i called immigration again for the 100th time and decided im not calling back im only making myself annoyed and unpatient. anywayz they said ur case pending for the interview and ur fingers cleared so u been waiting for 3 -4 months.. my question is do they really go by the local office???? cuz i filed in nov2007 and now nyc has july2007. looks like by the time they call me it will be I HAVE NO IDEA when! whats the deal with that? and people who filed like this year already became citizens. i cant even travel due to this. cuz they will question why i left the states and get all pissy aside they make u wait raise the fees then get pissy on u if anything u should be getting pissy!! how r u guys handling this how do i wait?

Asking the same question over and over is not going to give you the answer you want. Interview date depends on your local office and NY is probably one of the busiest ones. You are just going to have to wait until the timeline given in your NOA expires. Lets say the NOA said that you should have your interview approximately 365 days from your priority date, then that means that you need to start wondering around November of 2008 what is the problem with your case and right now has only been 6 months. You can still travel outside of the US as long as you don't go over the time that you are required to have for continuos residency (I can't remember how many months / days it is mentioned in the guidelines for citizenship).
Again, it all depends on your LOCAL office. Some people on this forum waited a year or more and some people got it within 6 months. Just be patient.

im about to change my name to Waiting4CitzShp as ur name shows ur waiting for a GC..and asking again and again is going to help at some spoint if someone has the same date as me or maybe if someone out there knows about the dates or perhaps some sort of idea

I "was" waiting for a Green Card when I joined the forum. I am no longer waiting for anything but still giving my opinion to people who may want to take it.

theres nothing wrong with waiting for a greencard..ur lucky u have one some would die for it..and what do u mean by asking is not going to do anything...isnt why this visajourny.com is for? for people to get help and opinions? or is it just to bash immigration? cuz im here for the opinions

That is nonesense. You can travel, no one hold you back or force you to not travel, let alone get pissy if you choose to. As long as you respect the requirements (trips no longer than 6 months and all that jazz) you are fine. I as many other applicants, left the States after filing for citizenship for over 2 months to go see my family in my homecountry, all they do at the interview is ask you if you traveled overseas and they update your trip list. That is all. You can travel, just make sure someone can check your mailbox in case they send you an interview date while you're gone.
I think you should relax, as others pointed out to keep asking the same question over and over again will not give you the answer you want to hear. It is frustrating but all you can do is wait, look at my case...it took 10 months to complete, others took longer than that, others way shorter. Also the official processing time are not necessarily reliable, for my former distict office they never were in over 3 years I dealt with them.
Don't think about it so much trying to find an explanation you won't get, just study so you're prepared when they call you for your test.
Good luck.

Because this is the THIRD TIME I have seen you post asking the exact same question. You clearly don't like the answer you keep getting. Asking *the same question* over and over is NOT going to do any good except get us all pissed off at you because you keep complaining that no one will help you when what you mean is that no one will tell you what you want to hear instead of the truth.

My opinion is THE SAME AS EVERYONE ELSE'S ON THE LAST SEVERAL TIMES YOU ASKED. You will have to WAIT UNTIL YOUR LOCAL OFFICE GETS TO YOUR CASE.

I'm curious. Why do you insist upon asking if there is someone that has filed at the same time as you, when it is clear that the filing time is not dependent upon the date you will be naturalised. There are several steps between filing and being called for an interview ~ background check being one. Some checks take longer than others, but nonetheless, there are backlogs due to a flurry of filings before the price increase. That translates to a longer processing time. When you're in queue for Naturalisation, you're at the tail end of the whole immigration process. Why get your knickers in a twist now? Patience is a virtue

0hhhhhhh k..........i hope i dont tick u off
first of all u already here..........with the one u love......second of all if u wanna travel out of the usa for anything u can get advanced something or other that i have seen others talking about and it gives u certain amount of time that u can be out of the country and return...............i can understand getting upset at attitudes when calling immigration but really u have a lot more going for u than some of the rest of us........ok sorry but its how i feel......
sara

no need for ya'll to get all pissy..im asking cuz im here living with my crazy parents and my two kids my husband is over seas i want to become a cit so i can call him here faster duh is that so wrong? i dont live with him i miss him we r seperated due to this immigration, i have a GC so hes been waiting for his visa 5 years already..our 5 years of life r only together a few months to months so SORRY if i keep asking. my son doesnt remember his dad he thinks my dad is his dad whatever i dont care

Somehow I don't think that saying "duh" and calling people "pissy" is going to get you any help here.
There are any number of people here who have been waiting for years to get the chance to be with their loved ones.

you have to wait and suck it up..

