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Nile_Romance

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Posts posted by Nile_Romance

    California to Texas & Texas to California - Part 2

    in IR-1 / CR-1 Spouse Visa Process & Procedures

    Posted

    Hello my friends - I just wanted to touch base and say hello. I have not been active on this site for a while as my husband is from Egypt. In addition to worrying about him and following the entire "Revolution of Jan 24" (as he refers to it), the US Embassy in Cairo has been closed for interviews for 2 months and I was working some VERY long hours at my job. Once the Embassy reopens, it will first reschedule the interveiws previously scheduled (and then canceled) for Feb/Mar and then start scheduling the ones that have been approved since then.

    I hope to do an expedite for the USCIS error (plus some other things). NVC is telling me that can't accept expedite's since the Embassy is "closed for interview" and only open for US Citizen emergencies. Any thoughts on this one? Should I just have NVC complete their process and then ask for the expedite as soon as the embassy opens again??

    I am so happy for those of you that have moved on in the process, gotten interview dates and even final approval. Congrats to you all and best wishes to those still "in the process somewhere".

    August 2010 - CR1/IR1 Filers

    in IR-1 / CR-1 Spouse Visa Case Filing and Progress Reports

    Posted

    Did you get transferred from CSC to TSC? If so, then the fact that getting an NVC case number has been so long is actually normal. A lot of people approved from TSC have yet to get a case number and some people have been waiting more than one month.

    I think that there is a black hole at TSC (or many black holes). In this case, they don't seem to have a good process for when a case is approved to move it to NVC quickly. I'm guessing that each agent either waits until he/she has a big pile and then sends them all together OR the approving agent sends them to someone else at TSC who waits does the same thing (waits for a big pile before sending them and does this only once per month or once per quarter :bonk: ) or, even scarier they sit on the agents desk for a while AND THEN sit in the central distribution to NVC for even longer. :crying: Obviously, they are not leaving TSC in the same way that they leave CSC.

    August 2010 - CR1/IR1 Filers

    in IR-1 / CR-1 Spouse Visa Case Filing and Progress Reports

    Posted

    I'm glad everyone is getting approved, we got our NOA1 on 08/20/2010 from California and then got transfered to Texas on 11/3/2010 , I guess I will calling tomorrow as it looks like everyone around my date is getting approved left and right?

    Since my wife doesn't yet have a SSN how are you guys claiming married for 2010 taxes?

    Ditto what Saylin said about the ITIN and W-7. My husband and I did that so I know the drill. The W-7 is sent WITH your tax return (1040) and you send it to a separate address that assigns your spouse the ITIN number, fills it in on your 1040 and then processes your 1040 as usual.

    Be careful if you have to file a state income tax return and don't file "on the deadline". I made this mistake. I had both of my returns ready to go "on the due date" and when I went to mail them, I realized that I didn't have the ITIN number to put on the state return. I was then told I had to wait for the ITIN to be processed by the IRS, and personally add it to my state return before I could file. Needless to say, my state return was late.

    Best wishes to you both.

    California Service Center To Texas Service Center

    in IR-1 / CR-1 Spouse Visa Process & Procedures

    Posted

    Hello to all from SC. I am new to this forum. I too am waiting on my I-130 approval. This morning I called USCIS and spoke to this very kind and helful female. I gave her my receipt # and looked at my case, she said it was outside the estimated period (5 months). She submitted a service request referral for someone to look at my case. She asked me for my name, dob, mailing address, e-mail address, receipt #, phone #, date I submitted I-130 and what was the last thing I heard from USCIS. She gave me a referral number and that someone will contact me w/in the next 30 days and if no one calls me to please call back. I hope this really helps. I hope other people waiting call.

    Welcome to this forum. As you can tell it's been pretty crazy here lately. This CSC to TSC thing has been a hugh fiasco. Glad you found us. Everyone here is helpful and supportive and shares great info to help us all.

    I'm just curious. When you made your call to USC, did you file the service request with the original person that answered the phone (level 1) or were you put on hold and transfered to a "higher level" (level 2) person?

