Work permit updates.....

OK. I'm officially looking for a job in PR right now, and I can't wait to get one. I had a coffee on Tuesday with a lovely woman who works in my field, to find out what it's like to do PR in the US (very different! There are so many jobs I didn't know existed!), and I might do some volunteer work for her. Exciting exciting.

BUT. I need to find out exactly when I can start working. And this is where the confusion starts. First, I thought that at the end of 90 days, you could get an interim permit. But it turns out that they've now scrapped that, and at 90 days you have to apply again, pay another $180 and re-submit all your info, and they try to do it within a month. Sigh. To USCIS's credit, they are trying to do everything within the 90-day period, but still. And you have to apply to the processing centre, not a local office.

However, there is also another issue. When I first applied, I applied online. A link was supposed to show me what I need to send in in the form of paperwork, but it didn't work. SO I called the USCIS offices, and ask what I need to send in. They tell me, "Nothing, we will ask for it."

So, I think this is odd, but I don't send anything in because I'm not sure what to send. I go in and do my biometrics the day before we leave for NZ, and spend a few hours beforehand preparing everything I think I might possibly need to give them. But they don't want to even look at it.

Then, once we get back from NZ, I get a letter dated the day before the biometrics were taken, asking for all the information, plus more! Grrrr!

The frustrating thing is that online it says that if they have to ask you for missing initial information, it adds another 90 days of processing time from the time that they receive the missing information. So I could be looking at another 90 day wait!!!

Yet when I rang the processing centre, the woman told me that they will have processed it in 30 days and I should get my work permit within those 30 days. I really don't know whether to believe her.

On the bright side, the Laguna Niguel processing centre has just finished processing the applications from Jan 27th, so I think by that account my work permit is a month away. Here's hoping.