Hello. I've been out of touch recently, in more ways than just this blog! I am starting a class called Crisis Intervention next Monday. This is a step towards receiving my certificate in addiction treatment. Its going to be a lot of work, but I'm looking forward to it. The only downfall is the timing.
Though it might take my mind off of all of this Immigration stress and my grandmas passing, I have a feeling my stress level is going to be through the roof. Over the past couple of weeks I have been meeting with the appropriate people to get started in this program. I have also been working on my grandmas eulogy, gathering pictures of her for her funeral and working on coping with her death.
I have also been emailing and calling the National Visa Center and Immigration. The average wait time when calling the NVC is an hour. We've had to up our minutes on our mobile phone plan. Our petition was approved on May 17 and I was so excited, thinking the next step would fly by. This is what I'd read on the Immigration websites www.immigrate2us.net and www.visajourney.com. The folks on there have been saying their processing time for receiving a case number from the National Visa Center was 2 weeks, on average.
I had contacted the NVC to request an expedite. I was only receiving automated responses. I finally received a response stating our petitions had not been found. They told me to contact Immigration. So I did and they told the petitions had been sent to the NVC on our approval date, May 17. I'm basically being sent back and forth, back and forth. Like some little kid running back and forth asking the girl if she likes the boy. It's very unprofessional. Do they not communicate with one another?
So I had to bring in the big guns, yet again, and contact our good friend Lois Capps. Her assistant contacted the NVC and within just a couple of days she had a personal response. Wow! I get automated responses but Lois Capps gets an actual response. In their email, spelling my name incorrectly, they stated -
The Notices of Action (Form I-797) provided with your correspondence indicate these cases were approved and sent to NVC on May 17, 2012. Therefore, we contacted CIS for further information. On June 18, 2012, CIS indicated that these cases were still in the process of being shipped to the NVC. Please allow more time for Mr. McGuiness’s petitions to arrive at the NVC. We will notify your office when we receive these petitions from CIS.
This was not the response I was looking for. Are they sending our petitions out on a horse and carriage? To then be picked up by a little bird and delivered by the next available kangaroo? Considering everyone else has said their petitions were received and processed withing two weeks, I'm getting pretty nervous.
So I called Immigration, they're on my speed dial. I don't know why I haven't been given a personal number yet to dial or a secret extension, since I call so much. I was on hold for about 15 minutes when the representative answered. As usual, she knew nothing. She said she'd connect me to an officer. An hour later of listening to their lovely music, a man answered. I almost fell off my bed in disbelief. He tried telling me the same thing - you must wait 30 days before contacting us.
But I had enough! I wasn't going to be turned down again by them telling me to just wait. I said I had a medical emergency, in which I do with my fathers current condition, and I can't sit around waiting and hoping for our petitions to arrive. He was very nice so I didn't get too psychotic. But I told him our situation. He told me, as everyone else had, that our petitions had been sent out May 17, 2012 and the NVC should have received them. I kept talking and he finally said he could put in a "service request" to have Immigration (the California Service Center, where our petitions were approved) to have them double check for any errors.
Our service request was sent in and he said I'd be notified by July 6. Yeah, more of a waiting game. I'm about to call NVC and ask for a supervisor. Every time I've called them, I'm on hold for about an hour until a representative answers and is speaking very quickly, telling me time limits. They are very rude and quite eager to get me off the phone. So I guess I'm just going to have to be more pushy and demand to speak to a representative this time around. Maybe I should also request for them to pay my mobile phone bill, as well.
So this is what we've been going through. Chloe talks about her daddy more and more everyday. Today we were talking about him and she said "daddy left me." I almost started crying and kept trying to explain to her what is going on. Anytime she sees anyone who is sad or upset she says "hes said cause he misses daddy." It breaks my heart more and more each time. I was telling Gary on the phone today and burst into tears. I just miss him so much and am so fed up with this whole process.
I feel so powerless and angry. I don't understand why they make it so difficult and keep families apart for so long without a care or bother. I'm hoping we'll have some good news to report soon. I've learned you need to keep on these people or nothing will be done. A good friend of mines dad said to me the other day
"I was in the Military for years and worked closely with the Government. This is what I learned - you have to either make a friend and have them work for you. Or, if you can't make a friend, bug the hell out of them until they're so fed up with you they just want to get rid of you."
So I guess I'm doing the latter! Until next time friends,
Candance & Chloe
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