[Please note: The Client’s name and case key details may have been altered to preserve the identity of the client. This Success Story is not intended to be an offer of service or case plan. Every case is unique. The Success Story is presented for information purposes only.]
In 2012, when he was twelve years old, Peizhi came to Los Angeles from China where he was reunited with his mother, Jingfel, who had living in the United States for years and had just married a United States citizen named Doug. Accordingly, Doug filed for a marriage-based green card for Jingfel who grandfathered her son onto the application. However, before two years lapsed, Jingfel and Doug got a divorce, and the conditional green cards soon expired.
In 2015, Jingfel married again, this time to a man named Lowei who was a naturalized U.S. citizen from China, thus giving them more in common. Of course, Lowei really wanted to help his new wife and stepson, who he had taken a liking too, become properly documented. Subsequently, Lowei sought the help of the Margaret W. Wong team in Los Angeles, working in conjunction with the New York team, to secure legal permanent residency for both Jingfel and Peizhi.
Due to complications concerning Jingfel’s initial entry into the United States which we knew would take a while to work out, our team decided to pursue the mother/son cases separately although Lowei, a prosperous businessperson, sponsored them both.
Therefore, in the latter part of 2015, we filed a package for Peizhui that included an I-130 (Petition for Alien Relative), an I-485 (Application for Permanent Green Card), and an I-765 (Application for Employment Document) so that Peizhui could take an after school/summer job. In March of 2017, our legal representative accompanied Lowei and Peizhui to the latter’s USCIS interview which went quite well but ended with the ISO stating that he would need to confer with his superiors before granting a green card to Peizhui. Yet the family felt very good about what had transpired at the interview, especially since, a few months later, Peizhui’s I-130 and the I-765 were approved.
Nevertheless, there was evidently a delay on the I-485 approval that we, at first, believed was due to confusion over Peizhui’s conditional green card that was issued and lapsed years ago.
We therefore concentrated our efforts on obtaining legal permanent residency for Jingfel which we were finally able to do in the late Spring of 2018.
To be sure, by this time, the fact that we had heard nothing from USCIS regarding Peizhui’s case was starting to bother us, so we made several inquiries to USCIS. Finally, in May of 2019, we learned that Peizhui’s green card application had been denied which made no sense because his employment authorization document had been approved.
Thus, we dug further and learned that Peizhui’s petition had been denied in July of 2018 based on a failure to respond to a RFE (Request for Evidence) that had been issued in April of 2018 concerning problems relating to Peizhui’s I-693 (Report of Medical Examination and Vaccination Record).
Unfortunately, that RFE had never been received by our office, nor had it been by Peizhui, Lowei, and Jingfel all of whom affirmed that they had been carefully monitoring their mail. Weirdly, though, an RFE was received by the family in February of that year that did concern Peizhui’s medical exam that we responded to within the week.
Moreover, Peizhui showed us a form letter that he had received a long time before, dated the same day as the denial, saying that his case had been “re-opened” but didn’t mention the denial at all.
For sure, Jingfel was very upset and was afraid that Peizhui, now age nineteen, might age out before this matter could be resolved. We assured her, however, that due to the Child Status Protection Act, Peizhui’s age was frozen at fifteen, which was how old he was when we filed the application for legal permanent residency.
After further investigation of the matter and failure to receive a satisfactory explanation from governmental authorities, the Margaret W. Wong team turned to a U.S. Senator whose staff was known for providing excellent constituent service.
Within a month of our inquiry, in February of 2020, the senatorial staff forwarded to us a USCIS letter explaining that the April RFE, which we didn’t get, pertained to the February RFE, which we responded to. In short, Peizhui’s application for legal permanent residency had been turned down because the wrong medical form had been used on the response to the February RFE.
As for the “re-open” form letter, it had apparently been issued because the clerk working the case at USCIS decided to amend the denial notice and had to re-open the case to do this, so the form letter was issued automatically.
To no surprise, our team filed an I-290 MTR (Motion to Re-open) on the grounds that the April RFE was not received by any pertinent party involved in Peizhui’s case but, again to no surprise, our appeal was denied.
Not to be outdone, we then simply decided to re-file the I-485 application which we did in April of 2020, amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Most certainly, Jingfel made it clear that this time she was going to accompany her son and her husband to the USCIS interview, should another one be scheduled.
But, due to restrictions involving the pandemic, Peizhui received a pass this time and neither he nor his family had to undergo another interview although they were ready to go and put up a fight.
Instead, in the middle of March of 2021, Peizhui received a notice in the mail saying that he had been approved for a green card and this time a permanent one.
