Saturday, December 30, 2006

Some Things Are Fast and Others Aren't

Today in the mail, we received a receipt from the Department of Homeland Security stating that they had received our new I600A application. This came as a little bit of a surprise.

December 20, our social worker sent an email saying that our agency told her that they had sent our criminal background check clearance to her on that day. I haven't heard anything from her since. I was assuming that she had gone out of town for the holidays, etc. and that the USCIS would be closed various days and had decided that they would probably get it sometime after the first of the year. So, today, whatever today is, we received this piece of mail. And, truthfully, it could have come yesterday because I don't think we ever went out and got the mail. Let's say it arrived today - the 30th (ok, I looked). They say they received the application on December 27 and the envelope is post marked December 28. Could this year's Christmas miracle be a speed up at the CIS? The receipt states that processing takes approximately 60 days. They may have said that last time when it took 90, but they requested additional documents. Either way, we should have our renewed I171H by March-ish. Which sadly, should not have any effect on our travel to China.

Which brings me to the seemingly slow things. Everyone is on pins and needles waiting for word on this month's batch of referrals. It's about that time of the month, and people are getting anxious. Clearly, we won't be hearing from our agencies before January, but there is the possibility that the referrals could have gone out yesterday. Hopefully we'll hear something next week AND they will cover at least a couple of weeks' worth of LIDs.

No comments: