WhiteFox

Sorry for the delay. They approved the name change but his oath/name change is taking place in Anaheim. Hope that answers your question. 

Our experience in Los Angeles for citizenship interview... we have been married 12 years on 10 year green card, no tickets or anything, so it was a pretty simple procedure. 

It only took 3 weeks get the interview date after filing, I was shocked. I put together a lot of paperwork:

Appointment letter

Passport

Green Card 10-year

Selective Service paper

Marriage Certificate
US Citizen Spouse's Birth Certificate
US Citizen Spouse's driver's license

Lease Agreement

6 months of bank statements

6 months of electric bills

Medical Insurance ID cards

2 years of Tax Transcripts
 

They didn't even ask to see any of it... felt like a waste of paper... but wanted to be prepared. 

Interview day:

Parked at Aiso Parking lot, 5 minute walk to the building and affordable. The appointment was 7:55 and we got there around 7:20, there was a huge line to the building. A security guard told us to go stand in line and I got confused, walked back and asked him if this was the correct line and he was very condescending and rude to me!! I couldn't believe it. Completely unnecessary. The line was so long I was worried we wouldn't be able to make it there on time if we couldn't even get into the building. However a different security guard start pulling people of the line and walking us to a different entrance, I do not know how they could tell who needed to go where... We had to wait to get checked in with security, and it was very thorough. Similar to TSA for flights, you have to take everything out of your pockets and put them in a bin, which gets scanned, separate bins for each electronic device... my husband had to take off his belt and watch, ect... after that, we were allowed into the building. 

My husband had his biometrics taken at the window, then we had to go into a different room to wait. We waited about 30 minutes until his name was called, then he went in for his interview. 

The officer was very unfriendly and humorless, he did not want to chat at all. My husband tried making friendly conversation but he told him he did not want to talk, and after he passed he got sent out quickly. However, he did pass but it would have been a lot more pleasant with just some common courtesy... 

My husband can't remember each question from the civics test that he was asked, but from what he could remember:

Who is the founding father of our country?
How many supreme court justices are there?
Why did the pilgrims come to this country?

Why was the civil war fought?

What is the longest river?

The officer did not say whether he passed or failed, continued on with the written test, where he had to write "California has a lot of people" or something similar, my husband can't quite remember because he was so nervous. After the civics and english test he went through the questions on the form again, then said he was done. The officer didn't look at anything that was brought except the Selective service form and green card. My husband had to go take a new photo, which was about a 40 minute wait, longer than the actual interview.

After that we were done, now my husband just has to wait for his swearing in because he changed his name and that's a wrap. The whole thing took about 2 hours.

Hope this helps someone; wish everyone could have been a little friendlier but water under the bridge now I'm just happy he passed.

Thank you so much for the helpful replies! After talking with him we decided we'll apply for citizenship. Fingers crossed it goes smoothly!

My husband has been living in this country for 10 years after a k1 visa. His permanent resident card doesn’t expire for 4 more years, but since I'm sure everything is so backed up from covid chaos I’m trying to think ahead with some questions…

Does anyone have advice to applying for citizenship or applying to renew the green card? Is there any reason that they would deny a renewal request? My husband doesn’t have any record of crime, but reading the guide on the website about denials was a little scary.

Does applying for citizenship in USA force him to give up his native country's citizenship?

Lastly, how early should I begin either process? I worry about his card lapsing between paperwork processing, but I don’t want to start too early either.

Best,
Sara

Ok everyone! I've compiled everything I think we need so far and I'm in better shape then before I think:

• Copy of the tax statement for 2012, 2013 and 2014
• Copies of our bank statements
• Copies of utility bills
• Copy of our visa cards showing a joint account
• Copy of our health insurance cards
• Copy of our joint lease
  Copy of driving record showing physical address
• One sworn affidavit from our U.S. citizen employer, attesting to our relationship, marriage and employment
• One sworn affidavit by our U.S. citizen friend, attesting to our relationship and marriage
• Copies of Christmas cards from friends and family
• Photos of us

​

I ran into an interesting problem and found a solution that hopefully would benefit someone else: On going to get a ID Card from the DMV (with the goal of getting the card with the physical address on it) the clerk said that we could NOT put down our physical address if our mailing address was different. Since we don't get mail at our physical we were forced to put down the PO Box, but she was able to print us out his driving record copy, which does show both mailing and physical addresses. The driving record is printed on DMV letterhead so I assume this would be a good document to show the USCIS as evidence. I hope this can help someone else too.

Thank you for all the help everyone, we really appreciate it! I'm going to send this off soon, so please wish me luck.

JJbandero, I did stay at a hotel last year with him, but on my confirmation email it only has my name on it. Should I include this too, or are they only looking for things that have both our names on it?

Happy Chic, I will definitely look into making a will, thank you for pointing me in that direction.

Gilda, I'm unsure if I am able to do that for my insurance because what I have is government funded, not a private company and I'm not sure if that is available?

JJbandero, yes August 2nd is the beginning of our 90 day window. Unfortunantly no, we have no other insurance at all, we haven't done much since our 2 years of getting married. We don't have a 401k and we are too young to get Social Security, and have not received any jury summons...

