sumdesi

I know for a fact she'll be able to change her first name during naturalization, I am not sure if that's possible during AOS.

I do not believe you can change a first name due to marriage. I am not familiar with all the state laws, but I have not heard of legally changing a first name through marriage. Check your state laws. You will most likely have to go through the court to make that type of name change. Or you can wait until she files for naturalization, when she can change her name for free during that process.

From what I believe, the Indian consulates do not send out packets 3 and 4, rather the beneficiary just gets an email with a scheduled date and you take all the information with you the day of. If you have not yet done so, you will need to go onto the travel docs site and set up an account (this gives them your contact information, etc).
As far as I know, the fees are paid at the bank and you take the receipt to show you paid them but I am not sure if this is the only option or if you can still pay at the consulate.
I don't know if it matters when you complete the 160, just as long as it's complete before you go to your interview and you have the printout. My fiance happened to do his after he was already scheduled.
Good luck! Hope you are scheduled soon

Yes, provide complete copies of tax returns. Generally, a complete copy will indicate which portions of income were earned by which individual but tax returns reflect past income. You also need to document current income. That's where the pay stubs and/or employer letter fit in.

Yeah, saw that too....#######.
Shows how reliable that tool is.

Notice how if you tilt your head to the right and look at it sideways it looks like USCIS is giving us the finger...

thread closed. do not restart this thread

I really hope this is just a troll trying to get people riled up.

If nothing else, THIS is what frustrates me. Update the damn processing time! I agree, after 2 months they obviously are not still on October filers! Sure there may be a few stragglers, but they should state which month their main focus has shifted to. If I truly knew what time period they were processing, it would at least help me better anticipate when my file will be touched and keep me calm. But the way it is now, all over the place, it's just plain frustrating!

Go to his facebook page and leave a complaint for everybody to see. They don't like bad publicity.

Hello All
I had a great opportunity Saturday evening to have dinner with and spend several hours with a director at the VSC. He is currently in charge of the department that handles I-751s among other things. His wife is an adjusicator that handles YOUR petition (if it went through VSC). His wife is Russian, arrived on a K-1 and is now a citizen. This man has worked for USCIS for many years and was at several local offices before being assigned to the VSC. His wife is a friend of Alla's and we were all at a dinner party for several American/Russian/Ukrainian couples Saturday. We had a long chat, he was very open and helpful. We talked about a lot of the things we see here on VJ and I was trying to remember all the "usual questions" I read about and pin him down for some answers. I also have asked him if he will give an "official interview" for VJ. He said he will check out the site and I will call him later this week. So, anyway I will try to cover what we discussed, he was quite frank and direct in his answers, not rude, not at all, but he knows his stuff and answers without hesitation. It turned into an impromtu and fun "interview" with me trying to remember all the hot button issues I see on VJ
I told him that the number ONE and number TWO "complaints" I see are Why is the VSC taking so long and why can't we get through to you guys?
Why is VSC taking so long, what happened? I was approved in 58 days!: We had problem with labor last year and lost many workers, we hired more last November and it took some time to get them trained. Some of the petitions were sent to California and we also assign people to different tyopes of visas. They will concentrate on one tyoe, get behind on another and then shift many people back to the other type. Lately we have shifted many, almost all, adjudicators to I-129fs, so that should make people happy. They will do that until they get caught up. Summer is a busy time for I-129fs, usually about June we get slammed with them. The winter or early spring is the slowest time for I-129fs, but then it depends what they have everyone working on also.
OK, why can't we get through to you? The 1-800 line is useless. Those are contract employees and they are trained to select answers from a menu of 14 answers. They pick which one is best for your question. There are thousands of visas being processed at any time and everyone is special and everyone has special circumstances and if we had direct lines we weould do nothing but field requests by petitioners to give them priority, we just can't do it. How would you feel if your petition got bumped because some woman called and cried on the phone and then her petition got moved up ahead of yours. We simply have to operate in a way that avoids any chance of fraud, corruption or unfairness.
So what about some people get approved ahead of others? Sme petitions have problems or delays, we do not hold back others for this. If an adjudicator has problems, he puts that one aside or sends an RFE and goes on to the next. The next one may be clean and gets approved right away, in just a few minutes, they adjudicate 15-20 petitions a day per person, and the ones with problems may wait weeks for the petitioner to respond to the RFE, or maybe it is a name check they are waiting for. Petitions are assigned as they arrive, when we are working on those petitions, but they do not go out the door in the same order they came in.
G-325a, Signed or Unsigned? Unsigned.
WHAT? Ok I have seen the memo but lots of VJ members got RFEs for unsigned G-325s, what gives? They do not have to be signed,they can be signed at the consualte interview. Some adjusicators haven't read all the memos, we get hundreds of the things, and maybe they make a mistake. If you want to be sure there is no mistake, sign it. Or send a letter expalining why it is not signed and request it be signed at the interview. Do you have that memo?
It is on the VJ website somewhere You can print a copy of that and send it with the I-129f and G-325a.
Fiancee intent letter? Signed or unsigned? Signed.
What about a faxed or emailed signature? When I was adjudicating, if I could see a signature, I accepted it, but many adjusicators will not. Signed is better.
Lawyer or no lawyer? For what?
Enough said. Now a hot issue, a very controversial one. There seems to be a trend in some countries of foreign men marrying American women and the women are considerably older. There is always a question if this is a problem. It never seems to be a problem for older men/younger women (My wife is 13 years younger, his wife is also considerable younger than him) Is it a problem? For us, USCIS, no. "Free to marry".
What about the consulates or for AOS or I-751? Consulates do what they do, it is not USCIS, some of them are bastards. Kiev is easy, they approve everyone (laughs), they used to be bastards but they got easier since they first started doing those in 2005, before then you would have had to go to Warsaw, you know. For AOS if they can prove they are legitimate we do not care about age but anything that is "not normal" for the culture will draw suspicion. They probably will not get a no questions asked interview (I had told him our AOS was "no questions asked")
What about birth certificates, some people have trouble getting them? This is a problem for us also. Some people, especially our younger staff, think all the world is like the USA. I remember one, when I was in the Kansas City office, the beneficiary was from Viet Nam, she was born in 1954 there was no birth certificate. The CO asked me about this and I looked at the file. I said "Do you know what was going on in Viet Nam in 1954?" She looked at me, straight faced and said "What, their computers were down?" If a birth certificate cannot be obtained they can usually get something from a church, a village official, something, and send that with a letter of explanation. Or just their passport and a letter explaining the situation (this applies to AOS more than I-129f as beneficiary birth certificate is not required for the petition, but I wanted to ask anyway, it seems a common question here)
What about extra documents? Proof of relationship? We don't need it, only that they have met for the fiancee visa.
What about the consulates? Consulates do what they do, as I said, some are bastards. They get whatever we get when it is sent on. I can't tell you what NVC and consulates do, I know some are terrible and some are really easy, but I do not know all the details of each. Kiev is easy, western Europe is easy, Nigeria is horrible, but you would not believe the scams from Nigeria, I get jaded. I am surprised a lot of them get visas and then we have to deal with them.
I have to ask for a collegue, Ecuador? Bastards.

