I-751 Approval and Divorce

[Walbrzyszanka221 61]

Hello all,

 

I filed jointly September 2019 with my then husband. In February we separated and in March I filed for divorce. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic happened. My divorce was finalized 8/11/2020. I immediately started working with my lawyer and we were going to see an affidavit, I-751 form filled out again but as a waiver and if need be, any additional supporting documents. Today, 9/10/2020, I check the case tracker app and my status has changed to "New Card is Being Produced". I immediately notified my lawyer and we are still going to send the affidavit explaining everything. We were just waiting for the final stamped divorce decree as the lawyer needed it and the clerk is taking a little bit longer to upload it so that my divorce lawyer can get it.

 

I am not happy or sad but I am worried. My lawyer said that they may change their mind about approving me but as long as I am not denied, I am ok.

 

Anyone else been in this situation?

 

Thank you.

[Kaaris 7]

2 hours ago, Walbrzyszanka221 said:

Hello all,

 

I filed jointly September 2019 with my then husband. In February we separated and in March I filed for divorce. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic happened. My divorce was finalized 8/11/2020. I immediately started working with my lawyer and we were going to see an affidavit, I-751 form filled out again but as a waiver and if need be, any additional supporting documents. Today, 9/10/2020, I check the case tracker app and my status has changed to "New Card is Being Produced". I immediately notified my lawyer and we are still going to send the affidavit explaining everything. We were just waiting for the final stamped divorce decree as the lawyer needed it and the clerk is taking a little bit longer to upload it so that my divorce lawyer can get it.

 

I am not happy or sad but I am worried. My lawyer said that they may change their mind about approving me but as long as I am not denied, I am ok.

 

Anyone else been in this situation?

 

Thank you.

you do not need to submit a divorce decree at this stage of your process unless you want them to reconsider their mind on your approval. your lawyer know should better if he is not trying to get more paid lol.

+ you havnt filed with a waiver so you definitely do not need to do what your lawyer said. I had the situation of filing with waiver therefore USCIS issued me a RFE asking for divorce decree still got approved .

DO NOT SEND IT. be patient the status will change within couple day to (your car was approved).  keep your divorce decree for Naturalization on the 5 years rule. actually 2 years now since you got your conditional GC 3 years ago.

[Walbrzyszanka221 61]

3 minutes ago, Kaaris said:

you do not need to submit a divorce decree at this stage of your process unless you want them to reconsider their mind on your approval. your lawyer know should better if he is not trying to get more paid lol.

+ you havnt filed with a waiver so you definitely do not need to do what your lawyer said. I had the situation of filing with waiver therefore USCIS issued me a RFE asking for divorce decree still got approved .

DO NOT SEND IT. be patient the status will change within couple day to (your car was approved).  keep your divorce decree for Naturalization on the 5 years rule. actually 2 years now since you got your conditional GC 3 years ago.

That is the problem. I filed jointly and I most likely got approved based on the belief that I was still married. My divorce was finalized 8/11/2020. I will still send the divorce decree document and a letter explaining what happened. I do not think "leaving" this the way it is is a good idea because I will have issues when I apply for citizenship in August 2022.

[Kaaris 7]

you can wait until you get your GC and then submit that divorce decree. as long as you disclose the divorce decree before filling your Citizenship. and explain in the affidavit what happened and why it only now you doing it ( can be delay because of COvid19). you will be fine for your CitizenShip. Now if you don't mind waiting a bit longer to receive your green card. it is completely fine you will get approved anyway. Up to you at this point.

[Mollie09 1,543]

17 hours ago, Walbrzyszanka221 said:

That is the problem. I filed jointly and I most likely got approved based on the belief that I was still married. My divorce was finalized 8/11/2020. I will still send the divorce decree document and a letter explaining what happened. I do not think "leaving" this the way it is is a good idea because I will have issues when I apply for citizenship in August 2022.

When you filed you were married, so you did nothing wrong. You provided enough proof that the marriage was bonafide to be approved without interview, which is the purpose of the I-751.

I would let sleeping dogs lie.

[Ku Mưa 29]

45 minutes ago, Mollie09 said:

When you filed you were married, so you did nothing wrong. You provided enough proof that the marriage was bonafide to be approved without interview, which is the purpose of the I-751.

I would let sleeping dogs lie.

