8/23/05 Went to INS with INFOPASS. Imm officer looked up in his computer that my FBI namecheck got cleared. Still waiting on my wife's.
8/31/05 Got approval letter from INS in a mail. My case was approved as of 8/27/05.
9/1/05 Went to INS and got a stamp in my passport. Imm officer looked up my wife's case and said that it is still being processed.
9/2/05 Took off for LA LA Land for a labor day holiday with my wife.
9/3/05 Our housekeeper called in on my cell to tell that there is another INS letter addressed for my wife. I told her to open it and that was another approval letter. My wife's case was approved on Sep 1.
9/8/05 went to INS and got a stamp in my wife's passport.
9/10/05 Received my plastic green card in a mail.
9/12/05 Bought 2 airline round trip tickets to visit our parents back in Central Asia. I'm going for a month. My wife's for 2+ months.
9/15/05 Still waiting for my wife's plastic card to arrive in a mail.
Well, we wish you all good luck and this is the end of our DV2005 saga.
Next is DV2006 case for my parents and sister. EU7XXX. It will be Consular Processing, though.
Cheers!
Gu Ga (One lucky son of a gun!)
Backstory: I'm winner of DV2005 EU18XXX while on H1B. Married, spouse has H1B too but expiring on July 17, 2005.
We filed I-485 on March 29, 2005 with San Francisco District Office. Attached checks with I-485 have been cleared by SF BCIS on March 31 and April 1. It has been 2 months now and there is no any feedback from SF BCIS. There is no case number either.
June 7, 2005: Update form SF BCIS INFOPASS visit this morning:
I didn't get to speak to Immigration officer but rather to a person who asks why here and gives out a waiting number. As soon I mentioned lottery case, she asked when I filed and if check have been cashed. I filed on March 29 and checks have been cashed on march 31 and april 1.
She told me that she works in mail processing unit too and they are working on entering cases filed on last week of march. Most likely they will send out receipt confirmation letter within a week.
When I asked about how long it takes for fingerprinting, FBI namecheck and interview scheduling, she ackowledged that lottery cases are special processing with considiration of deadline Sept. 30. They will try to compelete DV cases with in deadlines. She asked me to leave my phone number on infopass appointment letter and that she will try to look for my case and send it to special processing unit.
When I asked about EAD timeline for my wife, since her h1b expires in a month, she told me that they will send out letter for fingerprinting within couple of weeks and once we come for fingerprinting they can process EAD right away too.
June 15, 2005: Received notices from SF BCIS for fingerprinting, EAD and travel document (advance parole) pick up.
June 24, 2005: Received our EAD and Travel documents at SF BCIS, submitted our fingerprints for security checks at application support center. People at fingerprinting center told me that it takes 2 days for FBI to receive our fingerprints. As far as how long it take for FBI to process it, they don't know. My attorney says that it should not take more than 78 hours for FBI to process security checks once they get to our file. Question is how long it takes for our file to get to processing stage once FBI receives that file.
7/1/05: Received interview appointment letter for 7/18/05. We gotta prep our employment verification letters now and prep for interview. One another question I have for my attorney is what do we do with my wife's H1B expiring on 7/17/05?
7/18/2005: Today we had our interview for Adjustment of Status in San Francisco BCIS. It went really quick and easy. Everything was ok except FBI namecheck has not been completed yet. Here is how it went step-by-step: Arrived 30 min earlier and met with attorney who has been waiting for us. He had two more interview appointments earlier this day. One was for family based green card another for DV 2005 case. He told us that his other DV2005 case was ok except FBI namecheck pending. For his second family based case (US citizen daughter sponsoring parents) her mother's green card got approved while her dad's green card is pending on FBI namecheck.
Exactly at 2pm our names were called. It was the same immigration officer who interviewed our attorney's two clients earlier in a day. He was very friendly and has been joking once in a while. First thing, immigration officer asked us to sign a blank green card and put an ink fingerprint on it. He explained that upon approval that card with our signature and fingerprint will be issued as an actual green card.
Then we (our attoney, my wife and I) walked into his office and rised our right hand and gave an oath of telling truth. He asked to show our California IDs, Social Security Cards, Employment Authorization Cards and Passports with I-94s. He barely looked through our passports and kept our I-94 to himself and returned everything else. Our attorney gave him our tax returns and W2s for last 3 years and employment verification letters.
Imm officer looked through our file to make sure he has everything and it all checked out. Then he said that he will ask few questions to make sure that our I-485 form is correct and complete. He asked me first: my full name, any other names used, current address, daytime phone, current employer, criminal/drug/political/fraudulent check list - answer no to all.
Then he asked the same from my wife. Then he put a stamp on those forms and gave to us to doublecheck if he is not missing anything (name spelling, date of birth, etc.) and had us sign next to the stamp. (Basically, to verify that went through interview process).
He then gave us a form that states that we have been to the interview and our case is pending due to security clearance stage. He explained to our attorney that it is the same case with us as it was with other earlier people. In other words, FBI fingerprint have cleared with in 10 days but FBI namecheck is still pending. Attorney asked him when was the date INS filed for FBI namecheck. Imm officer looked it up and FBI namecheck was filed on June 28. Attorney mentioned that INS supposed to start FBI namecheck upon receiving our file which was March 29 and deadline is fast approaching. For which, imm officer replied that he will send an expedite request for our DV cases. Then our attorney and imm officer agreed on our attorney contacting imm officer directly over our DV cases by mid Sep. Nevertheless, imm officer insured that he will personally will follow up on FBI namechecks due to time sensetivity of our cases.
As for my wife's H1B expired as of yesterday, imm officer told us that since our I-485 pending, it is ok to continue working with her EAD. Nevertheless, he advised to file for change of status to H4. That's what we did after leaving INS. We efiled for H4 and it took 1 hour to get a confirmation.
08/05/2005 Called INS 800 and spoke with Imm officer. He looked up our cases by A# and said that our case is still been processed. For question, does he think that FBI namecheck will be completed by Sep 30, he answered that he doesn't see any reason why it won't be. Then he gave me our case tracking numbers (same as a 13 character receipt number that starts with WAC).
I looked it up on the
www.uscis.gov website and it reads:
"Your I181 CREATION OF RECORD OF LAWFUL PERMANENT RESIDENCE was received on June 22, 2005. We mailed you a receipt with information about processing. It is taking between 30 and 60 days for us to process this kind of case. We will mail you a decision as soon as processing is complete."
Well, I'm going to make an Infopass appointment for Aug. 23 so that I can go and bug my SF BCIS office on what's happening with my case if I don't get approval by that time.
8/15/05 Just called to my attorney to remind him to send an official inquiry letter on our DV case for SF BCIS. However, he advised me to wait another week or so. Apparently, his another client with DV case for 2005 has been approved last week. So, my attorney doesn't want to alienate that immigration officer who iterviewed us and other DV applicants.
That imm officer promised that he will follow up on DV cases and so far it is happening.