n2stitch

How long should we keep copies of applications after they're granted? My husband has had his conditions removed from his green card, and will be filing for naturalization.

I know for IRS documents, you're supposed to keep them for 7 years. How long for the immigration paperwork?

Thanks!

Lalita

Noorah101

Hi Lalita,

Personally, I plan on keeping ours forever. You never know what could happen in the future and you need that information.

Best Wishes,
Rene

scrubbedexpat099

Me too.

ian-mstm

There is no requirement for keeping the immigration paperwork. However, until you become a US citizen, there is always a possibility that something might happen. I started the immigration journey in 1997 and I still have *everything* in a binder... and I've been a USC now for over 1.5 years! Of course, I'm also very anal retentive... but this stuff makes for good stories with the grandkids! "Yes Bobby, I walked twice a day to USCIS... uphill both ways!"

Ian

Noorah101

LOL...good one! We have 4 binders, and looking at them is a constant reminder that perserverence and being very anal retentive DOES make your dreams come true!

Rene

meauxna

I feel left out now.. we only have one big envelope of old paperwork
Maybe I can take up a collection of old papers that no one wants?

Noorah101

I'll send you all the junk faxes we get at work every day. That should quickly fill up several binders!

Rene

Noorah101

The titles of our binders are:

1. In the Beginning...there was a an I-129F Petition
2. And so it Continues...the K-1 visa
3. Help! I'm in America Now! What Should I Do!? AOS
4. Removal of Headache - Removal of Conditions

Haven't come up with a good title yet for Citizenship. Will cross that bridge when we come to it!

Rene

Matthew Udall

I "hate" getting junk faxes, and I've tried to get them stopped but have been hitting a brick wall. As for saving your immigration paperwork (I personally keep old files for 5 years before destroying them), the U.S. government keeps them for you at the National Records Center. If you ever needed a copy of your file, think FOIA.

Folinskyinla

Matt:

In the late 1990's I received a call from a colleague who asked me is the name "K-- L-- C--" rang a bell. I smiled and said "of course" he was my FIRST employment based green card! Well, it seems that he had become mentally ill, edned up as a street person and was convicted of several petty offenses. Placed in removal as an illegal alien -- he insisted he had been an LPR but INS insisted no such record! After 20 years, I had not retained the records. So, I now have records going back over 10 years and I'm never throwing out a file again.

meauxna

ewww, no thanks!

But, for those of you who need an alternate revenue stream (mo money!), I remember Clark Howard featuring a guy who made quite a little cottage industry from taking the junk faxers to Small Claims Court and collecting the $500/whatever fine. He made a substantial extra income!

Oh yeah, and taught those bassstads a lesson

www.clarkhoward.com might have the archive.

Matthew Udall

I haven’t really begun file destruction for the files that have been inactive for over 5 years, and I’ve been thinking of the best approach to take. I would save the time log sheets showing what tasks were performed on what date. Plus, while the case is processing I always make sure “original” notices and evidence are sent to the client (So when the case is eventually closed, the only things in the file are “copies” of the submissions). That way I won’t have to try to hunt a client down to return original items to them some time in the distant future. I suppose I could also scan each file (but there can also be advantages to the client “and” the attorney for “not” having a copy of an old file). But I can tell you that the boxes of old closed case files are sure piling up!

Maybe your old case was caught in the transition from cases being stored at the local offices to being consolidated at the NRC and the Federal Records Center? I’ve toured the NRC a couple of times now (fascinating facility) and I’ll paste in some sections of my tour notes that contain general information (in case anybody is interested).

The NRC opened in 1999, and was designed to help streamline the movement of files. The NRC's Records Operations Office provides records management services relating to physical A-files and associated materials. The types of records management services include: Shipment of A-files to other USCIS offices requesting these files; Receipt of A-files from USCIS offices; Inventory control of A-files; Consolidation of multiple information (temporary files, interfiling) into parent A-files; and Reconciliation of data in A-files with data in CIS.