I apologize for my crack about u being here with ur loved one but the fact remains can still get advance something or other to take ur children to see their father........at least if what i have read in other post its possiable ......many of us have also waited years to be with the one we love................

maybe this is a dumb question but does immigration in some cases look at the situation im in meaning since i traveled alot to be with him can they hold that against me? this is just an opinion from urside cuz no one can be correct about this answer, im afraid they will say no to me since i traveled alot over seas but the only reason i did it is cus of my husband to see his kids my parents r here so i didnt abadon america i live out of a suitcase there and here i have everything to live with except their dad and my husband,,hmmm

The key benefit to some of us for US citizenship is to obtain a US passport in the event that the immigrants former country won't issue it. And why should they if you are a permanent resident of a different county? This no US passport deal for permanent residents of the US I view as an awkward to say the least rule as it is not easy nor convenient to maintain that foreign passport of a foreign country if you are not there.

A key factor of US citizenship is taking that oath so why not a similar oath for a permanent resident? Doesn't permanent resident mean just that, permanent resident. Or why even a permanent resident first, wasn't this way in our history, as I said before from the time my grandparents came here, took six weeks to become a US citizen. Today with delays in getting your conditional permanent resident card even with the marriage three year wait, and additional delays after that three year wait for processing the N-400, can take over five-six years. And immigrants do like to visit with there families now and then. Families can't come here due to our restrictions and extreme difficulty in getting a visa, but we can visit those countries without a visa from them, provided the immigrant here has some kind of passport. But that has to be from a foreign source, and how can one be allegiant to the USA when force by our crazy laws to also be allegiant to a foreign country?

Wonder if the rule writers considered this.

In the case of my step daughter, she hasn't seen her older brother in over four years now, while we had full documentation from the courts of her country where her biological father relinquished all rights to her that was perfectly acceptable to our USCIS. Her country where that document originated from was not recognized even by here own country, they insisted we get a notarized statement with an apostile from her biological father to give his permission before they would issue her a new passport. While a notarized statement here is signing the document in front of a notary free at any bank, there it is a very expensive process with a thousand buck pricetag. That is okay, but her biological father used this opportunity to blackmail her and wanted another 10,000 bucks to sign it. Even if I did agree, was no way to do this legally, ha, you send me the ten thousand and trust me kind of thing, I am not exactly stupid. So she had to wait until she was 18 where she didn't need his signature. Then other problems, you are not even living in this country when we did apply.

So I had to play politics, brought along the deeds of my wife's property, said we are just staying in the USA to make a lot of money then plan on returning, but this is the position my country put me in because they will not issue a US passport to a permanent resident.

What if find really ironic about this is that the DHS has an inch and a half thick pile of documentation on my wife, daughter, and me copied on both sides, they have their photos and fingerprints they took themselves, so they know they are here and took all their sweet time to verify these many documents, but yet are here on a very restricted basis. This is in contrast to the some odd 20 million illegals that are here they don't even know about. So why can't they issue some kind of passport? This puts all of us between a rock and a hard place.

flavaofsummer, if you are coming here for help and not just to complain, many some board members can help you, if they fully understood your situation. I have no idea if it's you or your husband that is the US citizen, why he is overseas, why you can only spend a couple of months so you can see him, nor the status of you and your husband. Could also suggest avoiding that internet shorthand that maybe just me can't fully understand.

But can only say that our laws are man made and perhaps not the best, as a US citizen, the procedure is to contact your senator or congressman and express the hardships these laws are causing you. One thing you will learn very quickly is that our congressman are not even familiar with the laws created by government agencies, in some cases so ridiculous, following the law of one agency breaks the law of another. Our Senator Fiengold was the only senator to vote against the APA, and his reason was, he was the only one that read it, which let me to read it, I couldn't believe what I read, but yet it is the law. Agencies were first created in this country to give our politicians technical advice on complicated matters, in 1972, many new ones were created with the power to make laws. No, I am not going to leave my country, but this is one big hell of a mess.

its easy..i got my GC went over seas got married came back to usa sponsered him, i have a GC so its taking 4ever its been 5years already hes still waiting for visa,,i go back and forth over seas so he can see his son,,when i come to the usa immigration check at the airport they ask why did u go for 5 1/2 months im like u can go for under 6 months they r like no u cant i tell them im going so i can see my husband and he wants to see his son so they get all touchy and say ok but u cant be traveling that much call ur man to the usa...hmmmm how the heck am i supposed to call him here??? the relative petition priority date for him is not even close to current even up to today..what does this do? my son doesnt even know his dad he thinks my dad is dad..hmm so how is it that anyone can help me as u said? oh i filed n400 in nov so im waiting for the interview its been like almost a year he hasnt seen me or his son im waiting for the interview and still here..i seriously think this is crazy..immigration is like a world that keeps families apart i dont care about keeping brother sister or grandma grandpa apart this is keeping husband wife apart keeping little kids apart from parents i think thats messed up.husband/wife thats like the most important relationship, especially father..father for a boy is important..r u still confused??

You can't petition for a spouse until you become a US citizen, if I remember correctly.

This is false. An LPR can petition a spouse, but the spouse will be subject to priority date. If the LPR naturalises then the spouse will be afforded immediate relative of a USC status.

flavaofsummer,

The problem with your complaint is that according to the facts you've offered, you entered into petitioning process for your husband as a green card holder, knowing full well that he would be in for a long wait. How come you thought otherwise?

ah right, I didn't remember that part, thanks DM!

