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Ashcans posted:
From what I hear, adjudicating I-129Fs is a lot of fun.
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Jul 2, 2014 18:42
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Miranda posted:I'm pretty sure it's all based on his income but I did just get hired as an RN, would it be any good to bring a copy of my contract if I have it? It's probably not worth setting anything up days before your appointment, no. Bring your contract if you are worried about it, it can't hurt to have it. Yes, you should print out photos - it helps if they are from obvious events or occasions or you can supply information/dates as needed ('oh, this is Fred's birthday', 'This is that Jets game we went to', 'Here is where we got wasted on the holiday weekend'). Photos are good because they are pretty hard to convincingly fake without a ton of effort. Beerdeer posted:From what I hear, adjudicating I-129Fs is a lot of fun.
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Jul 2, 2014 20:43
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We received our marriage certificate today after signing the paperwork on Saturday! Fastest I've ever seen an Australian government department move in my entire life, and I work in one  We can apply now, just gathering a couple of stat decs from my dad with whom we are living and sharing household costs, and a friend who was at the wedding. The rest of the documentation I have. I've read that for the IR1/CR1 visa you really only need the certificate, how true is this? I worry that I'll just send that and the couple of other things and it won't be enough or is the rest of the supporting documentation for the interview?
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Jul 2, 2014 23:52
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My wife has her maiden name on her passport but her married name on her green card. Is this a problem for travel in and out of the country?
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Jul 3, 2014 01:57
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It's not usually an issue, and as you can imagine it's hardly a rare situation for people to be in. In theory the officer would have access to her file and could check if they cared. Having said which, it's not a bad idea to carry a copy of the marriage certificate, just in case you get some rear end in a top hat officer who wants to make a thing about it. Disclaimer: This applies to the US standard of adopting the husband's last name. If she hyphenated, then it is basically no issue at all. If she is one of the small number of people that changed her entire name on marriage, that's very confusing to people and she should carry additional documentation (like the marriage certificate). For some countries, you can take your passport to the consulate and have them enter an addendum showing a married/alternate name.
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Jul 3, 2014 15:37
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My I-485 is in the lockbox... EB1 category. Come on big money no whameys!
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Jul 4, 2014 05:44
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Probably a stupid question, but why not. I'm studying in VA for the next three years (edit: On an F-1 Visa) and I plan on driving my car down. My insurance company says there's no way in hell they will cover me while I'm in the US for that long so I need to get US insurance. Do I have to go through the whole HS-7 process to be able to get my car licensed in VA etc? Further, since that only lasts one year is that one year period or can it be renewed? Or should I be able to get insurance just fine with Canadian plates?
Solis fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Jul 6, 2014 |
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Jul 6, 2014 17:07
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I-130 posted today to the lockbox. Christ it's been stressful. I'm absolutely petrified we'll get an RFE. I hope we don't, I tried my best. I'm also super disheartened and sad that most people going through this process are waiting around 12 months between lodging and interview at the moment. Being apart from my husband is gonna suck  E: VVV it doesn't. That sucks though
Sharks Below fucked around with this message at 11:14 on Jul 9, 2014 |
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Jul 9, 2014 05:39
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If it helps any, us citizens filing for brothers and sisters have to wait over a decade
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Jul 9, 2014 05:52
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Sharks Below posted:I've read that for the IR1/CR1 visa you really only need the certificate, how true is this? I worry that I'll just send that and the couple of other things and it won't be enough or is the rest of the supporting documentation for the interview? I just submitted a copy of the marriage certificate and a rental agreement showing us both as tenants for a couple of years. Even with my wild-west translations of everything that was apparently plenty for a CR1 from a country that isn't China/the Philippines/etc. Sheep fucked around with this message at 13:25 on Jul 9, 2014 |
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Jul 9, 2014 13:15
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Here's my situation: I am a F-1 student, with a valid I-20. I married an American last fall, and applied for a green card (I-485) and applied for permission to travel (I-131) back in May. The I-131 is for a family trip planned for the end of July (18 days), but the I-131 has not been processed yet. I just got off the phone with USCIS, and their guy said that with valid I-20, F1 and passport it would be fine to travel anyway. (With the caveat it's not recommended because I might miss paperwork) However, everyone OTHER than USCIS tells me leaving the country means my I-485 is considered abandoned and I probably can't get back into the country. Who's right?
