johnandxiaoyan

My wife has a two-year green card, issued last year. Our apartment lease is expiring, and we want to do some traveling in the U.S. before getting a new place.

Two questions:

1) Do we have to notify USCIS when we leave? Can we give a PO Box as a change of address since we will be homeless for two months?

2) Will USCIS give my wife trouble if we have NO PERMANENT ADDRESS for two months? (when it comes time to apply for her permanent green card)

Call me a naive optimist if you like, but up until two weeks ago, I had thought our AOS case would grind its way -- slowly but inexorably -- toward a happy ending.

We had obtained out I-129f without hitting any stumbling blocks, gotten married soon after Xiaoyan's arrival, obtained her EAD without a problem, and, last September got a letter suggesting her AOS interview would be waived. Happy day! All we had to do was sit back and wait for her Green Card to arrive in the mail, right?

Wrong.

Our I-485 was received by USCIS on June 17, 2014. Two weeks ago, we checked the USCIS website and found that the Atlanta USCIS office (as of Jan. 31) was already processing cases filed July 19 -- a month after ours. So we called USCIS and requested an update, which I understand we are supposed to get within 15 days. Now 15 days have passed and still nothing from USCIS.

So here are my questions:

1) Should I call USCIS and make another request for an update? Does that 15-day requirement mean anything?

2) At what point, if ever, would it be smart to contact our congressman or an immigration attorney? Can they do anything to speed the process?

3) Is the Atlanta office any slower than other offices?

4) At what point should we apply for a renewal of Xiaoyan's EAD? It expires in mid August. How long does it take to obtain a renewal?

Thanks for any help you can offer -- anything that would renew my flagging optimism.

John Reiter

Xie Xiaoyan passed her interview this morning at the consulate in Guangzhou, so it seemed like a good time to thank you.

By "you" we mean all of you who have offered us advice and comfort as we grapple with the sometimes tedious, bewildering, repetitious, anxiety-inducing K-1 visa process.

Thanks for responding to my simple-minded questions with information and good humor. Thanks for knowing things and sharing them.

Thanks for caring.

John and Xie Xiaoyan

Right now, our only home is an apartment in Shanghai. A kind relative has let us use his US address for purposes of filing our petition, and that has worked up to now (we are at the consulate interview stage).

What problems will we encounter from the bureaucracy once we are in the U.S. if we don't have a permanent address?

We would prefer to live in a long-stay hotel for a month at least before settling on a place to live. Is that type of address permissible? Or can we continue to use my relative's mailing address in dealing with the USCIS?

We are at the point of scheduling the interview at the consulate, and I just found out that it's possible to apply for a Social Security number at the same time as the K-1 visa.

But are we too late to do that? Did we need to apply from the start of the process?

Will we now have to wait until she gets to the U.S.?

Any advice or clarification of our options is welcome.

We just got an email from the consulate telling us to schedule an interview, but it began with this very confusing (to us) instruction:

• Once you receive this notice, please visit http://ustraveldocs.com and register a document pick-up location by selecting the “Select Document Delivery Address” option in the Immigrant Visas section of the website. If you have already registered, you do not need to register again. Failure to register prior to your visa interview will result in delay of your visa application.

Is this some kind of boilerplate that bears no relation to our situation? Didn't we "register" when we sent in our I-129f four months ago? And why the business about a "document delivery address"? Doesn't the consulate have our address?

Sorry if I sound peevish, but I am! Can you help us understand (or ignore) this instruction?

No. Tis a new shuffle at a USCIS service center, with new queues and assigned adjudicators.

Remember the queue you had on the I-129F? Similar queue, different paint, different building. It ain't over till it's over, mostly FIFO queue rules. Mostly.

About the only thing that is useful prior to greencard issuance, is the actual EAD card (fee for filing the I-765 is waived when filed with an I-485, so that's a plus) and USUALLY the EAD card shows up 90 days after filing the big honking AOS set. If you need the EAD card sooner, can apply for expedite after the biometrics is done and usually get it.

I've been meaning to thank you for your replies to my several queries. So xie xie.

Also, I was intrigued by your use of the Brit term "queue." Have you spent time in the UK?

Basically as I understand it your new wife will be allowed to remain in the USA as long as her Adjustment of Status is processing. NOTE one important caveat to this whole process... IF your new wife decides she wants to leave the country to vist back home (or anywhere else) either with or without you make sure that she applies for a document called Advanced Parole and that she does not leave the USA until she has either the Advanced Parole or the green card. To leave the country prior to recieving AP will in most cases the Adjustment of status to be considered abandoned and you'll need to start the process of getting an immigrant visa all over again this time with the much longer I-130 process. Good luck to both of you.

Thanks. That's very concise and clear information, which is a precious commodity during this process.

The above.

Simpler terminology, as told to me by an immigration attorney in answer to my identical question, is "applicant for Adjustment," or "Adjustment applicant."

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There's no fixed period of stay. For a great many reasons, it's to your definite advantage to file for AOS as early as you possibly can.

Thank you. Sounds like the time to best time to file for an AOS is immediately after "Now you may kiss the bride."

