In immigration legal practice, effective communications between an attorney who works on a case and an immigration officer who adjudicates this case have a very important impact on the processing of this case. When the immigration officer has concerns or questions about a case in the adjudicating process, he/she may call the attorney directly to seek instant answers to the questions. At this time, if the attorney can provide required information or explanation right away in the phone conversation, it could significantly facilitate the processing of a case. The following story that happened in our office demonstrates the importance of effective communication and a powerful client relationship management system.

Mr. Li was a Ph.D. student in a university in the southwest area, majoring in the field of bioinformatics and biotechnology, particularly in the area related to genomics. In June 2004, Mr. Li retained our firm for his immigration petition. Mr. Li was born in mainland China. Currently aliens born in China and India can not do NIW and I-485 concurrent filing due to the backlogs of immigration visa under Eb-2. However, in December 2004, the aliens born in mainland China and India were able to do so because visa numbers were available. Therefore, we filed a NIW for him and I-485 petitions for him and his wife concurrently to the USCIS Texas service center on December 12, 2004. Attorney Victor Bush was the in-charge attorney for the I-140 petition, and another attorney at the firm was the in-charge attorney for the I-485 petitions. Three months later, his I-140 petition was approved, while the I-485 petitions of his whole family were still pending.

During the pending process, our firm kept tracking Mr. Li’s I-485 petitions status via email and phone call to the USCIS. Attorney Yang was the in charge attorney for the pending I-485 cases. On October 23, 2006, Attorney Yang requested Lina, one supporting professional in our firm to call the USCIS for the status of the I-485 cases. Lina called the USCIS for 40 minutes regarding Mr. Li’s I-485 case and submitted a status inquiry. Moreover, there is an internal work protocol regarding I-485 pending cases in our firm, if we receive no response within 30 days after submitting a status inquiry, we should call the USCIS again till getting response.

Mr. Li’s family was living in the southwest area when we filed I-485 petitions for them in December 2004. After Mr. Li finished his PhD. study, in November 2005, he relocated to the northeast area to start a new job. Within 10 days after his relocation, Mr. Li submitted an AR-11 form immediately. (At the beginning of January 2007, USCIS launched a new web-based service allowing USCIS customers to submit change of address information online. For more information about this change, please visit our website: http://www.hooyou.com/news/news011307launcheschange.html).

At 12:30pm on Wednesday, March 21, 2007, a phone call from the USCIS Texas Service Center reached our office. The USCIS immigration officer wanted to talk about Mr. Li’s I-485 and Ms. Li’s I-485 petitions with Attorney Yang. However, Attorney Yang was out of office for lunch at that time. Attorney Jerry Zhang answered the phone. There is a work policy in our office, whenever an immigration officer has a phone inquiry regarding a case, it must be answered by an attorney immediately to facilitate the processing of the case. If the in-charge attorney is not available when an immigration officer calls our office, one of managing attorneys will take the call. Our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system enables our attorneys to implement this policy, as an attorney can access all clients’ information through the CRM system.

After initial greetings, the immigration officer told Attorney Zhang her inquiry. Attorney Zhang typed Mr. Li’s name into our CRM system and pulled out all related materials of Mr. Li’s case within a few seconds. These materials included his contact information, case status descriptions and the major e-mail records between Mr. Li and our attorneys. Meantime, Attorney Zhang explained to the officer that he could offer all related information if the officer needed it right away. Thus, the officer said that Mr. Li had submitted the notice of his address change, but there was no record of address change of Mr. Li’s wife. The immigration officer was wondering where his wife lived and what her current status was.

Attorney Zhang found that Mr. Li’s wife did not move to the northeast area with Mr. Li at that time. In other words, she still lived in the southwest area. So she did not need to submit AR-11 form and the notice of address change for the pending I-485. Attorney Zhang told the immigration officer about it. To ensure the information was accurate, Attorney Zhang told the officer that he would check it with Mr. Li and call her back in a few minutes. Then Attorney Zhang called Mr. Li at the number saved in our CRM system. Mr. Li confirmed that his wife still lived at the old address. After finishing the brief conversation with Mr. Li, Attorney Zhang immediately called the officer and explained this situation to her. The officer was satisfied with the answer.