I gather that LPD stands for a Lawful Permanent Resident and was also under the impression that my wife as an LPD is helpless to petition for any relative until she became a US citizen, (USC). I am also wondering on what basis did Flava receive her GC and does that make any difference?

http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/ty...types_1493.html

Gives more insight into this question.

Seems like Flava as an LPD that is not married to a USC has to wait five years as a permanent resident even before she can apply for the N-400, doesn't the form state that?

Can even a born USC go off to another country, marry someone without even a visa to come here, expect to bring that person here? And doesn't that depend on which country we are talking about?

Anyway, this is way beyond my league, would hire a top notch immigration attorney. Did that anyway in my own situation with both options, she coming here or I going there, or even a third option of a country where we could both go to. We both agreed, wife and I, no sense in getting married unless we could live together and every country seems to have different laws regarding this matter. Even this country has different relations to each of the other 195 countries in the world, gets complicated.

Yes, an LPR that received permanent residency through a means other than marriage must be a PR for 4 years and 9 months before applying for Naturalisation. But flavaofsummer's application was submitted prior to gaining citizenship. Her petition for her husband could be upgraded once she is a USC by her contact with USCIS.

Yes of course a USC can petition to bring a spouse to the USA, but as a spouse of a USC visa availability is not limited as with LPRs, and thus there are no priority date delays, as they do not have to wait until a visa becomes available.

Most of us in the US Citizenship General Discussion realize there is a substantial time difference when you can apply for the N-400 and when you actually receive USC.

In the conditional residence section, those that married to a spouse in former Soviet block countries have been waiting more than a year longer then other countries, so apparently the country Flava is in, also makes a difference in that wait period. These are some of the details Flava left out, how long did she have her GC, and what country is she dealing with. She doesn't have to state this and no one here is twisting her arm, but are considerations.

i stated this fact already.. i got my GC then got married over seas/sponsered him after returning to usa...now applied for the n400 obviously its been 5 years in nov2007 since i applied for the n400 in nov2007.

another thing is that YES i ofcourse realize that i had a GC and i applied for him and know it takes like 3ish years but i wasnt aware or even thought about the dates jumping years backwards that was behind my thoughts that this unlucky thing would happen...2nd is i applied for the n400 i have to wait for the INTERVIEW to know if im in or not..meanwhile im not going to travel cus if i do then go to the interview they will ask me if i traveled and if i say yeah then i will have a bad impression on my case as to i couldnt live without leaving the country "again" so im not serious about becoming a citizen of the US..believe it or not certain things u can just give an impression of they can hold against u so im holding it all back its been a year i havent traveled and im not about to..i just hope i get the interview soon so i can know if i get it or not that way i can travel without any strings. or better yet sponser him update his case by contacting the uscis

Sorry, flava, but this is utter rubbish! You must satisfy 2 presence tests in order to qualify to naturalise. The first is substantial presence and it requires that an alien be in the USA a total of 30 months out of the past 5 years. The second is continuous presence and that requires that an alien not be out of the country for 180 days or more. So, the question now becomes, "Do you satisfy both of those tests?" If you do there is nothing prohibitting your travel.

How, if I may ask? Not by marrying a US citizen, claiming abuse, divorcing, using the provision in the I-751 to stay here, so one can bring their lover here, I hope not.

Why do I bring this up? Simply because there have been tens of thousands of cases like this and a typical scenario is to try and get sympathy. Not making accusations or anything like that, just that your story is very similar to what happened to a friend of mine, an older gentleman whose ego thought a very young attractive woman really loved him. Maybe just a coincidence, no offense intended, wish you the best.

no offense taken but get sympathy from who the uscis? my dad sponsered me and my husband and I r the same exact age...and u cant compare me to ur old friend who married some young woman.,..I know my family and its no comparison

Flava...

I can understand your need to have your family reunited and I really hope it happens very soon.

If I may I would recomend you to be very careful with your travel time. I have read about some interviews in another forum where an excesive time outside US can be a problem. It depends on the agent who is reviewing your case.

Be patient... Good luck.

The reason I brought this up, because it incidents like this that created the conditional resident requirement and extended the time it takes to become a US citizen and unfortunately the USCIS uses the mass punishing system where because of a few bad guys, everyone has to pay the price.

Using simple math, takes over a year to get a green card, another five years after that to apply for citizenship, then another year to get citizenship or longer, then to get that person over here, yet another year, so it can take anywhere from the very beginning anywhere from seven to ten years if an immigrant wants to bring over another immigrant.

We all have to wait.

if my timings were off they wouldnt have even accepted my n400 application,, i did the days required by the uscis and stayed that amount in the usa except i did stay out but they do state requirements that shows u didnt abadon the country..why would they have those certain requirements if they dont go by them ecpecially knowing they know people will use these conditions.