    California Service Center To Texas Service Center

    in IR-1 / CR-1 Spouse Visa Process & Procedures

    Posted

    First of all, God bless Ron for his email post, I called Denice Mitchell yesterday, emailed her our info and timeline and wonder above all wonders woke up to approvals on both our I-130 and I-129F. Thank all of you for your encouragement and support we are now one step closer to going home(USA). Congrats to each and everyone of you who received your approvals and to those who have not, hang in there, they are just around the corner. Soon we will all be taking our next steps and supporting each other through those. I am feeling totally BLESSED at this moment.

    :thumbs::dance:Congrats! Congrats! Congrats! :dance::thumbs:

    California Service Center To Texas Service Center

    in IR-1 / CR-1 Spouse Visa Process & Procedures

    Posted

    Also, if we can get more people to sign this electronic petition that someone with a loved one in Kenya posted yesterday, we might be able to raise more awareness. It only has like 83 signatures right now, but if we all put it on our facebook, or whatever social networking acoounts that we may use, more people will see it and sign it. Here's the link:

    http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/falling-in-love-with-someone-from-another-country-is-not-a-crime/

    Signed it. Thanks for posting. Did you post on other forums within VJ and other similar sites?

    California Service Center To Texas Service Center

    in IR-1 / CR-1 Spouse Visa Process & Procedures

    Posted

    TSC I-130 Processing Volumes

    I'm not sure when it was updated but I just looked at the Processing Volumes for TSC for I-130 immidiate relatives.

    http://dashboard.uscis.gov/index.cfm?formtype=4&office=5&charttype=2

    • Form Type: I-130 Imm Rel
    • Select and Office: Texas Servicing Center
    • Select Chart Type: Volume Chart
    • The chart at the top will be for all Service Center combined and the TSC is the bottom chart

    The chart is as of Nov 10 2010 and contains the following key data items:

    • I-130 Imm Rel completed this month (10/11 - 11/10) = 400
    • Total I-130 Imm Rel pending = 36,043

    Who ever said they shipped 36,000 from CSC to TSC was correct. Many of us are in that pile. Uggggggggggg

    California Service Center To Texas Service Center

    in IR-1 / CR-1 Spouse Visa Process & Procedures

    Posted

    I don't mean to rub it in, but it's going to be 74 and mostly sunny today B-)

    :ot:

    OK, OK, rub in your warm weather stories. I live in MN where it was 26 BELOW zero this past week so it is wonderful to have it get up to 21F/7C today.

    We have had one of our coldest winters in decades and the snowfall is setting records too. I told my husband (in Egypt) that maybe God had a plan in delaying our immigration because if he had come at the beginning of the winter, the cold may have sent him packing back to Egypt :). Over there, they wear fur lined winter coats when the temp gets down to about 65F/18C. I know he loves me a lot and moving from Egypt to MN only proves it more.

    :ot2:

    I'm so happy to hear some people are making some progress with using external sources. Unless you piss off a realy bad USCIS employee who purposefully sabotages your petition, I don't have any reason to believe that repeated calling can hurt your/our cases. The people who answer the phones are different than the people who are actually working on the peitions. We have also seen many circumstances on this board of people who have perservered with every possible avenue to get attention given to their petition and some have been successful (although not enough).

    I wish you ALL a very successful week in the processing of your immigration, wherever you are in the process.

    PS - And Keep warm (if you are not one of the lucky warm weather dwellers) :)

    California Service Center To Texas Service Center

    in IR-1 / CR-1 Spouse Visa Process & Procedures

    Posted · Edited by Nile_Romance

    I would just LOVE to know what exactly these background checks are. I mean the beneficiary has to provide a police report, so what exactly ARE these checks, and why does it take so long?

    It is my understanding (from research, USCIS discussion, Lawyer discussions, etc) that USCIS does do both the petitioner and beneficiary background check before approving the I-130. On the benneficiary side, they are looking for any reason that the applicant might be a National security risk if he/she came to the US.

