US Immigration from Scotland

Hi! I'm looking for information around the 4-years-plus-1-day timer before applying for citizenship after a break in residency. I'm over a year away from applying, I'm just lining myself up to make sure I have what I need.

I have a green card, granted in June 2016. Soon after I received that, I took a job I couldn't pass up outside of the US. I definitely broke continuity on my residency (timeline below) but I've been unambiguously employed and living in the US since I returned two and a half years ago. Although I typically have a trip abroad once every couple of months, either for work or to visit family, I've accrued most of the time required to pass the physical presence test already.

Technically I fall into the 4-years-plus-1-day category because I've resumed my residency, but I'm interested in the details therein. I gather that they still actually review the full 5 years prior to the application, but I was out completely in the year prior to returning so I gather that's a bad approach. Is that true? I don't own property nor was I working for a US organization. I did maintain bank accounts, I paid taxes (including California state, so as to not trigger any marks for becoming "non-resident"), and I had my mail directed to a friend's house the entire time I was out.

I've heard also that waiting until 4-years-plus-6-months is a better approach. Do folks have experience with their application in either case? Pointers welcome.

My timeline:

• November 2016: I left the US to start that job. I applied for a re-entry permit ahead of time.
• The re-entry permit arrived at the embassy abroad, expiry date set to March 2019. I returned to the US 5 times in this period, all short trips, but never more than six months apart.
• March 2019: I returned to the US to work for 6 months. Aside from two business trips abroad, I was in the US until September 2019.
• October 2019: I took on another job abroad, and again I applied for a re-entry permit ahead of time. The re-entry permit was granted with an end date of September 2021.
• Then, of course, COVID. I didn't travel until I was fully vaccinated in July 2021, so continuity was unambiguously broken. I understand that COVID is not a consideration for the application.
• August 2021: I returned to the US full-time.

Forgive me if this is somewhere on the site but I haven't been able to locate it so far.

My understanding is that each of my four children here will need to submit their own N 400s with the possible exception of my daughter who is under 18 - almost 15. The others are 18, 21 and 23. So though they are listed in my filing we need to submit one for each of the older ones. Is that correct? Will my daughter be considered under mine?

Any help appreciated!

Thanks

Recently I received a denial of my I-485 due to USCIS stating they never received my medical packet. USCIS sent me an RFE for my form I-693 in March, and I sent the medical packet within 2 weeks - well before the June due date. I sent it certified and tracked it, and saw that they had received it (they signed for it).

On Aug. 4, their website updated to showing they received the evidence that I sent. I thought, great! Things are/were moving forward. Then a week later, a denial notice was issued stating they never received a thing.

Scared, we went to a lawyer the following Monday, and he said he just had a client that this happened to. He said just to submit the 290 B, with the fee and the evidence as their letter states, and everything should be fine. Well, I hope. USCIS also said on the phone, that he had to quit his job immediately. The exact wording about the Employment Auth is below:

"NOTE on Employment Authorization Document: Any employment authorization based upon this
Form I-485 is automatically terminated if the expiration date on the employment authorization
document has been reached. See 8 CFR 274a.14(a)(1)(i). Since this Form I-485 is denied, the
condition upon which your employment authorization was based no longer exists. Any unexpired
employment authorization based upon this Form I-485 is revoked as of 18 days from the date of this
notice, unless you submit, within 18 days, proof that your Form I-485 remains pending. See 8 CFR
274a.14(b)(2). The decision by the district director shall be final and no appeal shall lie from the
decision to revoke the authorization. Your employment authorization document should be returned to
the local USCIS office."

My questions are:

1. "Proof the form I-485 remains pending" - I'm assuming this means that we will have to just send in the employment card since I've been it could take two months for them to make a decision on re-opening/re-considering. Should I cc what I file (290B and evidence) when I send back the employment authorization card?

2. A guard at the USCIS field office told me to CC the local San Francisco office on what I file with the San Bernadino office because "they could help". Is it advised to CC other offices when filing things like this?

Anyhow, we are beyond devastated by this mishap. I'm hoping for a favorable turnaround on this. I know USCIS has been overwhelmed, but dang... any advice or good thoughts are appreciated.

Hello, this is my first of probably many posts.

The situation is messier than the title suggests; first off, I (K) am an American living in Japan. I met my soon-to-be husband (R) while living in Japan, but he's from Scotland.

Both of us currently live and work in Japan, but we most likely will leave Japan next year when our current work contracts expire at the end of July.

As part of the program we're both a part of, as long as we complete our contract length and leave within the month after, our plane tickets back to our respective countries will be paid for.

As such, we plan to apply for the CR-1 for R after we fill out the I-130 once we're officially married, which we're planning to do over the summer vacation here in Japan.

(We discussed which country to move to after Japan, and America won out, because, among other reasons, while Scotland is beautiful, the weather up in the northern islands where he's from is typically cold and rainy, and I'm a south-Midwest American who likes the sunshine, ha.)

However, even if we applied for it today, the processing times for the I-130 are projected for more than a year, and we don't want to plan on being in Japan when it's finished processing. We couldn't even try to stay in Japan until finishes processing, because we both want our flights home paid for. As such, even if we're currently in Japan, I've set R's visa application location (62.a-c) as London, because the Edinburgh consulate doesn't issue visas for the UK.

We planned on applying for the I-130 online, and I wondered just how complicated it would make things if I updated our respective addresses about a year from now. We currently live together in Japan, but we'll have to be separated while R's application processes.

I'm worried changing details like that will cause complications or even get the application bumped down from its "spot" in processing.

I was curious what other people's experiences with updating addresses were, especially when you moved countries during the application process.

Thanks in advance; I can provide any other info people might need.

-K

Hi folks

First post from myself on here so apologies if I've put this in the wrong place.

Long story short, our submission (EB3 consular processing) has been arranged (DS260 completed online and confirmation statement together with all associated documents including birth certificates, marriage certificates etc sent by Fedex by our lawyer).

Communication response received today from NVC stating as follows:

"****NVC Notice of Missing Item: Please submit Form DS-260 ****

This is extremely confusing, given that the DS260 has clearly been completed online and the package sent by Fedex includes confirmation of this, per the instructions from NVC.

From a quick Google search, it appears this 'glitch' has happened to others in the past, and this was resolved by calling NVC, with it being rectified by a 'supervisor'. At this point, NVC are not taking telephone calls and any efforts to send a public inquiry communication to them has returned an automated response telling us absolutely nothing of any relevance.

We know that this is something unique to our application - we actually originally completed the DS260 and submission of documents in 2022 and received the same response regarding the DS260 being missing. After discussions with our lawyer, we all worked under the assumption that the NVC may have lost parts of our application and therefore have resubmitted, but in doing so this has returned the exact same response.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. We've been on this road since 2019, gone through the lengthy process of labor certification and USCIS immigrant petition, all of which was delayed by COVID and now having reached this point we assumed that achieving DQ and thereafter our embassy appointment in the UK would be much more straightforward however at this point we seem to be stuck in complete limbo.

Please help!

Best regards

Stu