What about changes? Are there any in the works? Is Obama ouching you guys to work faster? I am not sure Obama knows we exist. There have been no changes and no pressure other than the usual workload and shifting things around. I do not expect any immigration changes in the next year or two, at kleat not in rules or amnesty or anything like that. I do expect FEE INCREASES within the next year...across the board.
How much more? I cannot say, that is not my area, I just hear talk.
He added, "We try not to deny petitions, people really get angry and make lots of trouble. Denials usually come at the consulate or maybe AOS or sometimes even with the I-751. If we deny someone we need good reason, if they meet the criteria, we will approve it, they just have to give us what we need to approve them."
So how can I speed up my petition? You can't really. If it gets to be too long and if you can get a congressman or senator to call, that will get some action, but half the time those guys dont'' call or they do and the petition has only been there 3 months. Sometimes one falls through the cracks, gets overlooked, we are human. A congressman can get through and get them to dig it out if it has been too long, but I wouldn't call that "speeding it up". That's a fix for whn it is too slow.
we talked for some time more, about 5 hours altogether, briefly interrupted by Alla every now and again who had her own questions about the I-751 procedure which I posted in that forum, about VJ and other topics (his Navy days) He said he will check the site and gave me his home number. He said "call anytime but not 3 in the morning" I asked about an interview or answering prepared questions, he said possibly, he will check the site. He said many internet sites are advertisement for immigration attorneys or instructing people on how to pull scams, I assured him he would be very pleased with VJ and he thinks it is great that there is a good site for information and advice. (he never heard of VJ before this)
I can also say, that speaking to him, I heard so many of the same buzzwords or advice that I have seen right here, this is really a great site with some great folks giving some really great info.