    For beneficiary background checks, there are many variables that can affect the time line (ease of access to information, electronic data vs manual, timlieness of foreign government employees to respond to requests, if beneficiaries name is common and/or if there are people with a similar name that the US would not accept for security reasons, etc.)

    I'm surprised that this would be an issue for the USCIS with UK citizens. My experience is that electronic people data in the UK is much better than the in the US. In our case, Egypt still has a lot of manual records that are kept ONLY in the towns where they were recorded. My husband was required to gather some of this info himself when he applied for his required military service. He spent months going from town to town and various govt agencies within a town to get the required documents. Even then, he had to pay a lot of bribes unless he wanted to wait several more months (and get drafted for 2 add'l years of military service while waiting for them).

    Despite it being easier to gather data from some countries (such as the UK) over others. I doubt that USCIS uses good multi-tasking skills to speed up the petitions when the background checks are received sooner. They probably have a stack of petitions, do step 1 for all of them, wait until the results come back from all of them to start step 2 and so on. Just my cynical opion of course, but it is probably much more likely they do this "batch type" method than using a more effective process that would be requried if they had any accountability for the outcome.

    Hang in there everyone. NOA2's and NVC ARE coming. :)

    California Service Center To Texas Service Center

    in IR-1 / CR-1 Spouse Visa Process & Procedures

    Posted

    The US embassy in London is the place to work - the amount of holiday that they have is amazing. All US and all UK. NICE!!

    I always thought the same of the US Embassy in Cairo. They too get all of the Egyptioan holidays plus all of the US holidays, 28 in total. That blows me away.

    On top of that, they get the standard "US" weekend of 2 days per week while employees of the Egyptian government get 1 "weekend" day and most non-government Egyptians work 7 days a week.

    Just like USCIS, when I we go to the US embassy in Cairo there is NEVER a sense of urgancy. They will get to it when they get to it and, if not, you can come back tomorrow. Unreal!

    California Service Center To Texas Service Center

    in IR-1 / CR-1 Spouse Visa Process & Procedures

    Posted

    Here is the transcript from Laurel Scott's chat.

    Iminca: FromSTARS:For all of us whose I130s were transferred from CSC to TSC, what options do we have other than contacting members of congress?

    Laurel: Having your case transferred from CSC to TSC is not a problem. In fact the reason they do it is to process your case faster. There's no reason to be upset about it. You should instead be thankful.

    Iminca: From: DanTes

    I-130 petition for my spouse was received by CSC on 07/27/2010, and was transferred to TSC on 11/03/2010. I received I-797C approval notice from TSC dated 11/23/2010. Received a letter from USCIS, in response to my service request, on 12/23/2010, stating: "Your application was ordered approved in November, However, the processing is not complete. The application has not been transferred to the National Visa Center, and the approval letter has not been sent. A request has been made to the adjudicating officer to complete the processing of this application". Was my petition approved by mistake? What sort of "processing" takes place at the service center after the petition has been approved? I understand that thousands of petitions were transferred from CSC to TSC ostensibly to "speed up processing". Do you have any insight as to what could possibly be happening with my petition?

    Laurel: It sounds like the individual adjudicator made some sort of behind-the-scenes administrative error. He may have forgotten to sign something or forgot to enter something in the database or something like that. You may never find out what he forgot to do. This sort of thing is not unheard of. There's not much you can do about it. It's human error.

    Iminca: from Xelance: You may have already answered this from DanTes question..but here it goes. Do you know what is going on at Texas Service Center? Does the 5 month processing time really start over if your case is transferred to a different center? I was originally a California Service Center filer with an NOA1 date of July 2nd and was transferred in November along with many other petitions..I have yet to get my NOA2 6 months later, while California Service Center September filers seem to be getting theirs already. Have you got any word about what happened there and WHY they decided to transfer us instead of September/ October filers? What a horrible, unthoughtful move....Thanks for any insight you can give us!

