Employment based Green card by consular processing

About Me 

As of 2016 
Designation : Enterprise Architect 
Location : Bangalore,India
Citizenship : India 
Category : EB2(Priority date porting from an old EB2 to a new EB2)
Processing Type : Consular Processing
Previous US travel : Spent 80% of work life in US , but based in Bangalore now. 


Why I wrote this blog ?

The Employment Based green card process can conclude by way of adjustment of status( I-485) or by Consular processing. The process of "Adjustment of status" is owned and executed by the USCIS whereas "Consular processing" is an iterative handover of responsibilities and process ownership between the USCIS and the Department of State. The most highlighted difference in consular processing from a applicant perspective is that one needs to go for a consular interview on the lines of a B1/B2 or an H1B interview and one is granted an "immigrant visa" which then is regularized by the USCIS by way of the famous green card after the applicant enters the US with this immigrant visa. 

The vast majority of people in the employment based green card process choose to get their green cards via the adjustment of status route.Justifiably so because they are already based in the US and working for their sponsoring employer. Around 5%( unsubstantiated number) of people choose to get their green card through consular processing because either they choose to do so or because they are based outside continental United States when their green card gets approved. 

Also its pertinent to mention that almost all family based immigrants use consular processing to immigrate to the US. Once again justifiably so because brothers, sisters , adopted children and spouses of immigrants are typically not local to the United States to begin with. 

There exist enormous amount of resources from social chatter and attorney knowledge sharing on adjustment of status(I-485) for employment based applicants but little to none when it comes to employment based consular processing.

This is a not a process guideline, as there exist enough resources describing the official process.This is my story, my journey and my learning. 


The First Step - Labor Certification 

The Labor certification process for the EB green card process is the same irrespective of the path one chooses. Hence I would not elaborate on this as there are lot of resources by way of social chatter sites that one can visit when they have questions on this process. In my case my Labor Certification was filed and approved by the DOL in about 6 months time. My classification was EB2 as I was quite experienced in the field of employment. My employer provided me with the Labor ETA number and I tracked my Labor Certification petition at the Icert Website till it was approved. 

The I-140 process 

The I-140 process is where the divergence of consular process with the adjustment of starts starts. USCIS form I-140 in section 4 asks for a choice of processing of the application. Folks choosing to go with consular processing would choose 1b, telling the USCIS that the alien will apply for a visa abroad at a US Embassy or consulate. In my case this was Mumbai India( see section below). 

                                      Normal Blank I-140 

                               Consular Processing chosen 

My I-140 was filed in premium and was approved in 3 to 4 business days in the premium queue. However when my employer received my approved I-140 797 Approval Notice of Action they discovered that it was approved in the I-485 way due to a USCIS clerical error. I-140's which take the consular processing path have different verbiage than I-140's that take the adjustment of status path. My attorney pointed out the clerical error by way of an e-mail to nscpremium@dhs.gov pointing out in two simple sentences that that he had asked for option 1a. and that the petition was approved incorrectly. His e-mail was almost immediately responded to(premium service) and my case was escalated to a supervisor. I must say that I was genuinely impressed with the speed of responses,subsequent escalation and final correction of my I-140 in the USCIS premium queue. In 5 business days the USCIS sent out an amended Notice of Action correcting the error to my employer and attorney.My status online initially looked like this. 

My advice to all consular filers is that they check if their I-140's have been approved correctly because given that the overwhelming majority of I-140s are adjustment of statuses an adjudicating officer may simply overlook the consular processing choice in the I-140 form. 

