Welcome to the USA

September 7, 2008

Strange how a photo jogs your memory to do something.  Tara took this pic as we headed back from Vancouver over the weekend and it reminded me that I said I would write up our green-card process once we were all complete.  It’s been a frustrating ride, and one I wanted to share with people going through the same process.  In any case, here it is in all it’s gory details.  It’s going to be a long post, so if you aren’t interested in US immigration law, and how screwed up it can be, by all means skip this post!

In 2005 when I joined Foundstone, one of the conditions that I set was that they would sponsor me for my GC, there wouldn’t be the usual 6-12 months “probationary” waiting period, and that there would be no “lock-in” period after I had finally got said green-card.  So, pretty much as soon as I started, Mark sent emails off to McAfee’s HR and signed some forms for me to kick the process off.

At the start, things went quite smoothly.  One of the first things that has to happen is you have to get your labor certificate, to show that there are no qualified US workers able/willing to do the job you are applying for.  Well, in my case there’s a good few people who would like my job, but a) few that actually can do it, and b) if they are out there, we’ll hire them anyway.  What is required though is to advertise the job, and for your employer to document that they are at least paying you the prevailing wage

A quick aside here – working out an equitable salary is part-and-parcel of negotiating a new job and GlassDoor.com is one site that a few people seem to like.  I however like FLCDatacenter.com because it lists actual salaries rather than ranges, including position and hire date.  Several employers don’t like this, but it has to be published (the labor cert and the “prevailing wage”) and is public data.  It only holds data for people applying for labor certs (H1B’s, green-cards, etc), and is anonymous, but in a small company it can be pretty easy to match people up based on their hire date, and for larger companies that have well-defined “levels”, it will give hard data on what is actually being paid for that job.  As I said, several employers and HR departments don’t like this, but knowledge is power I say

Anyway, back to the main topic.  I was lucky enough to get in on the new PERM process, which is much more streamlined than the old labor certification process.  It would have been quick(er) of course, if it wasn’t for McAfee screwing it up. 

Part of the process is advertising the job so that US workers can apply for the “no qualified US workers able/willing to do the job” part.  It has to be advertised in various ways (see here for more details), for at least 60 days (which was done), and then if no applicants were found the process can continue.  However, someone forgot to advertise my position in our office (not that it would really matter), but that had to be re-done.  By the time that McAfee HR had realized this, and re-did it, 4 months had been wasted.

In any case, all the documents finally went in, and in September 2006 (while on vacation in Hawaii funny enough), I got a call from the immigration attorney saying that the labor certification was successful and we can move onto the next step.

What happens next is that based off the labor certification (there’s no US worker that wants/can do my job) a petition for immigration is made (known as the I-140 from it’s form number).  This sets out what “category” you will be processed in based on your skills/education.  I’m fortunate to have a PhD which placed me in the EB2 category (Professionals Holding Advanced Degrees), which is the 2nd highest category and at the time of my application didn’t have a backlog (current status is listed here).  I’m also fortunate to not come from China, India, Mexico or Philippines, as each of those areas often have a wait until the Adjustment Of Status (AOS) can be filed (the date is the applications they are currently working on).  If it says “C” in your category, for your nationality, both the immigrant petition and the AOS (I-485) can be put in together.

This meant that we had to work quickly to get all the documentation together for our application, and there’s a lot of it to gather, and here’s just some to give an idea…

• All previous residences
• Employment for the last 5 years
• Original/full-copies of birth certificates
• Proof of marriage/divorce
• All entries/exits from/to the USA
• All previous notices and immigration documents
• Completed medical exams (immunization records help if you can get them)
• Application photos

The other thing I really like in filling this info out is the “Part 3″ section of the adjustment of status form.  Go and have a look, just to see what you have to answer – I would love to meet the person that checks “yes” to any of those boxes

Well, the fun one for us was the medical exams. 

Part of the medical exam is to be tested and be clear of tuberculosis (TB), but as Tara and I are from the UK we’ve both been immunized with the BCG vaccine.  One of the things a lot of doctors that perform the green-card medicals know is that they can’t do the skin test form of the TB indicator because it shows a false-positive (via the vaccine), and often they skip directly to the chest x-ray which should definitively show if someone is carrying TB or not.  That’s what our doctor did (skipped the skin test and did the chest x-ray, showing us both clear), and gave us our results in the usual sealed envelope.

Off goes our entire life history, first to our immigration attorney, and then off to USCIS.  A good few months pass (6-7 I think), and I get an email status update from USCIS (sign up for these BTW) that they are sending us a letter.  We think it’s good news, but when it arrives it’s a Request For Evidence (RFE) – turns out that the USCIS wants the skin test results anyway for some reason!  Even though if the person looks just 2 inches to the right, the x-ray results are there and it says “clear”.  Our doctor isn’t very happy (keeps muttering “unnecessary procedure”) and actually phones up to complain.  We get the medicals re-done and send them back off.