"Aliens with properly filed applications for adjustment of status under both sections 245(a) and 245(i) of the Act will be considered aliens present in the United States under a period of stay authorized by the Attorney General."

Thanks. Is that "period of stay" a standard amount of time? If so, how long?

I am not clear about my fiancee's status once we are married and while our AOS petition is being processed.

Can you explain?

I read on the K-1 Guide page that:

"Upon entry, the K-1 visa is cancelled, and an Electronic I-94 is issued upon entry and becomes the controlling document."

So, if the K-1 is cancelled, on what basis will my newlywed wife be in the U.S.? I understand she can apply for permission to work and travel, but I don't understand her visa status.

Can you clarify?

Perhaps you can help me. We recently got an email from USCIS about an "undeliverable" notice, but I have not been able to find out what the notice contained.

We got our initial Notice of Approval from USCIS in February and have since received a communication from the consulate (in Guangzhou), asking for DS-160 and so on, so it appears that our application is on track, despite the mysterious undeliverable.

When I called USCIS, all the agent could tell me was that the undeliverable did not refer to an interview notice, but beyond that, she was not much help. How can I find out what this undeliverable was? Will USCIS re-send it, now that I have cleared up the address problem?

Is the I-765 Employment Authorization Document) the chicken or the egg?

By this I mean, do you have to have a job offer before you can apply for authorization to accept a job?

Or can you get authorization and then look for a job?

This is in fact NOT a catch-22 or trick question. The question is specifically asking in relation to your age, how long have you resided in the US. For example, if you are 30 years old and have only lived in the US since you were ten (due to immigrating)… it would be something to the effect of 30 and March 14, 1994.

If you've lived in the US all your life... it would be your birthday

To clarify my situation:

I was born in the U.S. and lived there my whole life, until 2 years ago, when I moved to China, where I am living now. I will return to the U.S. to get married and settle. Unfortunately, the form does not allow for this explanation. I think my best bet is to file an attachment with my explanation. Does that make sense?

Question 2 on the I-134 says: I am ___ years of age and I have resided in the United States since _________ .

The problem is that I don't reside in the United States at the moment and have not for the past year. How do I answer that question? The form does not permit anything but a date. What date do I put there that makes any sense? The day I was born?

Is the NVC a black hole? By that I mean, should we expect to receive any notices via snail mail or email from the NVC?

We know the NVC received and forwarded our approved petition to the consulate (in Guangzhou) because we have received our notice from the consulate to submit our D-160 and other pre-interview documents.

Does that mean that we have no reason to contact the NVC and the NVC has no reason to contact us?

If so, that's great, because we have changed both our U.S. and China addresses since we submitted our petition to USCIS. That means the NVC does not have a correct address for us. Does that matter?

The consulate and USCIS both have our correct addresses, it's only the NVC that does not (unless they are connected to the USCIS or consulate's database somehow).

By "expiration date" I mean this:

How long can you wait after you get your K-1 visa before you must enter the U.S?

I know you have to get married within 90 days after entry, but how long can you wait to enter the U.S.? A month? A year?

Not sure about China specifically, but everything is usually done by snail mail.

Why haven't you sent USCIS a change of address notification?

The USCIS online change of address form will not accept a foreign address. And every time I call the USCIS 800 number, they tell me to call between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. No mater when I (Skype) call, I get the same messge. Do you know what time zone these hours refer to?

I want to contact the National Visa Center. To do so, I need an NVC case number. What is that?

We have an SRC number. Is it the same thing? If not, how, when and from whom do we get an NVC case number?

This is from NVC website:

• NVC case number
• Principal applicant's name and date of birth
• Petitioner's name and date of birth
• If your visa petition is employment-based, include the employer's company or organization name instead of the petitioner's information.

Consulate does. Your fiance should be waiting for her/his package sent to the address which you put down in the petition.

Also, you may contact the consulate via email and ask them this question, just remember to put down your case #.

After the approval notice you - the petitioner - should also expect receiving a notice from NVC, regarding the update on your case after it is sent to the consulate.

Thanks for your help. Can you tell me:

Is the notice from NVC sent to the address we gave in China (which has changed) or to the address we gave in the U.S.? Is it sent by snail mail, email or both?

I have had no luck emailing the Immigrant Visa Unit at the consulate because they require us to submit via a form that asks our GUZ, GZO case number, which no one has given us yet. We have our SRC case number, but that doesn't count apparently. And anything they snail mail to us will go to the wrong address

If they would email us, we would be fine. Do they do that?

Hi, everyone. This is our first post, so I apologize if this is a dumb question.

But we haven't been able to get through the bureaucratic maze to get an answer:

How, when and by whom are we notified of our interview date?

We are living in China. USCIS approved our I-129f petition Feb. 12, but we have not heard anything from anyone since then.

Who gives us our interview date? USCIS? National Visa Center? Consulate in Guangzhou?

I have not been able to get answers from any of them.

One complication is that we moved since submitting our petition to USCIS, so no one has a record of our current address. We worry that the officials (of whatever agency) will send the notice to the wrong address. Does the agency (whatever agency) notify us by email or just snail mail?

Any help would be welcome. Thanks.