“How do I get past the phone robots when I call USCIS?”

If you’re going through an immigration process, you may have had a need to call USCIS. You need to know what’s going on with your case or you haven’t received a receipt notice or you haven’t received your green card among other things.

When you call, you will be greeted by a phone robot that ensures you that they understand complete sentences. It’s very difficult to get past the phone robot. If you are lucky enough to get past that USCIS phone robot, you will wait in line for at least 50 minutes to talk to a live person.

USCIS made the system difficult to contact a live person because they want you to use their online tools to check your case status and to change your address.

The Role of the USCIS Customer Service Center

They’re very clear to let you know they’re not customer service-based, it’s a call center. What they can do are very functionary duties. They can read to you the exact same thing that shows on the USCIS case status check tool online.

They can cancel your interview or your biometrics appointment if you cannot attend but they have very limited functions that they can perform other than that.

What they can’t do is they cannot give you legal advice. They can’t actually see the file that you submitted to immigration. Sometimes what happens is they might be well-intentioned and they might want to try to help you and give you legal advice that is incorrect.

Some individuals have said, “The USCIS customer service said this and that and they were wrong and now my case is denied or I have this very long delay in my case.”

Unfortunately, there isn’t anything you can do about that if they give you bad advice.

If you do really need to call USCIS to cancel your interview or biometrics appointment, then you can say when the robot answers, “I need to cancel my interview.” A live person will be able to help you with that.