After 5 months (in the mean-time the I-140 has been approved – yay!), I get another email saying a decision has been made on our case (the emails, or website for that matter, don’t have any other info, which from a security aspect is fair enough).  Finally we think it’s all over, but the attorney emails us saying that the USCIS has denied our application – the letter is a notice of denial :0

Turns out that the letter says the Request For Evidence wasn’t fulfilled within the 90 days allowed – USCIS didn’t get our updated medical tests with the TB skin test results.  This can’t be right, as our attorney has a FedEx receipt of someone at the Texas Service Center (where our case should be) signing for it well before the deadline.  There’s no appeal against this decision, so a “motion to reopen” has to be submitted, and within 20 days.  A mad rush by us, and the attorneys to get all the documentation together ($385 just to file the form, plus attorney fees – thank heavens that McAfee are paying for all of this), and we get it all in, and confirmed receipt.

It now goes very quiet.  USCIS wont give us any updates on what is going on, and our attorney can’t find anything our through her channels either (even going via the liaison committee).  3 months go by, and we hear that they are sending out another Request For Evidence – it’s a request for medicals again (would appear that they don’t have them!  It’s suspected they are lost somewhere and haven’t reconnected with our files).  A month later I get the following emails in quick succession

• Case reopened or reconsidered based on USCIS determination, and the case is now pending
• [+2 days] Card production ordered
• [+1 day] Notice mailed welcoming the new permanent resident

Finally looks like I’m approved   Tara’s case however is still sitting at the “Case reopened or reconsidered based on USCIS determination, and the case is now pending” status.  Our attorney has some luck and gets a call from a USCIS officer about another case and is able to ask about what is happening with ours.  Usually it seems that USCIS people don’t know (or don’t want to know) about cases that they aren’t assigned to, but this person is actually pretty helpful and looks up Tara’s case.  They don’t have the medical records!  Can’t believe we have to go through this all again (this is the 3 time they are “lost”), but between the USCIS person, their supervisor, and our attorney, they accept that it’s USCIS’s screw up and if our copies of the records are faxed to them they will press the “approved” button.

Hurrah! we are finally done.  Just under 4 years in the making (which still isn’t too bad) and we should have our cards, but there’s two last little gems to come.  First one is that my card doesn’t turn up (Tara’s does, but nothing for me).  Seems they are sent out using regular US postal mail, with no tracking or anything (which I still can’t believe – one of the most important documents I’ll have, and it’s just sent regular post).  No problem, just apply for replacement card (ker-ching – more $$$).  “Lost” card turns up 3 weeks later in the post, so we cancel the production of the replacement.  Also, Tara’s medical records get sent back to our attorney with the note “case closed, not required” with the date stamped on them saying they got them 20 days before the original (1st) RFE deadline!  Clearly someone had them on their desk – left hand, right hand and all that – resulting in our denial.  Reminds me of the saying “to really screw things up takes a government”

Anyway, we have our cards now, and have had for a while (as I said above, this post is a little late).  They are white (not green – the color/design changes every so often) and means that we can stay for 10 years and can work/do what we like (but not vote ).  We’ll probably take citizenship in 5 years (after the waiting period) as there doesn’t seem to be many downsides to that (UK people can hold dual-nationality).

This has certainly be a stressful and long process, which we wouldn’t have been able to get through without the expert help of Petra Tang Bloom of Berry, Appleman and Lieden.  Not only was Petra so good at helping us, but Sara Tinati fielded a lot of our questions and kept the ball rolling during the last (most difficult) phase.  Jose Duran also from the BAL team helped kick the process off.  I can’t say how great the people of BAL were, and David Berry even stepped in to assure us things were going to come out OK.  I’m grateful for my employer in paying (another benefit I suppose), but even saying that BAL were certainly worth it and I have no reservations at all in recommending them (certainly the team I worked with).

As for other resources, another immigration law firm, Murthy, have some good pages and information.  I’ll finish this post with a few links that I have not used above, but could be useful to anyone also going through this process – the internet was good for me to lookup what was happening in my case, learn (probably too much) about immigration law/process, and find out about other peoples experience(s), so I hope that this is useful to others as well. 

• Green-card process, and BAL’s FAQ
• New info for the TB test
• Wikipedia article on the permanent residence card, including process details, links, etc
• Another law firm that has some good info
• Of course, Google is your friend for a lot of other links.

Best of luck and quick processing to anyone else that is going through this.

Posted in Personal