PR CARD (DONE BY ME): 
•    11/05/2022 – Reminder to file for I-751 received in the mail don’t ask why I filed it so late was chasing my lawyer around for the costs and the process didn’t get back to me until February I don’t know why I waited so long for him. 
•    02/19/2023 – ROC (I-751 mailed) 
•    02/22/2023 – ROC (I-751 received) 
•    02/24/2023 – ROC (Credit card I used capital one got declined) 
•    02/27/2023 – ROC (I-751 rejected due to payment being declined) 
•    02/26/2023 – ROC (I-751 2nd package mailed because I knew first one got declined so automatically, I knew it got rejected P.S I USED A PERSONAL CHECK THIS TIME) 
•    03/01/2023 – ROC (I-751 2nd package received) 
•    03/03/2023 – ROC (I-751 2nd package rejected yet again because I thought I didn’t include the rejection notice but what had happened is I included a copy of my G-1455 from the first filing so the officer thought I was trying to use 2 payments but I expressed this in the cover letter it’s just for evidence purpose, but I guess they didn’t read it) 
•    03/03/2023 – ROC (I-751 1st rejected package received in the mail) 
•    03/08/2023 – ROC (I-751 3rd package mailed at this point I am in super panic mode because my 90 day was up on March 10th but because of the previous mistakes it came to this) 
•    03/09/2023 – ROC (I-751 3rd package received literally a day before my GC expired this time I only mailed a personal check along with the first rejected package I got and also included a fresh new package in case because I didn’t know you can include the rejected package ONLY and it will be fine) 
•    03/14/2023 – ROC (I called USCIS to get an update and told me the magic words “your case has been accepted” oh man I was so relieved to hear this I was jumping up and down I also got the receipt number for my case from them)
•    03/15/2023 – ROC (personal check was cashed and was posted on my checking account the same day I have never been so happy to see someone take $680 from my account ever in my life)
•    03/20/2023 – ROC (NOA’s received in the mail but I have yet to get a text message from USCIS)
•    03/21/2023 – ROC (Extension letter received in the mail)
***PLEASE ANYONE FILING ANY USCIS FORMS DO NOT USE DO NOT USE!!!!! CREDIT CARD AS A PAYMENT OR YOU WILL REGRET IT TRUST ME LOOK AT MY CASE***
 

I would wait for the rejected package to come in the mail. I didnt wait when i learned that capital one rejected the payment as fraud and I prepared a brand new one and shipped it via Fedex 2 day AM. This also got rejected I am not sure why because I included a personal check this time and I dont have that many 0's in them. So only reason I can think it got rejected is because they need the green rejection letter to be in your package.