If i were you, i won't play games with USCIS. That will be high risk in the future. Who knows what will happen

[kline19 102]

I am not a lawyer but you want to disclose the change of your marital status to USCIS now. Now means it could be a time-frame that could be a few months once you have the divorce decree issued but you want to absolutely disclose it. Since this will keep all material information for your case documented inside your A-file. From a practical standpoint, your entire case (the A file) will go through another review again whenever you decide to apply for Naturalization. And naturalization form explicitly asks for dates of begin and end of marriage and you wouldn't want to delay disclosing this information until you are filling out N400 naturalization form. 

[da95826 387]

You should get advice as to what to do from an experienced immigration lawyer.

[Villanelle 4,121]

************All of the above advice is incorrect***************

 

I can not stress to you how big of an issue this is. You MUST attempt to fix this RIGHT NOW. The longer you wait the harder it is going to be!!! For context- some forms are considered valid if they have correct info when submitted. Other forms require the info on it to be accurate at time of approval. For the 751 you CAN NOT be approved on a joint 751 if you are divorced.

 

They approved your 751 as joint in error because you did not notify them you were in the process of a divorce. Your 751 got processed rather quickly <1 yr. You should have notified them of the divorce being filed but thats neither here nor there now.... 

 

There are some posts on VJ about people in this exact situation. The experiences vary. Normally I would suggest going to infopass asap with your divorce decree and talking to them to see if they are able to get it to the Officer that actually did your approval. Sometimes if you are quick enough to do this the Officer is able to undo the approval as joint and process it as a divorce waiver. Sometimes people try this and are told theres nothing the Officer can do at that point. When that happens it becomes complicated. USCIS has to go through a formal process of rescinding the joint approval and you need to file a new 751 as a waiver. This is a long and complicated process. People struggle to get USCIS to rescind the approval. So you really want to try to get the Officer who processed this approval to undo it before its too late!. 

 

Infopasses are being given for emergency reasons. The basic script people are told when requesting one is if you need a stamp for work or travel you can get one but still people report asking for such and being told no. You can try and I mean really really try to get an infopass. You can explain what happened with your approval and that you must go to the office to correct it but they may say no to giving you an infopass. You may have better luck saying you are going to be traveling immediately and need a stamp but you may also be told no for that. TRY ANYWAY. 

 

If you can not get an infopass then the next best thing is to send a letter directly to the local office explaining what happened and how you were approved as a joint but are divorced and how the whole pandemic thing prevented you from being able to get the decree promptly and being able to give it to them via infopass. Send a copy of the same letter to the service center. The local office may not reply to you directly as they typically do not so such. You may get weird case updates or possibly even have an interview set. You can also reach out to your congressman. You would have them submit the same thing as your letter would say. Include a copy of the NOA for the 751 and the divorce and a letter requesting to be switched to a divorce waiver as well as a request for them to amend the approval to a waiver approval. You can do both- your own letter to the local office cc to the service center and a congressman inquiry stating the same. The congressman inquiry goes to a liaison at the service center level who would then contact the local office. So its quicker to send it to the local office but can hold more weight if its coming from the congressman liaison if that makes sense. 

 

Since you have an attny that you are paying for you can have the attny write you up such a letter to send to the local office with more official sounding wording however if they are taking a passive approach to fixing this you may want to send the letter on your own or go to the infopass alone. 

 

You do not need to wait for the divorce decree to get the ball rolling on this. The divorce is done right?? All you are waiting for is them to give you the certified copy right? What is the ETA on that? If you are going to get it on Mon or Tues or even Wed then wait for it. If its going to be longer then that then you should send the letter or do infopass with the info you do have- the fact that you were approved incorrectly as joint when you are now divorced. They will need the divorce decree to amend it- but the sooner you tell them there is an issue the more likely it is they can fix it. Your approval was on 9/10 so its only been 2 days- they should be able to amend it (or rescind it and reprocess it). 2 weeks from now or a month from now they may not. Time is of the essence here. 

 

 

 

[Walbrzyszanka221 61]

Thank you @Villanelle. I am working with my divorce lawyer and immigration lawyer. 

[Walbrzyszanka221 61]

Just an update. I spoke to my immigration lawyer about doing an infopass and she said that since my case was not approved by the local office, we can't do an infopass. So still waiting for the certified divorce decree and once I have that I will send a copy of it to my lawyer, she will write up the affidavit and we will go from here.

 

 

[Savva 222]

On 9/16/2020 at 9:01 AM, Walbrzyszanka221 said:

Just an update. I spoke to my immigration lawyer about doing an infopass and she said that since my case was not approved by the local office, we can't do an infopass. So still waiting for the certified divorce decree and once I have that I will send a copy of it to my lawyer, she will write up the affidavit and we will go from here.

 

 

Hey! How things ended up for you?