I-140 Consular processing approval notice.Note different verbiage than adjustment of status

Note that the USCIS has a minimum of 30 days to send the I-140 form physically to the National Visa Center(NVC). Yes they still do send them physically by internal mail to the NVC.😀 More on this later.😓

Processing at the National Visa Center(NVC) 

The National Visa Center reports to Department of State(DoS). Both the DoS and USCIS are separate organisations and roll into the Department of Homeland security(DHS).The DoS controls visa processing(H1B,L1,B1/B2,Immigrant) at hundreds of US consulates located worldwide and the NVC has the exclusive purview of Immigrant Visas, both family and employment. Be advised that unlike the Labor and I-140 which are owned and managed by the employer, the NVC process is owned by the employee and the employee has complete information and transparency into the ongoing process. 

After the I-140 was approved correctly and sent on its way I waited patiently for the NVC to receive my petition from the USCIS. One way to know this is to call the NVC at 603-334-0700 and give them your I-140 receipt number which in my case read like LIN-xx-xxx-xxxxx. NVC has a very robust and scalable call center which answers questions very effectively although the information that the first line agents have access to is very limited and can sometimes be very frustrating.While I waited for the NVC to receive my I-140 I noticed that USCIS I-140 case status changed to to the below. This is another way to verify if your I-140 was approved correctly and indeed sent to the DoS by the USCIS. 

The USCIS took approximately 70 days to physically mail my case file from USCIS offices to the NVC at Portsmouth, NH and this was a painfully long wait. I had heard stories of I-140 getting lost in transit , but the vast majority reached their destination safely. I utilized this time to collect my NVC documents.Some of the documents like Police Clearance/s and original Birth Certificate may take longer than one assumes so it always helps to get these earlier. 

The NVC Takes over

The NVC is reputed to be fast, efficient and immensely scalable and my experience leads me to concur to this fact. Things happened like clockwork now with strict SLAs.

Day 0 

NVC confirms that my I-140 LIN-xx-xxx-xxxxx is now traceable in their mail room and has been scanned.

Day 2 NVC generates my NVC case number which usually begins with the consular jurisdiction for the applicant which in my case was Mumbai(BMB). My case number read like BMBYYYYxxxxxx 

Day 10
NVC raises the fell bill e-mail asking the applicant/employer to pay the processing fees. This is a e-mail letter that is mailed to the applicant, employee and the attorney. The letter also lists out documents that the NVC needs to continue processing the petition. If one has not already collected these documents it is high time that one starts now. (Letter copy will posted after cleansing).I notice that the NVC clerk probably during data entry had misspelled my last name and my Priority date has been receded by almost many years earlier to Year 2000 making me current! 😬😣Following up with the NVC begins in earnest to correct these clerical mistakes. 😓  It is mandatory that one fixes these errors at the start before they snowball. 


Day 11
I write an e-mail to NVCResearch <NVCResearch@state.gov> and sent them a scanned copy of the biometric page of my passport to fix the name and scanned copy of the approved I-140 to fix the priority date. Within a week the NVC corrects the name and my priority date. 



Day 12

I request my employer for updated and notarized offer letter. My attorney stated that the simple the job letter format sent for I-140 would suffice as the NVC letter with the dates changed. The format of my the letter read as below and was signed by the HR manager and notarized at a local US notary. I received the scanned copy of the letter in 5 days. 

Date : 

To Whom It May Concern:

<ORGANISATION NAME>, INC. has made an offer of full-time, permanent employment to <LAST NAME>, <FIRST NAME> to serve as a <OCCUPATION TITLE> as described in all work petitions filed on his behalf at a wage at least $ xxxxxx/ year.

The offer extended to the beneficiary still exists and remains valid.

Regardless what stated above, both parties reserve the right to terminate the Employment Agreement at any time at will and without cause or with advance notice.

I declare under penalty of perjury, that the foregoing is true and correct.

Sincerely,

Day 13
I logged into the website https://ceac.state.gov/IV/Login.aspx and paid $345 per person for each family member through a debit checking account. This fee is paid towards the NVC processing your case.

Day 18
Starting 2015 the NVC has stopped asking for original copies of documents to be sent to them by post and photocopies are now accepted. The updated list of documents can be found at the DoS Website. Original documents are now only needed for verification and return at the time of consular interview. I sent scanned copies of both civil documentation and the employer letter to my attorney for filing with the NVC.