As mentioned above, one task performed by the NRC is shipping files to and from the USCIS Offices. Before the creation of the NRC, most of the USCIS Offices would store their files at their own facilities, however that was problematic when it came to tracking down someone's file when they moved from the jurisdiction of one office to the jurisdiction of another office (plus storing these cases at each of the individual offices took up too much of their space). The old system was linear, similar to links in a chain, with each office being a link in the chain. The new system incorporating the NRC is more like a bicycle wheel, with the NRC being the hub of that wheel and each of the USCIS Offices being a separate spoke on the wheel. With the files centralized in one location, it became much easier for any given office on the wheel to retrieve a file from the hub compared to trying to get the file from another office located on some other part of the wheel.
-//-
They currently house 20,000,000 A-files at the NRC (in 2002 during my last tour, they housed 17,000,000). These are "inactive" files that should not contain any "open applications". If they run across a file with an open application, they will ship it to the appropriate District Office (it was mentioned that when they were putting together the facility, they were shipped 5,000 boxes of "loose" materials, and some of that material contained opened case material they then shipped to the appropriate offices).
-//-
In addition to storing files, the NRC processes Freedom of Information
Act requests, SAVE requests (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements), and they have an Information Liaison Division that responds to District Offices and other government agencies that might need information from a file housed at the NRC. Most Naturalization files go to the National Record Archives, and it was mentioned that some files also go to a facility in San Bruno, CA, and a facility in MD.
-//-
Our first stop was the FOIA Unit (Freedom of Information Act). When a FOIA request comes in to the NRC, a contract worker will scan the appropriate A-file. An officer in the FOIA unit will then call that information up on his or her computer. They have a program where they can perform dedactions on the documents where appropriate to do so, and the program automatically lets them list the justification for the dedaction.
-//-
On my tour in 2002, I recall Mr. Cowan saying he felt bad about the amount of paper they had to use when replying to FOIA requests (The number of trees that were sacrificed to generate this much paper). Back then, approximately 1/4 of the entire center's annual budget was spent on paper and ink cartridges alone! Back then, they received approximately 5,000 FOIA requests per month, and all of those requests were printed and mailed regardless of the size of the FOIA reply (which could be hundreds of pages in length).
-//-
For those concerned with environmental issues (I'm included in that group), technology has been incorporated to help elevate this tremendous waste of resources. Now when a FOIA request is prepared, FOIA replies of 15 pages or more are put on a CD Rom (containing .pdf files) and that is mailed to the FOIA recipient. FOIA replies of 14 pages or less are still printed on paper and mailed in that format. One of the contract workers in the FOIA unit showed us the place where they keep their boxes of blank paper and printer cartridges, and she mentioned that before they started using CDs, their printers were constantly running and they would have to refill their paper storage area every day or two, but now they only have to get new paper supplies every few weeks. They currently receive between 7,500 and 8,000 FOIA requests per month and the FOIA unit runs two shifts.
-//-
We made a stop in the SAVE area. This unit provides immigration status information to local, state and federal benefits-granting agencies that require this information when determining if applicants are eligible for various benefits (Social Security, housing benefits, food stamps, etc.). This division also works closely with the Records Operations Office to remedy errors associated with the NRC's A-File holdings.
-//-
Record Clean Up Initiative Unit: In this unit, the workers "merge" the
A-files and T-files into a consolidated file. They will eventually complete this task for all of the files from the District Offices, and to date they have completed this task for files for the Kansas City, Memphis and the San Juan offices. The NRC merges the files and "take ownership of the files". They do the merge, clean up the file, and ship them to the Federal Records Center for storage. They will soon start working on files for the San Francisco office.
-//-
Interfiling documents from the 5,000 boxes containing loose documents:
They find the file associated with the loose documents they found in these 5,000 boxes, and interfile that material with the correct file.
-//-
Stack Room 3: 5,000,000 file capacity. They anticipate that this stack room will be at capacity in December 2005. This is the smallest of their current stack rooms.
-//-
As I mentioned before, they haven't destroyed any old files as immigration records are considered "75 year files". The year 2030 (approximately) is the first scheduled year for the oldest files to be destroyed.
-//-
As we were walking back to the front office, I asked Diane if they still had the display case where they put some of the more "unusual" items they found as they started going through the old files. She mentioned they got tired of looking at those items, so they have moved these items out and put other things in their place, but she did mention a few of the unusual items they have found in some of the files.

One file contained a few dirty socks. Another simply contained cloth and no paper. Another file contained an envelope made of cloth and was addressed and had an "A" number on it, but inside they only found what appeared to be surgical scrubs. One box of files must have been stored somewhere along the way under a box containing broken containers of maple syrup, as all of the files were soaked with syrup. They had to dry out each page and figure out how to remove dried maple syrup. One box from California contained files that reeked of garlic. Another box contained a live snake.

ian-mstm

Great metaphor, eh?

Ian

Hypertweeky

I am keeping mine in the safe!!!

Hypertweeky

Ouch!! What happened to him???