AOS for F-1 husband, filing while abroad?

[afinemess 0]

Hi, I just joined the community and I have a question about initiating the AOS process. My husband is on an F-1 visa for graduate education and is coming to the end of his seven-year program. His 1-20 expires June 15th (even though he graduates in August), which will cause his visa to expire. We want to file as soon as possible, but we are both currently in South Africa for my dissertation research. He will return to the US on June 6th, but I'll need to stay here in SA until the end of June/beginning of July. We have all the paperwork we need, so my question is: Can I send the prepared packages with him back to the US and have him mail them in? Or will USCIS know that I am abroad when they receive our file and red flag it? Has anyone heard of anything like this? He has the 60 grace period in which to file the AOS after his visa expires, and I'll be back in time, but we want to get the ball rolling for employment purposes as much as anything else.

If it helps, here's our background:

He's from Hungary, I'm a US citizen by birth. Met in grad school in November 2011. Started dating February 2012. Got engaged one year later on our anniversary. Married in Hungary in September 2013. He was in and out of the country until March 2014 for research, which is why we didn't file after our wedding. We were scheduled to leave for South Africa September 2014, so we decided not to file until we got back to the US. I was supposed to be back in the US at the beginning of June as well, but it didn't work out that way.

Any ideas? Can we file before I get back? Thanks.

[Penguin_ie 5,984]

You can file from abroad; just make sure your address on all forms is your permanent US one.