Immigration Help

[mkcbs]

It seems like our application has fallen through the cracks or that someone is deliberatly causing delyas. We are trying to get my wife a marriage based green card and it is taking forever. She came to the US with a student visa in 1997 then got a work based visa in 2001. We started the marriage based green card process in July 2007 and had our initial interview in Nov 2007. Since then, the only updates we have received on our case have been at least 3 transfer notices. Between our lawyer and us we have called the service center for updates but with no information provided. We also moved from NY to NJ this year in May given the lack of information on our case's progress even though we waited for 2 years knowing that a move causes additional delays. Finally, out of frustration and two years of waiting, we booked an InfoPass session in NJ in July 2009 and were told at the appointment that our case was not in the Missouri office but in the Nebraska office even though the last transfer notice we received indicated MO. In addition, we were told that there was no record of our initial interview. Further, we were also told that the two A#'s that my wife had on file was confusing to the USCIS and is what caused the delay of two years on our file. The manager in charge told us that my case has now been consolidated under my wife's work A# and that we need to send a letter to the Nebraska field office requesting another interview. We asked whether cancelling my wife's work based petition would help simplify the process but they told us not to do so and to leave everything as-is. Lastly, we just received another transfer notice (August 21, 2009) on my wife's work file stating that it has been transferred to the MO office.

All the information we have received is contradictory and confusing and we're not sure who to contact or what to do next. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to really find out what is going on with our file? Or is this just normal? It feels like there's something very wrong here and our application is well out of normal processing times and we're not sure who to go to to appeal our case. Does anyone have any suggestions or know of any resources that could help?

[bkwld]

It is very frustrating. Lots of cases do go out of normal processing time but that can be requested for services. Who is your attorney? Any capable Immigration attorney can find out what is going on by calling the actual Service Center. Also, if you had an attorney on record, they should be receiving all of the notices and your move to another location shouldn’t have mattered considering you moved to a neighboring state. Did you call the National call center or the actual service center? Did you talked to an actual officer who has power to look at your case on the computer and present them to their supervisor to adjudicate your case?
Your case being transferred to Nebraska seem odd as Missouri office should have jurisdiction over your I-485 case. I believe if Nebraska has your case, they cannot adjudicate it. As every case is different, only your attorney knows the full scope of what is going on, such as: is the biometric in the USCIS system? Did they miss a RFE and this case is considered abandoned? You need to sit down with your attorney with the case packet he submitted to USCIS and all of the receipts and notices and contact the actual service center your case is located.

Also, I just read where you got a transfer notice that it was transfered to MO!? You case should have been filed there in the first place. There is no other place for you to file unless the attorney filed to the wrong place. All marriage I-485 case is sent to Chicago and MO has jurisdiction even when I-130 is filed concurrently. Please check to see where it was filed originally.

The good news out of all this is that you wife might receive a permanent green card instead of the conditional green card.