I'm worried that if I send what I have and I get an RFE I won't have much more to send. I can print more bank statements instead of quarterly ones, maybe? I can apply for a credit card, since I recently got an offer for one in the mail for us, would that help?

Happy Chic and Illira, I don't think my health insurance cards have a policy number on them, both cards have "ID Numbers" that are different for each of us. They look like THIS.

I can include the cards anyway, though.

I can definitely try to get a State ID, I have never thought of this before. Our file date would August 2nd, does it hurt to have filed a few weeks after that to allow the card to be mailed?

Arken, Happy Chic, Daveykins, thank you for your replies.

I can include those separate utilities, and I'll have my parents write an affidavit.

Unforutnantly I don't have any helpful car insurance info, he does not drive so he is not on my car insurance and he doesn't have a car or license. I wanted to put him down as co owner of our car when we bought it, but I had to apply for a loan with a co-borrower (not my husband) so the co-borrower had to be put down as the co owner instead of my husband.

I have Medi-Cal/CenCal health as my health insurance, and I have 2 identity cards with our names separately on each card. Would this be acceptable? The cards do not have our addressses on it and our names are not together.

I'm getting my package ready to file in early August, and I was a bit worried about the evidence I have for our relationship, I'm afraid I have too little...Here's what I have so far:

• Tax transcripts for 2013, 2014 and 2015
• Quarterly copies of our bank statements from our marriage to now showing joint ownership
• Copies our of shared debit cards from same bank
• Affidavit from our US citizen employer attesting to our employment and relationship
• Affidavit from 2 US citizen friends attesting to our relationship
• Copies of Christmas cards and packages showing addresses from friends and family
• Various photos

I don't have any utilites in both of our names, just most in my name and one in his. Should I include those?

Our home is rented from my parents on their land. We don't have a written rent agreement since we have a good realtionship. Should my parents write one up anyway just to show them something, or is it not good evidence since they aren't a 3rd party?

Also, when sending copies of debit cards does anyone black out the numbers for security? Or does the USCIS not care..?

Thanks for your help, always appreciated.

Wow thanks for all the replies everyone, it's really helpful!

I tried calling them to figure out what was going on, didn't manage to get a tier 2 officer but the woman said she'd put in a 'service request' for us and that if I didn't hear anything in 15 days to call again, but I doubt I will hear anything more. I'll be posting off the RFE reply tomorrow.

Agreed. It's virtually impossible to approve AOS without biometrics since the photo taken at the biometrics appointment is the one used on the green card.

BTW, the system you use to view your case status online is called CRIS, or Customer Relationship Interface System. It's not the REAL system that USCIS uses to manage cases. The real system consist of multiple networked systems collectively called CLAIMS, or Computer Linked Application Information Management System. It would be considered a security risk to allow customers to have direct access to the CLAIMS systems, so the CRIS system only contains a very small subset of the full case information contained in the CLAIMS system. It's quite common for the status codes in the CRIS system to be wrong, or for the status record for a particular case to be missing entirely from the CRIS system. This is because data is transmitted one-way from CLAIMS to CRIS automatically after being chewed on by some filtering scripts. Nobody reviews it, and in many cases nobody corrects it even when errors are discovered. Nobody at USCIS depends on the CRIS system to contain accurate information, so nobody really cares if it doesn't.

thank you for the very informative answer! How frustrating it is to us now though thinking we were done, I guess it was too good to be true. What can we do I guess.

Are you sure it says it was approved? Or did it say it was accepted?

Could you copy and paste the approval message from the website?

here is the information from the website but from reading all of the replies here I think it's clear that there's been a mistake on the information, sad for me to say.

Card/ Document Production

On April 25, 2013 we mailed the document to the address we have on file. You should receive the new document within 30 days. If you do not, or if you move before you get it, call customer service at 1-800-375-5283.

I'll update this thread with whatever happens next, hopefully it will be good news!

I'm not sure what has happened then, the website definitely says the greencard was approved and mailed, so was this someone's error at the office updating the status with approval but not actually having it be approved?

I'm thinking maybe I should send back the RFE info to them for the work permit and wait a little longer and see what happens then.

If I call them, I'm not sure how I could explain my problem to them. Should I say that my status says his GC is approved but it was before the biometrics so there must be some mistake?

Not sure why the website says we are approved then, but I checked and rechecked the case number and it's correct so maybe they have given me the wrong one, which would be stupid. The case number for the work permit says that we indeed have an RFE sent on the correct date, so that one must be accurate. Don't some people get GCs approved without interviews though?

And I'm not sure why it took 2 months to get the NOA1s, it took a similar amount of time for me to get my NOA1 for my husband's K1 so I didn't think it was odd or anything.

• February 28, 2013 - I-485 and I-765 packet sent
• March 7, 2013 - Confimation email received with Case number

• April 25, 2013 - Online case status shows message that greencard has been approved and mailed.
• April 29, 2013 - Form I-797C NOA received in mail for I-485 and I-765, Biometric appointment also received
• May 9, 2013 - Biometrics appointment in Oxnard, CA
• May 13, 2013 - RFE for I-765 received in mail, requesting for physical address.