    Laurel: Have you ever been in a traffic jam and you switch lanes because the next one over is moving faster. But then as soon as you get in the other lane it slows down and the one you were just in is moving faster. CIS was trying to move your case along faster. It didn't work out, but the move was not horrible or unthoughtful

    rich: Laurel: reading on various websites theres so many petitions been passed to TSC from CSC. I know the objective was to speed things up, but its not worked. Have you any idea what will happen, a lot are July filers for Spousal visas, were told they'd been approved in Nov/Dec - but have not received their hard i797c notice, nor does the nvc have record of them. do you think the good idea has lead to a major problem with Texas SC?

    Laurel: Wow, lots of questions about this. If it's an entire class of individuals and not a single case wherein an office-wide error has occurred, then I would presume CIS is aware of the problem and I would give them a little time to resolve it. Your attorney can check with the AILA liaison for TSC to get more information. I'll see what I can find out and I will post it on the 'news' section on the main page of my website.

    I noticed that Laurel gave a standard "USCIS like" answer for the 1st two but on the 3rd one she started to see that it was a system wide problem and plans to look into it. :dance:

    Thank you RichiJenny for making the suggestion for this approach and for posting the transcript. Thanks also to all of the individuals who sent in their questions. It looks like having more that one of you involved did the trick. I am anxious to see if she finds out anything.

    By the way - Does anyone know what an "AILA Liason" is?

    California Service Center To Texas Service Center

    in IR-1 / CR-1 Spouse Visa Process & Procedures

    Posted

    The last person told me to wait 180 days from my last notice. Another 6 months!! What a joke!! I'm already at month 6 and counting.

    I don't post much but I am in with ya all...I called the customer service number and was told I had to wait 60 days from the last action that was taken on my case (which was 11-30-10) before I could submit a service request...

    Thanks a lot for this, Thomas. So Feb 23, eh? I think I can deal with that, IF it really turns out that way. Geez louise...

    Today is 5 months + 1 day from my NOA1 priority date. I will do whatever it takes to file a service request. I found a USCIS "Customer Guide" guide online that states that WE CAN file a SR if the USCIS processing time is outside of their guidelines (http://www.uscis.gov/files/article/F1eng.pdf - pg 1, lower left, paragraph titled "Processing Times"). Also the USCIS processing times FOR ALL service centers for a spousal I-130 is 5 months (https://egov.uscis.gov/cris/processTimesDisplayInit.do). I don't care how they manage service centers internally. Our NOA1 date was Aug 5, it is past the 5 months and their own documentation states I am entitled to service request.

    Obviously, I will be super polite and politically correct when making the call and will start with the “assumption” that the rep is good at his or her job and wants to help me (hmph, hmph – clearing my throat). If that doesn’t work, I will continue to be super polite and respectful and point out that their own documentation states that they will process a request if they are outside of the posted processing time frames. If I feel I am getting nowhere, I will simply say goodbye, call back, get another person and try again.

    If your NOA1 date is older than 5 months, I strongly suggest you do the same if you haven’t already. If their response to my request for an SR or their response to the SR itself does not meet “normal expectations” under THEIR guidelines, I will also contact my congress people and an Ombudsman. In the meantime, if they tell me to call back in 60 days, 180 days, or any other unacceptable time frame, I will simply keep calling back until I get a rep that can help me.

    Another avenue I might try is to make an infopass appointment at my local USCIS office. I have done this before and they were actually very nice and helpful. Since I wasn't outside of the processing timeline, they couldn't do a lot for me but, since that has changed, I will go their again if needed.

    California Service Center To Texas Service Center

    in IR-1 / CR-1 Spouse Visa Process & Procedures

    Posted

    I'm here to join all the angry mob against being transferred and waiting too dang long. My NoA1 was Aug 9th, got transferred to TSC and then they notified me yet again with this email:

    ...The I130 IMMIGRANT PETITION FOR RELATIVE, FIANCE(E), OR ORPHAN was transferred and is now being processed at a USCIS office.

    FYI - This happened to several of us. In our case, I called the USCIS 800 number, talked to a level 2 person and learned that it was still at TSC and has never moved after that.

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