1. this is what I wrote to ombudsman. 2. Congrats on your approval
Members Joined: 18 Apr 2013 State:Tennessee Filed for: K-1 Visa Filing Location: Vermont Service Center Country: Ukraine

Timeline Photos Posted Today, 06:48 PM
Dear Sir, I am writing to complain about services provided at Vermont Service Center concerning I-129f applications. A grave injustice has occurred to many US Citizens whom are trying to bring their loved ones home. On May 24, 2013 over 8,000 cases were transferred from Vermont Service Center (VSC) to Texas Service Center (TSC) because of a backlog in processing. Now those cases sit unattended because TSC has to train officers to process those said cases which will result in more delays. Cases left at Vermont Service Center (VSC) continue to languish because of inept management! What processing is occurring at VSC has slowed down since the transfers occurred and backlog will continue to worsen resulting in further delays. All the while processing at California Service Center has progressed to currently adjuncting cases filed in February 2013.
CSC according to the USCIS web site currently has a 5 month waiting period and VSC is currently processing applications from October 15. As a US Citizen our cases should receive priority over the cases of ILLEGAL RESIDENTS filing under DACA.

First of all, congrats to the OP on getting approved!!
Hey I understand your frustration, and although I just started the K-1 process, I'm also ticked off at the fact that CSC filers are getting through at a MUCH faster rate than VSC filers. I also want to contact the Ombudsman but was wondering if it was appropriate for me to complain yet since I only just started the process. What kind of message would I even write?
If more of us raise hell on Ombudsman, then hopefully it will kick VSC into overdrive!!

This is where this thread is going to confuse many. Getting an RFE for lack of evidence to prove you have met in the past two years almost always is due to a lack of primary evidence. Supplying more, or many photos (secondary evidence) will usually not overcome the burden of proof.
This has been borne out time and again by USCIS decisions whereby they have found mostly in favor of primary evidence and rejected secondary evidence such as photos when submitted as sole proof.
Primary evidence is documentary in nature: airline boarding passes, passport exit/entry stamps, hotel receipts, atm withdrawals in city of question, utility bills, apartment leases, etc.
Secondary evidence The USCIS defines secondary evidence as any documentation that can be used to supplement primary evidence but in itself cannot stand alone to prove ones assertions.
Photos are secondary; so are letters from relatives, neighbors or acquaintances, bus/train tickets and essentially anything that cannot be used to prove your point with a very high degree of certainty.
To sum up; very good Primary evidence with some secondary evidence = NO RFE
very weak Primary evidence with some, or lots of secondary= Possible RFE
No Primary evidence..........................................................= RFE
No Primary, lots of secondary.............................................= RFE

Furthermore, consulates can operate under a certain protocol until a new Section Chief of the Immigrant Visa Unit is transferred in, whereupon changes can occur overnight and unannounced. Consuls have 100% power over your future, and this should always be kept foremost in mind.
You're making a wise decision to avoid taking risks in this matter.

For the record, Ceilla received her approval with full disclosure on this topic. I stand by the notion that if anyone is considering doing this, simply contact the embassy in question beforehand and get their approval. No reason for stress or keeping secrets. If you make your inquiry by email, print the response and take it with you when you have your interview.

Whew...
Well I have debated this with my fiancé as well.. We feel it is worth it to take a certain amount of risk in setting an American wedding date and booking things for it before we have the visa in hand. So we have had to talk about what will happen if he doesn't get the visa before the wedding date. We will lose a lot of money and the question is, will we wait and look for another date, or will we get married in Egypt and then wait more than a year for THAT visa, or will we try to beat the system in some way and marry unofficially for personal/religious reasons while we wait for the K1 to come through to make it legal?
I can definitely understand why the OP is considering it. If he takes the advice of "quit your K1, marry her in India in November, and then do the spouse visa," that will result in either him being closed out of his own country for quite a long time or him having to live separately from his wife, neither of which are pleasant options for most. Not to mention the high price of flying, I don't know who is able to just fly back and forth all the time like some are suggesting. If his whole life is in America and he can't just get up and move to India for a few years, then getting married over there is not really an option. It isn't for me and my fiancé either.
But I do understand the warnings too... I'm not interested in lying to the government, even if I wanted to I would be terrified (and pretty confident) they would find out.
So we are just too afraid of the risk of getting caught in what would be considered fraud to do that.
However, I do find the emails referenced interesting... perhaps we will try asking as you did to be clear.

Thank you very much for understanding!
I honestly did not set out to commit visa fraud or anything. My fiance and I considered the K-1 visa because it supposedly takes less time then CR1, and then thought we would do the wedding ceremony in India where most of our family members were. At this point, we had no clue this was against K-1 visa rules because we assumed this was not a legal marriage. But after reading some threads on VJ, I came to know that this may cause us to lose the visa. That's why I posted my original post to get clarification.
And overwhelmingly, everyone has been against this idea. I personally agree with Billious' logic because even I am of the same opinion. But then again, there is the risk and who knows what the visa officers will construe a family celebration as. May get lucky and they'll agree it was only a family celebration. Or they may not . Main conclusion I've gotten from this thread is that the risk isn't worth it, and might as well wait for the wedding ceremony until after the visa is issued.

~~~~thread split from zombie thread~~~~