AOS, задержка с name check, письмо сенатору и вопрос решен

[clinger]

Поделюсь нашим опытом, может кому полезно будет.

Сначала предыстория. Послали I-485 в марте 2002 (на основании I-140 в EB1a); сдали отпечатки раз и другой; в июне 2004 дело перевели в местный оффис (Сиэтл); в августе вызвали на интервью, но штамп не поставили по причине задержки с namecheck и дали стандартную бумажку с просьбой раньше чем через 4 месяца не приходить. Ждали, но без всяких изменений. Через 3.5 месяца пошел в CIS, но ответ тот же -- ждем результатов namecheck. Тут уж решили что толку никакого не будет и нужно трясти FBI и сенатор с этим справится лучше и быстрее.

Обшарил привет и статьи на google, но готового письма (или хотя бы хорошего образца не нашел). Пришлось написать самому, и юрист помог кое-где усилить формулировки (по поводу бюрократических задержек в тексте -- это его). Текст привожу внизу письма (за исключением кое-каких деталей), поскольку уже несколько человек спрашивали; думаю и остальным пригодится.

Теперь самое интересное. Послали письмо факсом во вторник в оффисе нашего сенатора в Сиэтле (Maria Cantwell). Могу сказать только самые хорошие слова по поводу работы сотрудников ее оффиса. В тот же день пришло письмо по электронной почте с просьбой прислать даты рождения членов семьи (обязательно указывайте полные данные: номера I140, A#, I485, даты рождения, адрес/SSN (если пишете про namecheck) и тому подобное). В среду написали что отправили запрос в FBI. В четверг (на следующий день!) уже оставили сообщение что FBI получило запрос 11 января 2003 года и ответило на него 11 августа 2004 года (18 месяцев!), так что трясти нужно CIS. Я предположил что поскольку дело перевели в местный оффис в конце июля, ответ из FBI просто не переслали вслед за документами (хотя все равно не понятно где и как местный оффис проверяет статус). В пятницу отправил подправленное письмо для CIS в оффис сенатора (по разъяснениям сотрудника который все это делал в каждой правительственной организации есть человек который отвечает на запросы сенаторов и конгрессменов и всем этим запросам уделяется должное внимание). В понедельник оффис отправил письмо в CIS. В среду (!) нам пришли AOS approval отправленные из местного оффиса в понедельник. Таким образом все заняло меньше недели (вместе с запросами в FBI и CIS), за что честь и хвала сотрудникам сенаторского оффиса.

Выводы: Если при переводе дела возникли проблумы с namecheck, возможно он где-то потерялся. Namecheck в нашем случае занял 18 месяцев при том что запрос вернул "no match" (проверено официальным FOIPA запросом). Вмешательство сенатора или конгресмена может быть весьма полезно. Ну и, если бы не пошевелились, наверное бы до сих пор ждали.

Теперь вопрос и текст письма. Письмо из CIS говорит принести 1 passport style photograph if you don't have a valid passport, тогда как infopass-овское приглашение говорит принести 3 passport style photograph if you don't have a valid passport and 2 photograph with a valid passport. Кому верить?

Удачи всем и с праздниками!

Павел.

(date)

Honorable Maria Cantwell
915 Second Avenue
Suite 3206
Seattle, WA 98147
206 220-6400

Dear Senator Cantwell:

I’m writing this letter to request your Senatorial intervention to resolve a bureaucratic deadlock in the processing of my family’s applications for adjustment to permanent resident status. As you may know, an application for adjustment to permanent resident status is not a request for an immigrant visa, but rather just a procedural process to make official the permanent resident status of an individual to whom an immigration visa has already been given based on the person’s proven qualifications. As I will explain in detail below, this mere procedural step has now taken almost 3 years in my particular case and there is no light ahead. This is well beyond what is normally expected for this type of cases.

In addition to numerous delays, one particular procedure called “security name check” has gone well beyond its reasonableness in my particular case. The name check process is said to have a turnaround time of about three days, but my family’s case has been stuck in this last step for apparently longer than a year now and the entire case has slipped into an unknown holdup with no sign of progress. Delays in the processing of our application (presumably caused by delays in name check processing) are causing our family moral and financial hardship.

