ACsMama

Thank you! I will make him read what you all said - hopefully it will change his mind (not holding my breathe, though )

We are hoping to have my mother-in-law come visit the US this summer, from Dominican Republic. She has paperwork showing she owns a business, a rental property, and her own home. She has 5 children and bunches of grandchildren (around 15) IN the DR, and only one son and one grandchild in the US. All of this should be enough to show that she will most likely return to DR, and that she has enough money for the trip, so I don't foresee an issue getting her tourist Visa.

My husband insists that we send a letter of invitation and proof of OUR financial status, and saying that we promise to cover all her expenses related to her trip, etc. This seems to go against what the embassy website says and against what I have read here in the forums, but he is insistent that everybody he knows who goes to get a tourist Visa has to take a letter of invitation from someone in the US showing their finances can cover their visitor.

I guess what I am asking is, does anyone have experience trying to get a tourist Visa with/without an invitation letter like this, and do you think it will hurt her chance if we do send it (I am leaning toward doing it anyway just to stop the arguments with DH!)?

Any advice for getting things through stubborn Dominican heads?

Hi,

Are you or your spouse in the military? If I gather correctly, you filed at Vermont Service Center in JUNE 2012 for the RoC, and already approved so fast. Did your case get expedited for some reason?

Thanks

No, neither of us are military. Yes, we filed at Vermont in June! I never expected it to be processed so quickly! The only thing that is out-of-the-ordinary with our case is that we originally filed for an immigrant Visa at our local embassy, and though we have visited the US frequently since then and opened/maintained bank accounts, credit cards, etc. in the US, we haven't held jobs in the US yet, but rather are still working overseas. I did send a letter in with our application for ROC explaining our situation and our intentions, but if anything I assumed that would make our case take longer to process since it wasn't as straight-forward as most probably are. I don't know why we got the lucky hand, but I'll gladly take it

Just wanted to say we got a surprise yesterday - checked the mail and there was a letter saying the ROC was approved and we should expect the new GC in the next 30 days! Woohoo! I wasn't expecting anything for at least a few more months, and really wasn't sure what was going to happen since we still haven't actually moved to the USA (though we are working towards it - have bank accounts/credit cards there, get mail at my parents' house, and hope to move sometime next Spring), so I was very relieved that it was approved!

Finally got our biometrics letter today! I called yesterday and the lady sent in a service request, but then when I checked the mail today there it was! Scheduled for July 25, but we are going to try an early walk-in either today or Monday since we will be travelling later in the month. So happy!

Hello! You can add us to June filers - still waiting on our bio appointment, but looking at the chart it looks like we are not the only ones! I really hope ours gets here soon because we are planning to travel later in July.

ETA dates:

Filed June 1

NOA June 4 (check cashed June 5)

Hello! I have a question for you - I am actually a June Filer as my papers were received June 1st, I have received the NOA, but no biometrics appointment. I see there are still a lot of people waiting for theirs as well. For those of you who have gotten your appointments, how long did it take after the NOA arrived? We filed at the Vermont center fyi.

Thanks!

Thank you so much! We will just go ahead with it then. I have noticed on many people's timelines that the biometric processing appointment tends to be about a month after they send everything in, so we are planning to send it all the first week of June to have his appointment in July.

If they call you in for a further interview, how long does that usually take (from the time they get your paperwork)?

I actually have a similar situation. My husband and I married in the Cayman Islands in 2008, and have been living there ever since. My husband was granted his IV in April 2010, and we went to the States in the end of July (we were planning to move that winter, so we went looking for jobs). However, as we both had good jobs in Cayman, and were unable to secure jobs in the US (with the economy crash and everything), we decided to stay in Cayman. We have visited the US for 2 weeks in Aug. 2010, and for a month in Aug. 2011 (when he almost got a job, so we were going to stay, but it fell through at the last minute and we returned to Cayman). We are planning another trip this summer, but need to remove conditional status as his GC will expire July 30. We are still hoping to make the move soon, but cannot just up and relocate with no job prospects with a 2-year-old to feed and clothe .

Our plan is to go ahead and send in everything, and hope and pray they grant it and we can move to the US. Otherwise we will have to stay here another year+ and re-start the whole process. What I am most afraid of is that they will grant the removal of conditions, and then take away the GC when we go through immigration this summer, but hopefully if we explain the situation they will have mercy on us? It is not that we don't want to live in the US, just that we don't want to end up in my parents' basement mooching off them and/or flipping burgers at McDonald's!

Is there anyone who has gone through something similar? What did you do? How did it turn out? I know a lot of people who keep their GC even living overseas with trips to the US every 6 months/every year, but this removal of conditions makes it more difficult!

Thanks in advance for any advice/help!