Interviews in Australia set to be reduced with some cancelled

[ECCK 211]

2 hours ago, Gii said:

I just got an exemption to leave Australia to visit my partner. I haven’t done the interview or medical yet in Australia due to the closures obviously. 
Does anyone have any tips of what documents I should take with me to show that I intend to return to Aus? My trip will be for 3 weeks and then I have 2 weeks in quarantine in Brisbane. 
I have my full time work contract and my casual work contract, but I don’t have a rental agreement as my work supplies me with accomodation.  I fully intend on returning because I don’t want to screw up this process and have to restart. 

Congratulations on getting the exemption! I've heard it's been pretty hard to get. 

 

This was my experience when I visited my fiance during our K1 process (pre-covid) - I took a copy of the whole k1 package that we filed, a letter from my employer saying that i'm current employee, a copy of my bank statements showing I have recent income from that job and also my return ticket. I also didn't have a rental agreement to show since I was staying with family at the time. I got pulled into secondary once they knew i was in the middle of getting a K1 and I got asked a lot of questions about my fiance (name, address, job). They asked the same questions several times, so maybe they were trying to trip me up? They actually never looked at my documents thoroughly, they just flipped through the folder I had. After a while, they immigration officer told me not to AOS while on the trip and let me through. It was a little scary at the time but I think if you are genuinely there to visit it'll be okay. Hopefully the covid situation hasn't made things more difficult though. Good luck! 

[Gii 48]

18 hours ago, ECCK said:

Congratulations on getting the exemption! I've heard it's been pretty hard to get. 

 

This was my experience when I visited my fiance during our K1 process (pre-covid) - I took a copy of the whole k1 package that we filed, a letter from my employer saying that i'm current employee, a copy of my bank statements showing I have recent income from that job and also my return ticket. I also didn't have a rental agreement to show since I was staying with family at the time. I got pulled into secondary once they knew i was in the middle of getting a K1 and I got asked a lot of questions about my fiance (name, address, job). They asked the same questions several times, so maybe they were trying to trip me up? They actually never looked at my documents thoroughly, they just flipped through the folder I had. After a while, they immigration officer told me not to AOS while on the trip and let me through. It was a little scary at the time but I think if you are genuinely there to visit it'll be okay. Hopefully the covid situation hasn't made things more difficult though. Good luck! 

Thanks. I was surprised I got it tbh, I only wrote 200 words, attached my NOA1 receipt and said I would be travelling for 2 months. Thanks, I am worried about being pulled into secondary, even though I have nothing to hide it just seems like such a nerve wracking experience. I also don't want to be sent back and then have to pay for quarantine without even seeing my partner. How long did they interview you for? 

[ECCK 211]

6 hours ago, Gii said:

Thanks. I was surprised I got it tbh, I only wrote 200 words, attached my NOA1 receipt and said I would be travelling for 2 months. Thanks, I am worried about being pulled into secondary, even though I have nothing to hide it just seems like such a nerve wracking experience. I also don't want to be sent back and then have to pay for quarantine without even seeing my partner. How long did they interview you for? 

Yeah, I would be worried about being sent back if I were you too. When I came through in June on my K1 it was pretty easy to get in, but I didn’t see many tourists. The interview only lasted around 15 mins but I had to wait for nearly an hour until they called me up. It was pretty busy back then when I visited though, so I’d imagine you wouldn’t need to wait as long these days if you did get asked to go to secondary since there aren’t that many people going through the airports now. 

[ECCK 211]

So I went today to apply for the SSN at the Social Security Administration office. I was the only one in there and it all went fairly straight forward but they weren't able to issue me a number because my case needs to be verified by DHS. I think it's because I got married and my last name has changed? I'm not too sure what will happen from here but the supervisor at Social Security said they would call me back if they hear anything from DHS. Hopefully it won't take too long to figure out.. not too sure if I should apply for one through the EAD application now :S 

[KittyKat3072 235]

On 8/4/2020 at 9:05 PM, ECCK said:

So I went today to apply for the SSN at the Social Security Administration office. I was the only one in there and it all went fairly straight forward but they weren't able to issue me a number because my case needs to be verified by DHS. I think it's because I got married and my last name has changed? I'm not too sure what will happen from here but the supervisor at Social Security said they would call me back if they hear anything from DHS. Hopefully it won't take too long to figure out.. not too sure if I should apply for one through the EAD application now :S 

Have you heard anything yet?

[ECCK 211]

33 minutes ago, KittyKat3072 said:

Have you heard anything yet?

Nope  They said it would take between 2 weeks to 6 weeks! I read a couple of posts here that said that if it gets referred to DHS it's likely to be denied. In the meantime I've sent out my AOS and will just hope for the best. Have you been able to schedule an interview for the SSN?

[Cilllah 470]

I have heard a lot of people say you need to do SSN before you get married as the name change really messes with it and it won't get approved.
I am just applying for it with my AOS application at this point. Hopefully it won't take TOO long to process being a smaller office..

[ECCK 211]

38 minutes ago, Cilllah said:

I have heard a lot of people say you need to do SSN before you get married as the name change really messes with it and it won't get approved.
I am just applying for it with my AOS application at this point. Hopefully it won't take TOO long to process being a smaller office..

