After dozens of emails and phone calls to USCIS and NVC, we have still not received any visa bill or any other official communication after our I-526 (RC) 5 months back. What can we do to ensure our child gets the dependent PR with us? She was 20.7 years old when we applied.
You must seek to acquire a visa within one year of the approval - since they are not issuing fee bills you could bring a legal action to do so, or you could try mailing the DS-260 forms to show you sought to acquire. It is not clear how CSPA will work because of the sunset. We had gaps before but this is the longest.
If you beat the Regional Center Program expiration, USCIS should honor the receipt of the I-526. Lack of a formal receipt notice is frustrating, but receipt notice delays have been common over the last year.
You must get the fee bills and file DS-260 in order to lock in the age. Any delays due to the agency inaction are not automatically waived; you may be able to argue unjust delays.
If your I-526 was approved, the dependent child has one year from the date of approval to “seek to acquire” the green card. This term encompasses different actions that the visa applicant can take to move the visa process forward, including paying a visa fee bill, filing form DS-260, Form I-485 or Form I-824. I would even argue that the steps you have taken to contact the NVC/USCIS prior to the EB-5 Regional Center Program lapsed could be considered seeking to acquire the visa while EB-5 RC visa category was available. If the NVC has not issued the fee bill yet (many cases are delayed), I would recommend filing Form I-824 to request that USCIS send the I-526 approval notice to the NVC (even though they should have upon approval). Taking this step is an additional safeguard towards seeking to acquire and freezing the age of your dependent child. You could also consider a mandamus complaint to compel the NVC to issue the fee bill.