The following is my story with further detail. In (date), I submitted, and subsequently received an approval of, an I-140 petition in the category of “Alien of Extraordinary Ability” (EB-1a). This is the most distinguished immigration category with highest possible level of personal merit-based requirements. By approving my petition in this category, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) has legally established that I am at the top of my field (software engineering) and belong to a group of individuals possessing highest possible credentials and accomplishments, and that my admission as a permanent resident will substantially benefit the United States.

In (date), I applied for adjustment of status (I-485) for me and my family based on the approval of my I-140 petition as an “Alien of Extraordinary Ability.” As I mentioned in the beginning of this letter, the I-485 process is a post-approval process to formally change the status of a non-immigrant to that of an immigrant. No personal merit related qualifications are at issue in this step.

On (date), after more than two years of processing, our cases were transferred to the local CIS office in Seattle, where we had an interview with an immigration officer on (date). Having an interview with a local immigration officer typically marks a final relief of an applicant because usually the applicant’s passport is stamped on that same day and the applicant legally accepted as an immigrant. However, despite a successful interview with the local immigration officer, our passports weren’t stamped on that day. They still haven’t been stamped as of now. And as a result our status remains pending.

We were told that the cause for this surprising delay is in the name check processing (as the letter we received from CIS states “due to the commonality of names”). I consider this to be a very unlikely reason as our last name is quite unique. Even in our country only a handful of people bear this name and our family is the only family with this name in the white pages in the entire United States.

From the Testimony of Robert J. Garrity, Jr., Deputy Assistant Director, Records Management Division, FBI before the House of Representatives, Subcommittee on International Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Human Rights on February 13, 2004 :
"Approximately 85% of name checks are electronically returned as having "No Record" within 72 hours. By agreement with the Department of State, partially due to our concern about the time factors in approving most visa requests, a "No Record" equates to a "No Objection" to the issuance of a visa.
"A secondary manual name search usually identifies an additional 10% of the requests as having a "No Record", for a 95% overall "No Record" response rate. This is usually accomplished within a week of the request. The remaining 5% are identified as possibly being the subject of an FBI investigation.
"The FBI's goal is to have all requests completed within 120 days. Most name check requests that are over 30 days old are the result of the time required to retrieve and review field office record information."

According to the immigration officer I spoke with on (date) the name check request was initiated before our cases were transferred to the local office, which means it happened before (date), and probably as early as (date) when our second fingerprinting was done, almost a year ago.

These unwarranted delays in our green card processing are causing us significant hardship. For example, my wife is applying to a graduate school and she is not only likely to be denied a stipend for graduate students (many dollars) because of limited funds for international students, but will also need to pay a non-resident tuition (many dollars), which makes a difference of over (big total) per year for our family. The lack of a permanent resident status also limits our ability to work (as we need to file for employment authorization every year) and to travel to visit our relatives in Ukraine (as we need to get for all members of our family advance parole documents that have significant backlog and are only valid for one year).

Dear senator Cantwell, we now have no other recourse except for turning to your Senatorial influence. In addition to your sympathy to the suffering of your constituents, I know you also care about the reasonableness, fairness and the basic due process of the government. I therefore petition you, dear senator, to send a letter to Agent David Hardy, the Chief of the Record/Information Dissemination Section in the Record Management Division (RMD), FBI, and ask to complete the name check procedures for our family in a timely manner. I also ask you to send a letter to Robert J. Okin, CIS District Director in Seattle and ask him to expedite the approval of our adjustment of status applications. Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

(name)

I hereby request the assistance of the Office of United States Senator Maria Cantwell in resolving the matter described above and authorize Senator Cantwell and her staff to receive any information which they might need in order to provide this assistance.

(all information necessary to identify your case and all related cases)

[LLena]

Нужны 2 passport style фотографии. Если с принесенными фотографиями что-то не так, в нашем CIS офисе людей тут же бесплатно перефотографировали.

Поздравляю!