Day 25
Attorney writes that paralegal has sent the documents to the NVC. I start calling the NVC contact center begins one again to see when they receive it. 😀😁


Day 55
NVC finally states that they have received the documents and will take 7 days to process them. 

Day 60
Called the NVC to learn than NVC my case is documentarily complete and is waiting an interview based on visa-availability. My priority date is still not current. There is nothing I can do other than wait.  

Day 120
Priority date advances and become current for my country of chargeability. 

Oct/29/2016
Get E-mail with the interview letter for Interview in Mumbai Consulate on 30th December 2016. Yes,  New Year's eve!! 😛😝. Was apprehensive about the US consular staffing during this time of the year. My spouse mentioned some of her friends had experienced interview reschedules from the consulate due to lean staffing. But had to make the arrangements nevertheless.  

Interview Preparation 

After reading the instructions carefully I noted that "For employment-based visa applications: Letter from your U.S. employer dated less than 1 month ago."This was "1 year ago" until sometime back but was abruptly changed to 1 month. I checked with the India call center and they were initially confused and said one year validity would work. But I was persistent and asked escalation to the consular staff for a certified confirmed answer to avoid any 221g during the interview. Consular staff responded that it was indeed one month and they will change the notifications on their website(they have now) anytime now. Also notified the employer that I would now need a fresh notarized letter dated anytime after December 1st week of 2016. My employer sent me a new notarized letter around December 15th 2016 with the same content as before. Thankfully, validity of Police Clearance was still retained at 1 year. Meanwhile I prepared for my medical exam. I recommend that folks escalate such questions to the consulate instead of the contact center and get confirmed answers. Also take a printout of the communication to your interview. 

Medical Exam(Nov/18/2016- Nov/19/2016)

NVC offers approved Medical facilities in India where one needs to get their medicals done. Bangalore, the city with most and probably the best hospitals in India had none. 😢😥.Nearest one for me was in Chennai. Booked flights to Chennai for me and my spouse and got our medicals done at The Apollo Heart Centre ,156 Greams Road, Chennai 600006. The erstwhile CM of the state was ill and admitted in Apollo Hospital and we were apprehensive if there would be any disruption on account of this.The Apollo Heart Centre - Floor 4 is a one stop shop for medical examinations for US, UK , Canada and many other European countries.Saw anxious young visa holders and newly married wives all waiting for their turn for various countries.US medical exams were a very small minority volume wise. Apart from me there was only one other woman who had come for her US medical tests.  

Medical exam consisted of Blood tests , TB tests , Gonorrhea test(yes this was added recently😣 😣) ,medical consultation and vaccinations.Would not go into the details of the medical exam as there is lot of content already available. The tests set me back by a difficult Rs 12500/- per person(total Rs 25000/-). Gonorrhea testing is expensive. 


Asked the physician(US Citizen lady doctor of Indian origin working in India) on were these tests really needed and are they not archaic and unnecessary. She mentioned that DoS does this only to prevent getting sued by US Citizens of immigrants transmitting them communicative diseases like TB and Gonorrhea.She joked that made more legal sense than medical sense.She also bragged that the X-ray machine in The Apollo Heart Center was apparently calibrated by the CDC themselves and there are many surprise quality inspections. After the consultation she randomly checked 4 vaccinations for me, saying if I feel bad after taking them I should take an analgesic(Crocin).She also said that if we are found fit to immigrate😀 the center would release our reports to us the next day evening. Else we would be informed by 11:00 AM next day and post that the reports would be sent to the Mumbai Consulate directly.   

Bought the vaccinations on the ground floor and was then injected with Mumps, Flu in one arm and DTP ,Varicella in my other arm. Five pricks in all, four from vaccinations and one for blood drawn. My spouse was not vaccinated because she got a medical exemption for pregnancy.Lucky her. 