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Jul 15, 2014 15:24
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tl;dr - Don't travel using your F-1. It is possible to travel while your I-485 is pending and re-enter using a visa without causing any problems, but only with certain visa classes. These classes are considered 'Dual Intent' visas - they are non-immigrant visas, but they allow an applicant to have an immigrant intent while using them. This means that it is ok to use, say, an H-1B visa while you are trying to gain permanent residency. The F-1 student visa is not a dual intent visa. It requires that you do not have immigrant intent, and using it you are making that assertion. As you have a pending I-485, it is obvious that this is not true, and it is extremely likely that when you tried to enter, the officer would flag you for the I-485 and deny you entry because you no longer demonstrate the required intent for using the F-1. And yea, then your I-485 would be abandoned, you would have to consular process, and the entry denial becomes a big headache for you. Don't do it unless this family trip is worth that. You can always contact USCIS and request that they expedite the I-131 because you have a pressing need to travel. They probably won't do anything, but it can't hurt you to try. Entry is handled by CBP, not by USCIS - the person you spoke to probably has very little basis for their answer beyond knowing what the basic requirements are for entering as an F-1. If this is really important to you, get a lawyer and see if they can do anything for you (they probably can't - as representatives we deal with these situations 99% by managing the filing date to avoid conflicts, once its filed its really hard to do anything within regular processing times)
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Jul 15, 2014 16:30
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Ashcans posted:tl;dr - Don't travel using your F-1. Ah gently caress. That's what I assumed, but this helps explain the why. Thanks.
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Jul 15, 2014 18:59
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You can try making an Infopass appointment and seeing if you can get your advance parole expedited. Some people get lucky, some people don't (e.g. "You say your mom isn't dead yet? Denied")
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Jul 15, 2014 23:35
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Hey Ashcans, thanks again for your suggestions earlier  I do have a couple of things however:
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Jul 16, 2014 16:46
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Man, I am going to be a lot less helpful with those. Did you ask the cops if they did anything? I have no idea how they would make a report like that, so I doubt that it happened. Normally it is up to you to handle it. You could contact your country's embassy and ask them to verify if your passport is still valid, that might be an indicator? At a pinch, you could also try visiting a CBP post while still in the US, explain what happened, and ask them for their advice. A lot of the time you can access CBP at an airport without actually traveling (usually to fix I-94 information, but maybe they could answer this). I have never heard of a visa/passport being remotely canceled like that, so it seems really unlikely, but I don't want to tell you you are fine and have you get in trouble later. I don't think there are any alerts or watch lists revolving around Uzbekistan at the moment. You might face some questions about it on re-entry, so it would be a good idea to be able to explain exactly what you were doing and where you were. Take some pictures at the tourist sites, etc. None of your family are on watch lists, right? 
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Jul 16, 2014 17:13
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Glitch crashes global US passport, visa operations Will this affect the NVC as well?
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Jul 27, 2014 22:32
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There is surprisingly little buzz on this at the moment, meaning that I don't really know any more than what is showing up in the news. From the breadth of the processes that it's affecting, it seems like something really fundamental has hosed up. From what I know about the process, I don't actually think that this will stop the NVC doing their job - they should still be able to do their document review and so on to get your application ready. But it probably means that they aren't going to be able to easily pass your application on to the State Department when they are done, if there is a huge backlog of people waiting for visa and passports. So what is likely is that the NVC will chug along fine, but if this isn't completely resolved when they're done, you'll be waiting for an appointment for much longer than expected. I imagine they are trying to get this fixed ASAP because not being able to renew passports or issue visa to anyone is a total nightmare. I feel bad for any students who are training to make it in for the end of August.
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Jul 28, 2014 14:35
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It's been three weeks since they received our application and we have no NOA1 by email yet soooo  They have banked the check though.
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Jul 28, 2014 23:55
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Ashcans posted:There is surprisingly little buzz on this at the moment, meaning that I don't really know any more than what is showing up in the news. From the breadth of the processes that it's affecting, it seems like something really fundamental has hosed up. No kidding. What a loving disaster. I've hardly heard about this on the news for whatever reason.