This is what has has happened so far

Hi again VJ, I'm a little confused!

I'm having some problems on my husband's green card process. We filed to Adjust status from a K-1 Visa (I-485). Looking at the case status online says that his GC was approved and was mailed to him, but it seems to be lost in the mail. I've been in the process of calling them to figure out what's happened to it, but so far it seems to be lost and that I'll unfortunantly have to pay the $450 to get another one.

In the meantime, I received a RFE for his work permit (I-765), asking for our address again. Since his greencard has been approved do I need to send them back something? Do you still need a work permit if you are approved for a GC already?

OR has his greencard not come in the mail yet because I haven't sent the RFE info back to them? What should I do?

Hopefully that makes sense. Thank you so much for everyone's time as always. Much love

Harpa Timsah:

Yes I have a residential address but don't receive mail to it. I do pay for my PO Box, it's where I receive all of my mail instead. Would just saying I have no mailbox installed at my home and asking to send it to my PO Box be a good enough for them?

belinda63:

Okay I will try this, hopefully it will be sufficient for them

Forgot to say that this RFE is in regards to the Employment Authorization! Not the greencard, so I've posted this in the wrong forum. Could I please have this moved? I'm so very sorry.

Hi VJ,

Today I unfortunantly got an RFE for my I-765, saying I need to provide my physical address of my residence. It says as follows:

"Please provide the physical address of your residence. If it is impossible for you to receive mail at your physical residence, you may also provide an explanation and request, along with the address of your physical residence requesting USCIS to use an alternative mailing address such as a PO Box or other mailing address."

We live in a rural area with no mailbox (they are frequently stolen from so we don't have one) and have a PO Box instead. Is that an acceptable request, and if so how should I put it all together in a letter? Should I put in copies of anything else from our AOS package?

Sorry if this is a stupid question, I just want to make sure I'm being careful. Thank you for reading!

City/ Town: Arroyo Grande

State: California

Date of Service: Feb 7, ,2013

CS Name: Dr. Gerald I Sugarman

CS Tel. no: incl. area code (805) 473-3496

Cost: $25 for vaccine transcription, didn't ask about full medical

Vaccine Transcription only available: yes

Turnaround time: 1 hour or so of waiting in the office

My husband wasn't given his DS-3025 copy at his doctor in Australia so we had to get it transcripted. Called around to many offices nearby but this was the only one that had even the slightest clue to what I was talking about (not needed ANOTHER medical and stuff) very friendly service, knew exactly what we needed, and packaged it up in an envelope we aren't supposed to open (just like the orignal medical info) and I was given a copy. Awesome!

also had very sweet cat running around in office, slept in my lap for awhile

Hi VJ, I'm back again to be a big handful once more! Thanks for all the help I've gotten from everyone thus far

I have a quick question that maybe someone can advise me on, we are filing for a K1 visa and right now I'm getting ready for the I-134.

My cosponsor has earned enough to meet 125% poverty line this year, but the tax transcript the year before was baaaad, it didn't even come close to the poverty line. The year before that was good, though. So my question is, would it be a really bad idea to send all 3 years of tax transcripts because the middle year was so poor? Should I send my fiance just the most recent tax transcript and leave out the other 2, or just send all of them?

any help is always appreciated, thanks everyone <3

Dear All, Need some advice...

I am about the send Packet 3 to the consulate, however I have confusion regarding sending of the medical reports. Can I open the Medical reports received from the doctor or should I send the unopened (sealed) envelope along with other documents forming packet 3 to the consulate. The doctor said i can open the envelope and send reports, however in one of the topics it said to send unopened envelope.

Also do we need to send passport size photos along with packet 3 or do we have to carry it with us during the interview.

Please, can someone enlighten me.

Thanks in advance

our doctor told us NOT to open it but didn't say why. I am not sure about the passport photos, good question (we're getting ready to send packet 3 too), can anyone else help?

Thanks for everyone's answers, we went with the passport book, it does make sense to follow the direct instructions Thank you everybody!

We don't have his birth certificate, and I don't think that would prove his citizenship anyway for sure since he was born in Japan in the 50s. ): The passport option is our best bet but I was just wondering what would be sufficient, the card or the whole book.

Hi again VJ!

I was just wondering, has anyone had any experience with providing a passport card or book for proof of US citizenship? I was on the phone with a nice lady today from the Passport agency that said she didn't know which one the USCIS preferred, but both were proof of citizenship. I'm about to renew my (K1) co-sponsor's passport so he can prove citizenship, and I'd like to tell him he can just get a passport card and save some money but I'm not sure if that would be insufficient for the USCIS compared to a passport book. Anyone ever done this before?

Thank you as always my wonderful friends

thank you for everyone's quick responses, it's so appreciated! We have decided to go with Dave's suggestion and get his passport renewed through going to the post office in person and expediting it. Thank you everyone who took the time to read and help me out!! much love!