Did not receive a call by 11:00 AM next day. Called the medical center next day afternoon and was told our reports were ready for pickup. They consisted of a Teal colored packet and a CD with the X-Ray reports.So we were found fit to immigrate. 👍 👌


Fingerprinting(Nov/20/2016)

On the last day of Chennai trip we also finished our Visa application center(VAC) fingerprinting appointment in Chennai. This is a smooth and very efficient process and everyone knows how this is done.So will not elaborate. 

Returned to Bangalore after the fingerprinting and in about 15 days got a mild attack of Mumps with swollen right Parotid(Salivary) gland.Nothing Serious.My doctor in Bangalore was surprised on how I contracted mumps at this era(2016).He had rarely seen any mumps cases in his medical practice in Bangalore.Kept my story to myself. 😥 😭

The Interview(Dec/30/2016)

We were up and early at the Mumbai Consulate General Bandra Kurla Complex(BKC) on a balmy 30th December 2016. Ushered in quickly through to the immigrant visa section.The number of people were much less than I had expected. The Non-immigrant sections was flooding in with hundreds of people even as the immigrant section was seeing only around 20 people at most and almost all appeared family immigrants. I saw newly married wives and fiancées convincing the consular officers in what appeared like a newly put on American accent on how much they knew their husband and how much they loved them. 😍  💏  💑  Then there were also many elderly couples and large families who were looking to immigrate. 

We were issued tokens by the greeters and our first stop was an Indian consular officer who brought our NVC file out of the cabinet.He returned some unnecessary filed paperwork(remember Name spelling and Priority date change paperwork??) from my file back to us. He asked us for my originals and quickly returned them after verification. He then tore open the teal colored medical envelope/s, looked at reports and placed them in the file.The X-ray CD's were not required and hence I left them at home.Consulates do not allow CD's anyways. He retained the original police clearance , and the original copy of the new one month validity employment letter and put it in the file and asked us to go back to the waiting area.We waited and watched as wives, fiancées and members of some families were grilled one by one , some for over 25+ minutes by consular officers in the adjacent windows. 

Around 15 minutes later our number flashed in the interview booth and the interviewer was a beautiful young American lady. She quickly looked at my file first and asked the below questions.

1. Who is calling you ? 
2. What do you do now and where ? 
3. Tell me about your previous US trips ?
4. Where do you intend to land in the US ? 

My interview was done in 4-5 minutes of which most of it was her looking through the file and typing. She also mechanically validated the dates of the employment letter(1 month) and police clearance (1 year) and circled them off in ink. 

She closed my file and then opened my wife's file. My wife too had US travels from her organization which were independent of mine. She was asked the below questions.

1. How did you meet your husband ? 
2. When did you get married ? 
3. How many people came to your marriage ?
4. What do you do in India ?
5. What business did you have when you traveled to US ? 

She was looking at the monitor and was mechanically entering stuff while asking questions. She then looked at me and gave me a small piece of paper asking me to sign it . It stated in a few lines of text that I promised to work for the employer who sponsored my visa. She then said "Sir, your visas are approved, have a nice day" while giving me the below paper. Process took less than 10 minutes at most. Very light questioning when compared to grilling that family and marriage immigrants were receiving.   

Approval and Passport pickup(Jan/10/2017)

Came back to the hotel and starting tracking passport status at CEAC Website. We spent the rest of the day at Marine drive dining at my favorite Leopold Cafe. Returned to Bangalore on new year's eve(Dec/31/2016). Status which was "Ready" changed to "Administrative Processing" on Jan/05/2017 and to "Issued" on Jan/06/2017(Friday). 

Passports were ready for pick up on Jan/10/2017(Tuesday) from the Bangalore office of VFS visas. Here is how the final product looked.Each passport had an immigrant visa stamped on it with a validity of 6 months from the day of the medical exam(not consular interview) and we were instructed to take the X-Ray CD's to our port of entry without fail. 

