Application Status

[JoinedToAsk]

The general trend I have seen is that once the file has been moved to FO, FO generates 485 J receipt, then in 2-3 weeks send RFE for medicals. if medicals were submitted with application then usually approval in 3-5 weeks. the timing may vary from case to case but steps should be same.

Thanks. My I485J receipt shows that the letter was sent from MSC. Is it sent by local FO? Also, Emma told me that my file is with MSC and not FO. Not sure what's going on with USCIS.

[dosaman]

Thanks. My I485J receipt shows that the letter was sent from MSC. Is it sent by local FO? Also, Emma told me that my file is with MSC and not FO. Not sure what's going on with USCIS.

I-485J receipt and approval usually come from MSC - mine came from MSC. Final adjudication is usually done at a field office. It is funny to see how many different answers you can get from Emma live agents. I wonder where and how they pull the information from! I chatted with 7 live agents so far. Here are the responses I got:

1. 2 said the application never moved from MSC
2. 3 said the application is at Boston FO
3. 1 said the application moved from MSC to Boston FO in July
4. 1 said it is not possible to get application transfer details

[Mgajsk]

Hi guys ,
I am in a conundrum here.
I changed employers based on asc21 after 200 days of filing 485.
My new employer is in process of submitting 485J. However, I received a notice to appear for the interview.

Supplement J form is mentioned as one of the required documents if necessary.

Can I just take the supplement J form with me along for the interview or mail it to lockbox as usual?
Any issues I need to be aware of during the interview?

[gammaray]

I would have to disagree. That statement is just for show(possibly to use in any upcoming trials) and I don't think they really mean any of that. My PD is July, 2010 and have been current for several months and my case is as straightforward as it can get and is documentarily complete. I believe there are thousand of others like me waiting for several months after getting current and with documentarily complete applications and yet many of us will not get our GCs this fiscal year.

Umm I understand the disgruntlement but USCIS using a statement on a notice for "show" or legal purposes doesn't have any logic or make any sense. As I was insinuating, 2009/2010 folks seem to be behind the more recent PD's for some reason. Coupled with backlogs at local FO's there could be multiple reasons why an individual application that's documentarily complete hasn't been processed yet.

In any case as I expect with most people that are current and documentarily complete, the application will be approved shortly (even if you have been waiting for 3-4 months). It only takes an instance for the status update to come through and could happen anytime.

[gammaray]

Also, USCIS just updated the policy to allow medicals to be valid up to 4 years and the recommendation is for everyone to file I-693 with the I-485. I don't think there is any doubt of positive changes occurring at USCIS with the new administration.

[monsieur]

Medicals are valid for 4yr now - https://twitter.com/USCIS/status/1425896472034398210

Lip Service or genuine attempt ?? --> https://twitter.com/USCIS/status/1425904519511224324

Requesting to file 693 (Medicals) and 485 together --> https://twitter.com/USCIS/status/1425904517057556480

[aGCHopefull]

Also, USCIS just updated the policy to allow medicals to be valid up to 4 years and the recommendation is for everyone to file I-693 with the I-485. I don't think there is any doubt of positive changes occurring at USCIS with the new administration.

Seems like this change is temporary for a month and half based on following statement.

Effective August 12, 2021, USCIS is temporarily extending the validity period of an otherwise valid Form I-693 in cases where:
The civil surgeon?s signature on Form I-693 is dated no more than 60 days before the applicant files Form I-485;
No more than 4 years have passed since the date of the civil surgeon?s signature; and
The decision on Form I-485 is issued on or before September 30, 2021.

SO if I am reading it correctly, this should help all who have submitted medicals in last 4 years. Is that correct?

[aGCHopefull]

Question on medicals

While I am waiting for RFE, can I get the medical test done though?

Let's say if I go for a test on 8/13 and civil surgeon signs it by 8/20, Can that report be used even if medical RFE comes after 60 days from signing date?

Just trying to make sure I have paper work ready. Please let me know.

[gammaray]

Question on medicals

While I am waiting for RFE, can I get the medical test done though?

Let's say if I go for a test on 8/13 and civil surgeon signs it by 8/20, Can that report be used even if medical RFE comes after 60 days from signing date?

Just trying to make sure I have paper work ready. Please let me know.

