Welcome to this week's live attorney chat. My name is Attorney Desiree Koger-Gustafson with
Immigration for Couples. If you are new to our Facebook page, we regularly come on here and do
these live Facebook chats to discuss recent topics or developments within the immigration realm or to
discuss questions that we are hearing with regard to consultations or even our Facebook page. If you
are watching us live please feel free to comment if you have a question and if I see it and am able
to address it quickly here I will if not um it could be a part of our next live broadcast so
we do come on here um hopefully ideally calendar permitting weekly on Thursdays at 11 o'clock EST.
Today, we are going to discuss receipt notices. I get lots of questions regarding receipt notices,
what do they mean, what do you do with them, processing centers which could be a whole other
live chat. But today, that's what we are going to discuss is the receipt notices. Let's back up a
step or two. Obviously, to get a receipt notice, you have prepared your initial filing and this
could be a lot of different things and different processing centers process different applications.
There are some nuances that you'll definitely want to discuss with your attorney if you have
further questions. But in order to get a receipt notice, you've prepared the application, you've
submitted the application to the appropriate place whether that's online or via mailing
to a dropbox or to a specific location within the USCIS realm. Following that filing usually, within
a couple weeks sometimes up to four weeks there for a while it was taking more like six weeks I
believe maybe last summer, you will get a receipt notice and that just basically explains that we
are acknowledging that your submission has been received and it gives you a case number in order
to follow up on that status of that particular online filing. I get lots of questions as to what
they're basically there's a lot of numbers and a couple of letters associated with those receipt
notices. Let's talk about those specifically here. The first three letters does apply to the service
center that is processing the application. This is important because we have very little control
other than where you live as to what processing center gets your application. They are sent
based on where you live and who processes those applications generally. Also, if you're
submitting to a lock box, they are submitted then they're forwarded on to the appropriate
processing center. I guess with some respect to if you have that flexibility to move around,
processing centers do vary in time. But know that even though there's a discrepancy in some
of the processing centers now, some may be processing something at nine months and then
others at 15. That sounds like a lengthy period of time currently, however USCIS does look at
those and will rearrange them if they feel like one is processing one's interest moving things
along faster or has had less applications. Know that that is a possibility as well. Things like
the first three letters, the YSC that would be the Potomac, that one's probably not as
readily available or intuitive usually they do have two different ones for each. The
Vermont Center VSC, CSC, IOE, I've seen this for a lot of different applications
and it's becoming more frequent because it is associated with an online filing as well
and then of course you have like the EAC which is the Vermont Center as well as VSC,
the WAC is California. Those are kind of the general the first three letters that's what
that applies. The second kind of two digits after that is going to be that fiscal year when it's
processed when it's received the fee payment is taken obviously they don't accept filings without
that filing fee they will reject it if you've never had one of those happen they'll send it
back if that filing fee is not correct um so know that. The last five digits are your case number
so it's specific to your filing. What you can do with those really is to go online and look
at the USCIS website. You can even search case online case status and you can put that in and
see the last update that was done on your case. Know that sometimes they don't always update those
and so occasionally we'll get something a client that's concerned that they didn't update that,
we've sent in our RFE or they didn't update that a certain thing was taken process was taken or
whatever with that website um the online status tool so you can use your online account center
to update or message or even the chat feature with USCIS as well. Those are just a couple
of kind of tidbits of information of what you can do with that online case status or the case
the receipt number itself. It's also useful if you've been waiting a really long time, you are
past your processing time so you've submitted an online out of processing request and you want to
move along with maybe seeking congressional assistance which I've discussed before. You
will need your receipt number number for anything like that as well so I hope this has been helpful
I know we've had several comments and questions regarding that certainly go to www.immigration
for couples.com and go to the resources Tab and underneath that resources tab we have tons
of videos it is likely that somebody else has had your question as well and there's a video
um pertaining to that obviously nothing suffices for or matches the guidance that you would get
from attorney that's actually looking at your specific case and giving you guidance in regards
to that so certainly keep that in mind but as far as general information there's tons of resources
on our website so definitely please like and share this pot this video if you know of somebody who
might need this or had that same question if you have a question after we go into this live
broadcast you certainly can comment hashtag replay and list that question we do keep a rolling walk
of them and that way we can come back on and try to answer that question in a future live broadcast
this has been helpful again this is attorney Desiree and I will talk to
you next Thursday at 11 o'clock Eastern Standard Time have a great day thank you