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Jul 31, 2014 03:28
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SEVIS is still working fine though. That article made it kind of unclear what exactly wasn't working, but it must be whatever specific thing the consulate uses to issue the actual visa stamps and not SEVIS itself, which would have been a much bigger disaster.
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Jul 31, 2014 03:38
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My husband is going through NVC right now. God, I want to kill myself.
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Jul 31, 2014 04:04
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SEVIS is administered by DHS, the problem is with the DOS systems - so USCIS, ICE, CBP, should not be affected. The only thing that is going wrong seems to be passports, citizenship, and consular operations (visas, births abroad, etc). The DOS has issued some updates and a FAQ. It looks like they were trying to update their systems and the update not only screwed up their main database, but meant that they couldn't easily fall back to their backups. So they've been trying to work out what happened and get it fixed so they can at least get into the backups properly and keep work rolling. They say they are managing to issue visas and other documents, just moving at a reduced rate, and are prioritizing immigrant applicants at the moment. Anticipate several weeks before the lag and associated delays have blown over. It sounds like the problem is partly that they are using old system (because of course they are, who updaets government frameworks?) and the latest series of updates didn't sit well with their older software/hardware. Kind of a mess.
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Jul 31, 2014 16:08
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Sharks Below posted:It's been three weeks since they received our application and we have no NOA1 by email yet soooo Ashcans at what point do you think we should start getting worried about this? They've banked the check but no email (that's how we nominated to be sent our NOA1 but I don't know if they also post it in addition) yet and they received our application on the 14th. Wait a bit longer you think before panicking?
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Jul 31, 2014 23:00
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Sharks Below posted:Ashcans at what point do you think we should start getting worried about this? They've banked the check but no email (that's how we nominated to be sent our NOA1 but I don't know if they also post it in addition) yet and they received our application on the 14th. Wait a bit longer you think before panicking? If they hadn't received your application they would not have cashed the check, right?
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Aug 1, 2014 00:19
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:If they hadn't received your application they would not have cashed the check, right? One would hope not! I guess I'm just worried because most people say they get that email within a couple of days of the check being cashed  But I am prone to needless anxiety so I'm sure I'm worrying about nothing.
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Aug 1, 2014 00:28
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Sharks Below posted:Ashcans at what point do you think we should start getting worried about this? They've banked the check but no email (that's how we nominated to be sent our NOA1 but I don't know if they also post it in addition) yet and they received our application on the 14th. Wait a bit longer you think before panicking? I'm thinking about it, but I can't recall a time when they cashed the check and then subsequently managed to lose the case. I mean, it's always possible that your case will get hung up and delayed somewhere, but if they cash the check it pretty much always gets recorded and registered. Here's a thing - this works with USCIS but I can't recall if it works with NVC - pull up the copy of the cashed check from the bank. Often they actually stamp the back with the receipt information, so you can pull this off the copy (including the case number). Three weeks is kind of a long time to hear anything. You can try calling the NVC and talking to someone - they are usually more personable and communicative than USCIS, and even if you don't have the case number they should be able to look up the case using biographic info. It's possible that the NVC has been caught in this mess than isn't handling receipts at a normal pace, I guess, but I haven't seen them mentioned in releases.
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Aug 1, 2014 02:36
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Thank you for your contributions to this thread, Ashcans!
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Aug 1, 2014 03:13
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Clochette posted:Thank you for your contributions to this thread, Ashcans! Totally agree, you're a superstar Ashcans! I will ask the petitioner (I assume it'll have to be him) to do it tomorrow sometime in business hours for Chicago. We sent it to the Chicago Lockbox as instructed on the website. People are saying to wait 30 days and I'm sure that's the reasonable thing to do here, and this is so silly but we just don't want to have to wait any longer than necessary since we're looking at spending many months apart as it is Hopefully we are worrying for nothing and it'll turn up soon but I can't help stressing over it.
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Aug 1, 2014 03:38
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Glad to be of help!  Generally it doesn't hurt to try and contact the agency for help. Pretty much the worst thing that will happen is that they'll tell you it's too soon for them to do anything, and that you need to call back in 15/30/60 days. It's not like they're going to trash your file for being worried about it.
