hmvsdog

robtuck

If your application date is now before the Final Action Date, you should be good to commence the process of AOS (as of 1st September)

hmvsdog

i-485 has been Pending for over 2 years, so I'm already in AOS process.

Millski

Here's my AOS timeline from around this time last year for your reference:

I-485 / I-485J / I-765 / I-131 receipt date: 05/31/2018
Biometrics notice date: 06/08/2018
Biometrics completed: 06/25/2018
"I-693 not submitted" courtesy letter: 08/27/2018
I-765 / I-131 approval notice date: 09/05/2018
Interview scheduled notice date: 09/10/2018
Medical completed: 09/17/2018
Interview completed and I-693 submitted: 10/15/2018
I-485J approval notice date: 10/15/2018
Priority date current: 12/01/2018
I-485 approval notice: 12/19/2018
Green card received: 12/29/2018

I was interviewed while my PD was not current, so the gears may have already started turning on your AOS. It took about 5 months for me to have my interview, presumably I would have been approved there and then had it not been for retrogression, as it was it took right around 8 months.

hmvsdog

robtuck

Sorry, I thought you meant you held off sending the I1485 and had thus been stuck in retrogression. I thought that only really impacts your ability to file, it doesn;t directly impact the processing time if you already had an I1485 in the works before Retrogression - all that does is hint at the workload, so the fact they pushed it back to 2016 recently means they have a stock pile of applications they are working through and calculated they'd run our of Visa's by 30th September without pushing back the dates to stop new ones coming into the backlog.

hmvsdog

Hi everyone. So once again reviving an ancient thread to give you guys an update. In short, my 1220 day wait for a green card approval, is finally over. My profile on my.usics.gov is today showing "New Card Is Being Produced" under my I485 application. But of course it hasn't been without incident:

I'll start by us receiving interview notices way back in February for a late March interview date with our friendly officers at Royal Palm Beach, FL. A few days prior to the interview, was the expected but dreaded cancellation notice due to covid-19 restrictions, closing the USCIS field offices. Absolutely the correct decision and no complaint from us about it. We'd moved down to South Florida from the Philadelphia, PA suburbs, due to my work asking for me to spend more face-time with my staff here as they felt it more efficient to have me here, rather than paying for me to travel monthly, and we had been living in an apartment while we were waiting for our new build home to be completed. In late May, we finally moved into our new home from our cramped apartment and was greeted by a "welcome to your new home" letter from USCIS. Actually, it wasn't a welcome card, but an RFE for my wife's expired medical. Curious I thought, if she has an RFE for expired medical, where is mine? We both had initial medicals done in mid-2017 when we initially filed concurrently, so this was no surprise, but why are they only asking for hers? Might it have got lost in the move, very likely. Not to worry, I'll contact my attorney as she would always get a CC from USCIS from any RFE. A couple of weeks went by and I called the attorney to check. No RFE sent to her for me either. My wife though, duly had her medical redone and sent back the results.

Fast forward a bit, to late August, and we get interview notices from Oakland Park, FL on 10/21. No surprise in change in office, we had moved zip code and our new house (albeit, only 5 miles from our old apartment) fell under the jurisdiction of another office. Not a problem. That is, until 3 days later where we get a letter from the Royal Palm Beach office to say that our March interview has now been rescheduled for 10/1 and to please attend that. So we now have 2 separate interviews, from 2 separate offices. Once again, I call the attorney. Her advice? Go to the Royal Palm Beach one as a no-show would trigger a declined application, but don't expect them to be able to do the interview as our address is not in their jurisdiction, nor would they have had the paperwork, having received the AR-11 change of address and sent the file to Oakland Park. I should be prepared to hand over my new medical results (which I had done) and Oakland Park interview notices so they could sort this out.

Bright and early in Royal Palm Beach, we sat in a very deserted Royal Palm Beach field office and were eventually called through. Our interviewing officer was courteous and professional but very direct. I told him about our duplicate appointments and he seemed very surprised as he had all our case paperwork with him, on his desk. He went to check with his supervisor and was told it was his discretion on whether to conduct the interview or not. As we were there and we had been friendly and courteous to him, he told us he would be willing to conduct the interview, as long as we contacted the Contact Center to cancel the Oakland Park interviews ourselves. Fair deal I thought.

And so, we could start the formalities. Immediately, he asked why I had not responded to my RFE for expired medical. I explained that I didn't receive one and he showed me the copy of the letter in my file to me (and CC'ing my attorney) for it at the same time as my wife's. Neither I nor the attorney received it. However, the officer accepted the medical submission at interview despite being past the deadline for reply, thankfully. The pandemic has loosened their strictness on reply dates to 60 days after indicated deadline, but this was beyond even that. So I was very grateful to him for accepting the results there and then as RFE response. After the standard routine questions, and explaining the move in location for me since original filing, he moved on to my wife. He asked her where her original I94 was, as it was not in her file (we definitely did send it). Unfortunately, we did not have a copy of the original I94 at the time of filing, just her current I94 and the officer explained that we needed to show proof of legal entry and status at the time of filing. Starting to panic a bit, we asked whether he could use the passport stamp with status and date of expiry from her passport as sufficient evidence. He stated he could work with that, and went off to have that particular page of her passport copied for the USCIS files. I would like to thank the interviewing officer for his flexibility, or I suspect another RFE or even NOID would have been inbound for that. At the end of the interview, he stated he would complete the file that day and we should hear in a couple of weeks on what his decision was.

This morning, I get the text message that "an action has been taken on your case" and lo and behold, there it is. New Card Is Being Produced. What wonderful words. Thought the older egov.uscis.gov site still shows Interview Was Scheduled (though now has a service request attached to cancel it, after I called). Hopefully, that'll change to Case Was Approved soon.

So that's it. The most agonizing wait for a "slam-dunk case". Those were the attorney's words right at the outset of this journey, which spans over 3 years, an epic I140 RFE, a lost RFE and a duplicate interview. Quite a story. Now just to wait for the card itself, with the card production delays that are going on. Hah, maybe I should have changed the Interview appointment to an InfoPass to get an I551 stamp! Either way, I am a happy camper right now. Now it's behind me and I have a raft of employment based I140 (from L1-A) and I485 experience, I'll be more inclined to hang around the place here to help out other folks. Now it's not a painful subject for me, at least!