Yes, it's no more than 60 days prior to the submission of I-485. Nothing to do with the RFE. However, I think people have reported that some doctors require to see the RFE to conduct the examination --- which doesn't make sense since folks that file medicals concurrently with I-485 don't have an RFE.

[aGCHopefull]

Medicals are valid for 4yr now - https://twitter.com/USCIS/status/1425896472034398210

Lip Service or genuine attempt ?? --> https://twitter.com/USCIS/status/1425904519511224324

Requesting to file 693 (Medicals) and 485 together --> https://twitter.com/USCIS/status/1425904517057556480

IMO, it could have been better to allow filing I693 without waiting for RFE

[monsieur]

IMO, it could have been better to allow filing I693 without waiting for RFE

My expectation from USCIS is NIL so I will take it what they give to me. With 4yr medical extension atleast they showed glimmer of conscience. In Ideal world they would have come out and said

* Medicals valid for 4 yrs
* You can send yours without RFE (We are accepting Interfile)
* Medicals submitted in FY-2021 is valid for 4 yrs.


My wish list :smile:

[idliman]

Hi guys ,
I am in a conundrum here.
I changed employers based on asc21 after 200 days of filing 485.
My new employer is in process of submitting 485J. However, I received a notice to appear for the interview.

Supplement J form is mentioned as one of the required documents if necessary.

Can I just take the supplement J form with me along for the interview or mail it to lockbox as usual?
Any issues I need to be aware of during the interview?

If they are asking you to appear for interview you can take I-485 Supp J to the interview. Most of the times, interview is cancelled and GC directly issued or they send an RFE. If that is the case, you need to figure out where your case file is before sending I-485 Supp J.

Most attorneys will advise you to bring I-485 Supp J to interview to confirm bonafide job offer or job portability.

[skpanda]

Just to add, the RFE letter included the statement "Submit this information as soon as possible in order for your case to be considered for visa allocation within this fiscal year which concludes on Sep 30, 2021"

Unless the statement is standard language, it appears to be positive and a concerted USCIS effort to maximize gc issuance before FY 2022 begins. Of course some of the 2009/2010 folks still waiting may disagree.

I do not have this language in my RFE. Strange.

[getsaby]

Congrats getsaby!

We received the physical card yesterday for Derivative, her 9 ​years journey ended while mine 19 yrs.

Thank you all for your support and guidance!

[dosaman]

Umm I understand the disgruntlement but USCIS using a statement on a notice for "show" or legal purposes doesn't have any logic or make any sense. As I was insinuating, 2009/2010 folks seem to be behind the more recent PD's for some reason. Coupled with backlogs at local FO's there could be multiple reasons why an individual application that's documentarily complete hasn't been processed yet.

In any case as I expect with most people that are current and documentarily complete, the application will be approved shortly (even if you have been waiting for 3-4 months). It only takes an instance for the status update to come through and could happen anytime.

USCIS have been getting some negative press lately in Washington Post and Wall Street Journal(has never happened before) and add to that the upcoming lawsuits from Siskind and others - USCIS have to provide an illusion of improving their EB processing - hence their recent announcements and the statement that you saw on your RFE. This is more about saving their a* than it is about any meaningful improvements in their processing speeds. Huh, they can't even process applications that have unexpired medicals - what is the point in extending the expiry date to 4 years? Bottom line, they are still going to waste well north of 100,000 Visas with several thousands of documentarily complete applications among them.

As bad as my situation is I can't but help wonder about the hundreds of applicants from 2012 who are still waiting after 9 years. Even in countries that are bureaucratic nightmares a turnaround time of 9+ years on an application would be considered unacceptable.

[gammaray]

USCIS have been getting some negative press lately in Washington Post and Wall Street Journal(has never happened before) and add to that the upcoming lawsuits from Siskind and others - USCIS have to provide an illusion of improving their EB processing - hence their recent announcements and the statement that you saw on your RFE. This is more about saving their a* than it is about any meaningful improvements in their processing speeds. Huh, they can't even process applications that have unexpired medicals - what is the point in extending the expiry date to 4 years? Bottom line, they are still going to waste well north of 100,000 Visas with several thousands of documentarily complete applications among them.

As bad as my situation is I can't but help wonder about the hundreds of applicants from 2012 who are still waiting after 9 years. Even in countries that are bureaucratic nightmares a turnaround time of 9+ years on an application would be considered unacceptable.