Immigrant Visa Fees payment 

I paid the immigrant visa fees on the USCIS portal 2 weeks before travelling to the US.The last page of the process provides numbers such as IOEXXXXXXXXXX which can be used to track the plastic green cards. After paying the fees the status in the USCIS case tracking with the IOE numbers was as below.

  

Port of Entry Experience 

We entered through Dallas Fort Worth(DFW), Texas on an flight that landed around 4:30PM(CST). The immigration lines were almost empty and this was by far the smallest immigration queues I had seen in all my entries to the US. The homeland security officer tore the above brown envelopes and returned the X-Ray CDs to me saying he did not need them.This was odd because the consulate had told us to carry the CDs without fail. I requested a change of address and he wrote the address on the petition and also updated the address in his system. He then stamped our passports with his regular stamp next to the immigrant visa (no special I-551 stamp these days) and took time to explain that this stamping endorsement invalidates the expiry date of our visas(which was 6 months) and the visas are now list A documents valid for 1 year as regular green cards and are good for employment. He waved us goodbye and said I should expect the plastic cards after 2 to 3 months because USCIS is backlogged(whats new here?😭).We were not taken for secondary processing(like I had heard) and the entire process was done at the immigration counter itself in less than 5 minutes by the homeland security officer only. 

Social Security Card 

I had requested for an SSN number for my spouse in the DS260, but I did not receive the SSN even after 20 days after PoE. We then went to the local SSN office and applied for an SSN. The officer looked at her passport with the endorsed immigrant visa and immediately put in a request for an SSN number for her in the computer. She received her SSN in 4 days.  

Around 20 days after POE the card status changed to the below on the USCIS website.   

After 6 more days I got another status update which stated the below. 

I noted that USCIS sometimes provides a tracking number and sometimes does not. USCIS also mentions that customers can call USCIS to know their tracking numbers. After 4 days of seeing the above status, I called the USCIS and requested for a level 2 officer which was promptly allowed.The level 2 officer after verifying all my details provided me with tracking numbers for all the green cards for my family. I was also told that the green cards of my family were already delivered the same day into my mailbox one hour before I made the call. Even many days after receiving my green cards my USCIS status still shows Cards have been mailed to me without any tracking number. 

On June 1 2018( Yes!  thats ~ 400 days after having received my Green cards) , I received identical mails from USCIS informing me that my Green cards have been delivered by the post office.The content of one such mail is duplicated below. 

USCIS-CaseStatus@uscis.dhs.gov

*** DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS E-MAIL *** 

There has been a recent processing action taken on your case. 

Receipt Number: IOExxxxxxxxxxx 

Application Type: OS155A, IMMIGRANT VISA AND ALIEN REGISTRATION 

Your Case Status: Card/ Document Production 

On April 28, 2017, the Post Office delivered your new card for Receipt Number IOExxxxxxx, to the address that you gave us. The tracking number assigned is UNAVAILABLE. You can use your tracking number at www.USPS.com in the Quick Tools Tracking section. If you move, go to www.uscis.gov/addresschange to give us your new mailing address. 

This step applies to applications that result in an applicant receiving a card (such as a "green card") or other document (such as a naturalization certificate, employment authorization document, travel document, or advance parole). Applications will be in this step from the time the order to produce the card/document is given until the card/document is produced and mailed to the applicant. You can expect to receive your card/document within 30 days of the approval of your application. If you do not receive your document, please contact our National Customer Service Center at 1-800-375-5283. 

• Log-in to your myUSCIS account to view your case history and understand what you can expect to happen next on your case.
• Current processing times can be found on the USCIS website at under Check Processing Times.

Sincerely,

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)




I encourage you to leave a comment in the comments section with questions and remarks. Will try to answer as far as time and knowledge allow me.  
   
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