Yeah, I think that's the problem with mine too - the name change. I didn't do enough research into it  I thought having my marriage certificate proving name change would be enough. 

 

Luckily, I was able to get added to my husband's health insurance with a temporary placeholder number so I don't feel so worried about the SSN. 

[Cilllah 470]

11 hours ago, ECCK said:

Yeah, I think that's the problem with mine too - the name change. I didn't do enough research into it  I thought having my marriage certificate proving name change would be enough. 

 

Luckily, I was able to get added to my husband's health insurance with a temporary placeholder number so I don't feel so worried about the SSN. 

Yeah I always heard people on here say you needed to do it before marriage but that still seems a bit silly. Like surely they can work around a name change.
At this point I am just applying for mine with AOS because I am just tired of dealing with it. I hope it doesn't delay me TOO much!

[KittyKat3072 235]

On 8/15/2020 at 8:00 PM, ECCK said:

Nope  They said it would take between 2 weeks to 6 weeks! I read a couple of posts here that said that if it gets referred to DHS it's likely to be denied. In the meantime I've sent out my AOS and will just hope for the best. Have you been able to schedule an interview for the SSN?

Sorry about the late reply, we just submitted the AOS paper work an such.  

Yeah we were able to get an appointment like literally 17 days before his 90 days were up. 

It took alot. We called alot, emailed the senators office, talked to the senators office on the phone, called the SS office multiple times afterwards. They said they had been doing "research" on the k1 visa -whatever that means but that research took about 2 weeks. Then the office wasn't sure if they were going to be able to schedule guards to be there that day so they had to call us back. Ugh it was a nightmare trying to get an appointment.

 

But they managed to get guards in time for the day we needed it. He had his appointment and everything went smoothly. Now we are waiting as well for DHS to verify his entry dates. He's called three times and he was told that it could take 2-4 weeks to process.

 

Ya it's a pain. You can call and ask for updates if you want to.

[ECCK 211]

On 8/18/2020 at 11:35 PM, KittyKat3072 said:

Sorry about the late reply, we just submitted the AOS paper work an such.  

Yeah we were able to get an appointment like literally 17 days before his 90 days were up. 

It took alot. We called alot, emailed the senators office, talked to the senators office on the phone, called the SS office multiple times afterwards. They said they had been doing "research" on the k1 visa -whatever that means but that research took about 2 weeks. Then the office wasn't sure if they were going to be able to schedule guards to be there that day so they had to call us back. Ugh it was a nightmare trying to get an appointment.

 

But they managed to get guards in time for the day we needed it. He had his appointment and everything went smoothly. Now we are waiting as well for DHS to verify his entry dates. He's called three times and he was told that it could take 2-4 weeks to process.

 

Ya it's a pain. You can call and ask for updates if you want to.

Checked the mail today and found that my SSN card was sent to me! Called a week ago for an update and they said it was still pending. Really glad it got to me before my i94 expired. I thought my application wasn’t going to be approved since I had taken my husband’s name but I guess it was fine in the end! Hope you guys get yours soon too if you haven’t already   

[KittyKat3072 235]

On 8/30/2020 at 9:31 PM, ECCK said:

Checked the mail today and found that my SSN card was sent to me! Called a week ago for an update and they said it was still pending. Really glad it got to me before my i94 expired. I thought my application wasn’t going to be approved since I had taken my husband’s name but I guess it was fine in the end! Hope you guys get yours soon too if you haven’t already   

That's awesome! Congratulations!

We haven't gotten his card yet, still no updates waiting on dhs verification. Hopefully soon! Thank you for the update :).

[Cilllah 470]

On 8/30/2020 at 8:31 PM, ECCK said:

Checked the mail today and found that my SSN card was sent to me! Called a week ago for an update and they said it was still pending. Really glad it got to me before my i94 expired. I thought my application wasn’t going to be approved since I had taken my husband’s name but I guess it was fine in the end! Hope you guys get yours soon too if you haven’t already   

You are so lucky! I had no luck like others with my local so I ended up just applying through AOS. I really wanted my DL and other things straight away but hopefully my combo card is produced fairly quickly!

[KittyKat3072 235]

So we called and enquired about his social security number and they gave us a call back this morning. Apparently after waiting almost four weeks for DHS to confirm his information to the social security administration, they finally got back with them and some piece of information didn't match with what the social security office had for him. So they denied his application for a SSN. Since his status expired they can't try and do the application again. So we are stuck waiting until they issue him one through the EAD. *Sighs* 

I don't even know what it could have been that didn't match. Unless it was a typo on someones end. 😞

[ECCK 211]

1 hour ago, KittyKat3072 said:

So we called and enquired about his social security number and they gave us a call back this morning. Apparently after waiting almost four weeks for DHS to confirm his information to the social security administration, they finally got back with them and some piece of information didn't match with what the social security office had for him. So they denied his application for a SSN. Since his status expired they can't try and do the application again. So we are stuck waiting until they issue him one through the EAD. *Sighs* 

I don't even know what it could have been that didn't match. Unless it was a typo on someones end. 😞

I'm sorry to hear that. That's so frustrating after waiting for so long  I think my office was unusually lenient with issuing the SSN for me because they allowed me to go for an interview after only one call. Hopefully you get your EAD soon - it seems like your application is getting processed pretty quickly for your updates! Fingers crossed for you!