Saturday we went and picked up the mail from The Mother's house, we haven't changed the address on everything yet, it being merely a month since we moved out, and we actually don't have a mailbox - and the USPS, in some cases, doesn't actually recognize our house address as existing... something about town street name changes not being properly recorded with city hall or something. We'll get it fixed.
Anyway, we picked up them mail and low-and-behold James FINALLY had gotten a letter from immigration about his interview. Or so we thought...
The letter was in our name so we opened it excitedly, and before our eyes could reach the second sentence we saw the word...
He was surprisingly calm as he took the papers from our hand. He scanned the letters flipping them back and forth in his hands, confused. We snatched one back from him and took a closer look, really paying attention to ALL the words this time...focusing.
He had allegedly missed his interview date in November. They said they had sent the letter out in October, and they were just now, the last days of March, telling him he had missed it.
He had just had a meeting with his lawyer the day before, who had figured they lost his paperwork, because she said his interview should have happened by now, and he had been checking the online status every other week since October, and it never indicated an upcoming meeting, or anything pending. So right away we knew something had went wrong.
He e-mailed his lawyer immediately, and we waited.
Yesterday she replied that she contacted them immediately because she was supposed to have gotten the letter about the interview too, and she hadn't. She had gotten the Petition Denial letter on Saturday and copies of all the other correspondences since the applications had been submitted. She also said she had heard about this happening before, and that the case should be re-opened with no problem. There is a 30 day appeal deadline. So, there is still hope.
The biggest concern is if they try to charge us more money for their mistake. We've already spent nearly $6000.00 dollars in application fees and lawyer fees...and we really don't deserve to have to pay for something that is not our fault in the very least.
Anyway, immigration. It's not easy, it's full of loop-holes, and traps, and costs a lot of money. It's not really surprising that people try to get around it; but if you ever do it, the cost of the immigration lawyer is ABSOLUTELY worth it.
In the meantime, we wait...some more. July will be one year since he filed the paperwork. The biggest deal was that his dad was sick in December, and he would have loved to fly home to see him, and his brother got married this past weekend, and he would have loved to be there; but until his petition is approved he is not allowed to leave the country. After he gets approved he gets to stay for two years before another interview and is free to leave the country, but until then...he's at a standstill.
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