More Immigration Hassles

We were thrilled to finally get Annie's Certificate of Citizenship about a month ago. We were worried after the Immigration official at the San Francisco airport gave her a temporary green card rather than granting citizenship.

So that was the end of it. Or at least was supposed to be.

I went in to the Social Security office last Friday to apply for a card for Annie. Turns out someone at USCIS made a slight data entry error. They listed her with 2 first names and 1 middle name (rather than 1 first and 2 middle.) Everything printed correctly, so we had no way of knowing there was a problem.

Until we filed for Social Security. Turns out we don't have a name match. Social Security is still going to try and process our request. In the meantime, I need to take care of things with USCIS.

A simple data entry fix in their computer.

No dice...30 minutes navigating the phone jungle only to reach an agent who is more interested in reading from her legalese script than listening to the issue at hand. Long story short...we have to go through a long, drawn-out process (could take up to six months...we could request them to expedite things, but that's another process that could take up to six months...I kid you not!) We may even have to get a court order and pay $345 in additional fees...for their mistake!

I've contacted our state senator, our adoption agency and even the US Consulate in Guangzhou, China. The only way I can "prove" this wasn't our mistake is to get a copy of our application (which died when the laptop died.) We have copies of the forms we received...just not the original applications.

Oy vey! Prayers appreciated that this goes smoothly with no further cost.