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Aug 1, 2014 04:46
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My former boss is an international student adviser in another state. She just sent this out to all her students. Looks like it's good information to anyone who was affected by the outage:quote:The Department of State’s (DOS) Consular Consolidated Database (CCD) recently experienced significant outages resulting in world-wide backlogs at U.S. consular posts for issuance of U.S. visas and U.S passports. The CCD system contains millions of visa files and photographs and links to other federal agency security databases. Until the system is back on-line, Consular Officers are unable to issue visas. Please see the Q and A on the DOS website at: http://travel.state.gov/content/travel/english/news/ccd-performance-issues.html
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Aug 3, 2014 22:59
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I don't know what to think about today. We got an NOA1 in the mail which is tops! But when my partner put the receipt number into the online portal thingy, it says "...we mailed you a notice that we have approved this I130 IMMIGRANT PETITION FOR RELATIVE, FIANCE(E), OR ORPHAN." It says this was mailed on the 28th July, the one we received today was mailed on the 17th of July. So we won't have received whatever was mailed on the 28th of July, prob a couple of weeks yet. It can't be the NOA2. No loving way, right?!
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Aug 5, 2014 06:23
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It was. We got the noa2 yesterday. What the heck!? Not complaining. Now onto NVC stuff 
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Aug 12, 2014 04:28
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So today I met an immigration lawyer, one who deals with artists and designers who want to come to America. I told him about how my husband and I are going through the system and he told me that if my husband had stayed past 90 days he could have stayed in the country and the whole thing would be settled in 4 or 5 months, had we hired a lawyer. Is that true?
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Aug 23, 2014 22:57
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I have no idea but that sounds.. unusual.. Our streak of good luck has continued, we got our NVC case number about 16 days after they received it then immediately were able to fill in our DS-261 online. Our AOS bill came up for payment 2 days after that, so that's been paid and shows as "PAID" meaning we can send our AOS package but we are waiting on documents from my joint sponsors. So far so good, long way to go yet. I'm having my immunisations on Wednesday.
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Aug 24, 2014 00:03
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Clochette posted:So today I met an immigration lawyer, one who deals with artists and designers who want to come to America. I told him about how my husband and I are going through the system and he told me that if my husband had stayed past 90 days he could have stayed in the country and the whole thing would be settled in 4 or 5 months, had we hired a lawyer. I backtracked through your posts here to try and get a summary of your situation. I understand you've been doing the immigrant visa processing through the NVC/consulate, but I didn't see anything about when/if/how long your husband might have been in the US. It is possible that if he was in the US at some point there was an opportunity to have filed an Adjustment instead of consular processing the petition, but I don't know if that is true without more details. Even if it was possible, it might not have been the best option for you to pursue anyway. If you want to summarize what happened I could try to tell you if it was an option, though.
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Aug 24, 2014 01:55
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Ashcans posted:I backtracked through your posts here to try and get a summary of your situation. I understand you've been doing the immigrant visa processing through the NVC/consulate, but I didn't see anything about when/if/how long your husband might have been in the US. It is possible that if he was in the US at some point there was an opportunity to have filed an Adjustment instead of consular processing the petition, but I don't know if that is true without more details. He moved here in February 2013 and we got married in late April. He left in the middle of May. We filed the I-130 after that. I had no idea adjustment of status was possible, I thought everyone who wanted to live here had to leave if their visitor visa was up after 90 days.
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Aug 24, 2014 02:04
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Clochette posted:He moved here in February 2013 and we got married in late April. He left in the middle of May. We filed the I-130 after that. You could have filed a concurrent I-130/I-485 and he could have stayed here while you went through the process.
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Aug 24, 2014 17:30
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As Powerlurker says, if he was in the US in a valid status after your marriage, it is possible that you could have concurrently filed the I-130/I-485 and he could have stayed in the US while the process was pending. However, if he was just here has a visitor, or particularly on the waiver, that might not have been a good choice for or the best choice for his case. That is something that an attorney would have been able to evaluate and advise you on - unfortunately, I know the cost for representation can seem pretty overwhelming. I'm sure its frustrating to find out there were options you didn't know about, but try not to beat yourself up over it now. Your case is moving ahead, and you can never know if the other route would have gone smoothly or not.
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Aug 24, 2014 20:06
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Man, you know what's tough when both parties are living outside the USA? Establishing a domicile.
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Aug 24, 2014 22:56
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