I'll have to disagree. There are definitely improvements being made and not a PR stunt, including unofficially waiving off interviews even though the Trump era memo is still in effect. As with all government agencies changes take time -- but with a new administration and USCIS director, it will happen.

The point of extending it to 4 years is logical -- to reduce having to send additional rfe's out which snowballs into additional delays -- irrespective of whether existing applications with valid medicals are approved or not.

As for the waiting times, I am not going to defend USCIS but that is more to do with the law that causes backlogs than the inefficiencies in the system. The 9 years is a result of backlogs and not due to USCIS inefficiencies. Can the system be streamlined so it cuts processing time by months, ofcourse, but there is no country on Earth that has the number of immigrants coming in than this country and as inefficient as USCIS may be, I can't imagine any other country even remotely being close to handling the number of immigrants that this country sees.

[dosaman]

I'll have to disagree. There are definitely improvements being made and not a PR stunt, including unofficially waiving off interviews even though the Trump era memo is still in effect. As with all government agencies changes take time -- but with a new administration and USCIS director, it will happen.

The point of extending it to 4 years is logical -- to reduce having to send additional rfe's out which snowballs into additional delays -- irrespective of whether existing applications with valid medicals are approved or not.

As for the waiting times, I am not going to defend USCIS but that is more to do with the law that causes backlogs than the inefficiencies in the system. The 9 years is a result of backlogs and not due to USCIS inefficiencies. Can the system be streamlined so it cuts processing time by months, ofcourse, but there is no country on Earth that has the number of immigrants coming in than this country and as inefficient as USCIS may be, I can't imagine any other country even remotely being close to handling the number of immigrants that this country sees.

Sorry but this is a PR stunt. Generating RFEs is not where they spend most of their time. RFE generation is mostly automated and requires minimal human intervention. It is in adjudicating EAD/AP applications that they waste most of their time. A more meaningful step to reducing inefficiency would have been to temporarily suspend EAD/AP processing for all the documentarily qualified applications. You won't believe the number of instances where they spent so much time adjudicating EAD/AP for documentarily complete applications gathering dust somewhere. It is disconcerting to see cases where people receive GC the very next day or within a week or two after getting EAD.

And the so called improvements have not translated into improved approval numbers so far. They had one of the worst 2nd quarter metrics in spite of waiving most interviews. The ultimate proof for process improvements would be in the numbers and my guess is they will not hit more than 140-160K this fiscal year. Those numbers are not substantially better than numbers from any of the previous years.

[shaks2020]

Hello all, (especially interfilers)

I am June 2010 EB2, and haven't received RFE for medicals and I am planning to interfile my medicals. The Emma live agent told me the case is transferred to a local F0 on June 19.

Is it better to send the 1-693 sealed envelope to the field office OR should I send it to the MSC ? Any ideas ?

Shaks

[inspired_p]

Hello all, (especially interfilers)

I am June 2010 EB2, and haven't received RFE for medicals and I am planning to interfile my medicals. The Emma live agent told me the case is transferred to a local F0 on June 19.

Is it better to send the 1-693 sealed envelope to the field office OR should I send it to the MSC ? Any ideas ?

Shaks

I do not have an answer. We received RFE for the derivation application from the FO , we sent the interfile request to the same address as the RFE response.
I have been told that EMMA - live agent can track and let you know where the application currently resides physically but its a hit or miss. You can try that.

[gammaray]

Sorry but this is a PR stunt. Generating RFEs is not where they spend most of their time. RFE generation is mostly automated and requires minimal human intervention. It is in adjudicating EAD/AP applications that they waste most of their time. A more meaningful step to reducing inefficiency would have been to temporarily suspend EAD/AP processing for all the documentarily qualified applications. You won't believe the number of instances where they spent so much time adjudicating EAD/AP for documentarily complete applications gathering dust somewhere. It is disconcerting to see cases where people receive GC the very next day or within a week or two after getting EAD.

And the so called improvements have not translated into improved approval numbers so far. They had one of the worst 2nd quarter metrics in spite of waiving most interviews. The ultimate proof for process improvements would be in the numbers and my guess is they will not hit more than 140-160K this fiscal year. Those numbers are not substantially better than numbers from any of the previous years.