In addition, the officer was very impressed that Attorney Zhang could get all the related information of the client so quickly, even though he was not the in-charge attorney of this case. Attorney Zhang told the officer that, our firm uses Siebel Customer Relationship Management (CRM), which helps our attorneys get all information about a client whenever and wherever as long as they could access the Internet.

The officer was delightedly surprised to learn that our firm uses the Siebel CRM and told Attorney Zhang that the USCIS also uses that system to manage and process immigration and non-immigration petitions. Attorney Zhang told her that we have begun to use this CRM system since April 2006. By implementing Siebel CRM, the firm has been able to provide our clients with the best service available, enhancing communication with our clients and better safeguarding the interests of our clients.

The common usage of Siebel CRM may have built up certain chemistry between the officer and Attorney Zhang. When talking about the status of Mr. Li’s I-485 petition, the officer said that name check of these petitions was completed and they had no problem with the new confirmed information. At the end of this pleasant conversation, Attorney Zhang suggested to the officer that it was a good day to approve Mr. Li’s case. The officer seemed very happy with the conversation and also said that it was really a good day to do so. One day later, on March 22, USCIS issued approval notices for Mr. Li and his wife’s I-485 petitions.

From this case, we can see the importance of effective attorney-immigration officer communication in terms of processing cases. Another big advantage of effective phone communication between the attorney and the immigration officer is that it could reduce the chance of a request for additional evidence (RFE). A RFE from USCIS could delay processing of a case. But if the immigration officer’s concern or inquiry about a case can be resolved through a phone conversation, he/she may not need to issue a RFE. Except phone conversations and mail communications, the American Immigration Lawyer Association (AILA)-USCIS liaison meetings provide another effective communication channel to resolve complicated immigration issues. As members of AILA, our attorneys occasionally presents issues related to our clients’ cases to USCIS officers. For most cases, we can get answers from USCIS through the liaison meeting.

Although the effective attorney-immigration officer communication helped us get Mr. Li’s case approved in a relatively short period of time, there are also situations beyond the control of the USCIS immigration officers and attorneys. For example, currently many I-485 petitions need quite a long time to be approved. If an I-485 petition has been pending for quite a long time, the applicant can make a status inquiry. However, if the petition was under the security check process by the FBI, the FBI doesn’t accept any requests from either the petitioner or the attorney to expedite the checking process.

Mr. Li and his wife got their green cards on March 30, 2007. In his thank-you email to Attorney Jerry Zhang, Mr. Li wrote that “I just received my Green Card 27 months after filing the NIW case. I am very impressed with your excellent job on my NIW case. Attorney Bush’s I-140 documentation was so great and my I-140 got through so quickly (filed in December, 2004, I-140 approval on March, 2005). During the long process of backlog, I kept getting patient consultation from your assistants and Attorney Yang. When I got your phone call on March 21, 2007 for my I-485 approval, I still could not believe it happened. Now after I have gotten my green card, I am so happy for this moment! Now I just want to say thank you and your colleagues for the great help! You are the best immigration attorney I have met in America. I also would like to encourage more of my friends to let you handle their cases. Thank you and your firm again for my whole family!”

We are very touched. A compliment from our client like this email is one of the best rewards we get in our work. Through our colleagues’ hard work and our client’s trust, another American Dream came true.

Zhang & Associates, P.C.
Always Deliver the Best!
Houston：7324 Southwest Freeway, Suite 1088, Houston, TX 77074
Chicago：6 E. Monroe St. Suite 602, Chicago, IL 60603
New York： 1350 Broadway, Suite 1710, New York, NY 10018
Tel：1-800-230-7040
Email: @hooyou.com">info@hooyou.com
Website: http://www.hooyou.com