US Immigration from Russia

Hello, I am confused and frustrated,

She was just notified that her N400 application was denied because "at the time of filing Form N-400, August 18, 2024, you have been living in marital union with your U.S. citizen spouse for 2 years 9 months and 5 days".

We have been married since 02-02-2020. We applied for a CR1 visa shortly after and like so many my wife stayed in her home country while I waited in the US.

When the CR1 was finally approved and issued she entered the US on 11-13-2021 which was also the date on her temporary 2y green card. We filed for removal of conditions before 11-13-2023 and this was approved and she received her permanent 10y green card without problems.

On 08-13-2024 we filed her N400 application for US citizenship, which is 88 days ahead of the 3 year mark of my wife being here with me, under the assumption the 90 day early filing rule would allow this.

She just had her interview on 12-11-2024 and was denied as I mentioned above. Not because her residence in the US at time of filing was less than 3 years but because she hasn't been living in "marital union" with me for 3 years at time of filing! Don't those two things go together for every CR1 situation? How can you be allowed to file 90 days early but then get denied because you didn't live together with your spouse for the full 3 years at time of filing?

It does say that you can request a hearing to overcome the grounds of this denial, but we would probably need a lawyer to help us with that and I have my doubts this would be successful. Should we just file the N400 again now that it definitely has been more than 3 years?

As noted in my timeline, I submitted paperwork for my wife for the N400 naturalization on July 22 2024. Shortly thereafter we got a notice that the current bio-metrics were still valid and so that would not be needed.

But here we are 4.5 months later and we do not yet have an appointment.

Questions about this: 1. I don't recall ever selecting an Office, but I am assuming that the Tampa Office will automatically be used as it is the closest to our address, correct? In searches I have done, it seems like some of the offices are faster than others, but I don't know that there is any way of changing that, especially at this point.

2. I checked the Processing Time on the USCIS site, and this is what it says:

So if this is correct, it is going to be April before we get an appointment, correct?

3. After the Interview, then there is also the oath ceremony. I was not able to find an estimate on how long after the appointment this would be for Tampa.

4. In times past, we did not really care how long the process took (we have been married 8 years now). However, we recently traveled for 2 months to see her family in Russia, and then another 3 months in South Africa visiting our Church. (A total of 5 months, below the "6 Month Rule") The concern is that we are going to somehow violate the residency requirements for her Citizenship. We started the application before we left. We have lived in the US the entire time, so our "Continuous Residence" requirement is easily satisfied. The physical Presence requirement is also easily satisfied. And we resided in Florida for the full three months preceding the filing.

Our plan is to be back in the US and then wait for the interview, and then the oath. And at that point go back to South Africa for an extended for 1-2 years.

So if the above estimate is correct, we will need to wait until June for the interview, and then another period for the Oath.

All in all, we would like to have this done as soon as possible so we can finish the work we have started in South Africa (humanitarian work)

Sorry if I am rambling here, but I am trying to put forward as much information as possible.

Our other option would be to abandon the N400, and then be abroad as long as we want, and then take it up again after moving to the US. I don't really see an issue with this because as far as I can tell, the only benefit of naturalization is that you can Vote, and get a US passport. But the lack of a US passport has not been a hinderance to anything we have wanted to do so far.

Hello,

My visajourney account is linked to my university (.edu) email account, which has since been closed - I cannot get new emails to that domain anymore. I also do not remember my password so I can't assign things to a new email. Who should I get in contact with to help me switch this account's email? I can neither reset password (don't have access to original email) or reassign to a new email domain (i don't remember my password). I'm only logged in on this device and if anything happens I won't have access to this account anymore.

Hello friends,

I understand the wait time is estimated here: https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/ my question is if anyone has had their I-212 waiver processed within the past year or two and can share their timeline. Based on my research I've seen some people have it processed within 2 to 3 weeks and some people wait roughly 8 months. They give a wait time of 30 months which however I feel about it doesn't seem accurate. Our I-212 was filed because we didn't know immigration status after filing multiple FOIA requests that had no pertinent info, and only found out our status after getting our I-130 approved then denied a day later due to needing an I-212. It has been 7 months since filing the I-212 and I guess my hope is that we are a family immigration visa so our I-212 seems to be a prioritized waiver, we updated our medical as it expires after 6 months just in case and are ready to go pending approval. Maybe this will help someone else one day who goes through this as it seems like some form of punishment and can be extremely demoralizing in my experience. Thanks for contributing in advance.

Things I've done since 221g:

1. Emailed the US Embassy of Jerusalem roughly every month since the interview. Every time they reply with "we're sorry, we can't tell you how long it'll take, check the CEAC website for updates" then add a random number of months I should wait. 2, 9, etc...
2. Checked the CEAC website every day. It changed once after we sent in what was asked of us to bring in August 2023.
3. Contacted a congressional representative for an inquiry, asked for US Department of State, they asked the embassy and got the same reply I've been getting for months.
4. Contacted a different congressional representative for an inquiry, asked for Department of State, they asked the WRONG embassy, then after correction asked the right embassy, and got the same reply I've been getting for months. They are now ignoring my emails.
5. Contacted the US Department of State, they told me to contact the NVC or embassy.
6. Contacted the NVC and am now waiting for the very likely "your case is not with us right now, contact the embassy"

Cheers to the 534 days of AP, and being unable to marry my fianc to get residency in the country he lives in because it would void his application!
Cheers to the 4 years of visa runs (for me) and putting our lives and his career on hold!

I was really hoping a congressional inquiry would get the wheels turning so we could avoid a writ of mandamus, given the horror stories we've heard on VisaJourney. If nothing happens by early/mid-2025 we're probably going to do a writ of mandamus or even abandon the petition and marry. This has been so disappointing, and eaten up so much of our 20's. We are not even asking for an approval, a denial would allow us to move on with our lives and settle elsewhere. It should not be taking this long. I should not be 3 years, 9 months into a K1 visa process.