That is just contradictory -- Saying EADs are causing documentarily complete applications to gather dust then next statement is that the people are getting gc's right after the EAD is approved. An EAD application takes a few minutes to review and does not hold up anything as evidenced by the previous statement. Is it a waste of plastic and resources? Sure. The bottlenecks to I-485 processing exists elsewhere in the process.

False argument to say improvements have not translated into improved numbers. Q1 and some of Q2 was still the old administration and COVID was still a thing with USCIS operating at 60-70 percent capacity. New administration fully took over and vaccinations started late Q2 into Q3. In any case when half of the year was affected by a pandemic with reduced workforce, reaching numbers similar to a normal year is indeed an improvement.

[dosaman]

That is just contradictory -- Saying EADs are causing documentarily complete applications to gather dust then next statement is that the people are getting gc's right after the EAD is approved. An EAD application takes a few minutes to review and does not hold up anything as evidenced by the previous statement. Is it a waste of plastic and resources? Sure. The bottlenecks to I-485 processing exists elsewhere in the process.

False argument to say improvements have not translated into improved numbers. Q1 and some of Q2 was still the old administration and COVID was still a thing with USCIS operating at 60-70 percent capacity. New administration fully took over and vaccinations started late Q2 into Q3. In any case when half of the year was affected by a pandemic with reduced workforce, reaching numbers similar to a normal year is indeed an improvement.

The statements are not contradictory. Many I-485 applications are gathering dust because they don't have enough manpower to work on adjudicating I-485 applications.

It does not take a few minutes to process EAD/AP. It takes approximately 12 minutes to process EAD and 15 minutes to process AP - an average of 27 minutes for EAD+AP. This does not include the time wasted on printing and mailing EAD cards and notification letters. The main bottleneck for I-485 processing is lack of manpower. Just removing EAD/AP processing alone would free up an enormous amount of their manpower and divert them to I-485 adjudication. This is what David Bier and many others have been advocating for a long time. According to David Bier's calculations eliminating EAD/AP processing alone would result in an additional 80000 GCs per year.

https://www.cato.org/blog/eight-idea...ard-processing

If USCIS had been serious about minimizing visa wastage they would have eliminated this step at least temporarily and diverted that manpower to process I-485 applications. Instead of meaningful steps like that they come up with bogus statements about RFEs as if that is their main bottleneck.

[3nov10]

Any updates from folks who have applied for 485 this year in the last few months.
I am asking because my perm is just about certified after a job change and wondering how long will it take for EAD/GC Approval.

My PD is Dec 2010 as my Handle.

I applied last week. I 140 in premium, approved yesterday. No receipt for anything. Got the receipt for AOS via Emma chat. Receipts for ead and ap were not available.

[monsieur]

Or Or Or folks just have skipped EAD + AP and instead should have filed 485 with medicals. You can't cherry pick with hindsight. Based on past experience folks opted for EAD + AP and now its biting back.

Remember this is a govt entity which runs on rules and regulation. If they don't exists it will be anarchy. If forms are filled and requested doc - USCIS will process it in that order.

[Jp123456]

I was in the same boat last October, my lawyer filed concurrently with 140 premium to Texas service center. but they sent all of the package to the USCIS address that handles regular 140.i didn't know till I got the rejection. After 5 months USCIS rejected claiming application filed at the wrong address. in the meantime my PERM had expired. I had to start from scratch but in the meantime my employer and the law firm involved ombudsman and local congressman and filed 140 again . somehow I got it approved couple of weeks back.... so please take necessary precautions about filing in the correct location. I got a chance to apply for AOS after 19 trying years but still might be a painful journey like what happened with my case. I registered here after seeing your post just to make sure you or anyone else don't have to face same issue like me.

[dosaman]

Or Or Or folks just have skipped EAD + AP and instead should have filed 485 with medicals. You can't cherry pick with hindsight. Based on past experience folks opted for EAD + AP and now its biting back.

Remember this is a govt entity which runs on rules and regulation. If they don't exists it will be anarchy. If forms are filled and requested doc - USCIS will process it in that order.

USCIS and "process in order" should never go together in the same sentence. If there is one word that characterizes this organization it is "Arbitrariness". This is an organizations that approves a 2012 priority dated EB2-EB3 downgrade application filed late in November 2020 directly without EAD(actual case I personally know) while ignoring hundreds of 2009 priority dated applicants from 2012. They are under no legal obligation to process EAD before I-485.