Drewton12

Good news...finally! Notified December 28 of approval, January 3, 2019 card mailed and today (January 5) it arrived!!:) Vermont filer with transfer to Texas at the end of November. We are EAC17356.

Sending good vibes to the September filers still waiting! 

3 hours ago, hennessey4747 said:

We were finally able to talk to a representative and were told that my wife’s case is in fact in the Texas Service Center. So, God only knows how much longer this will take. Has anyone else who was a Sept 2017 filer been transferred to the TSC? 

We also have been transferred to the TSC. Our ROC NOA date was 9/21/17 and transferred to TSC on 11/23/18. Sooo the clock is ticking! We are really hoping for a rather quick decision.

2 minutes ago, Bev123 said:

Hello how were you able to do this? I’ve been calling and it keeps giving the same response, nothing about where it was transferred to. Kindly shed more light. 

If you call the USCIS main 800 number at 1-800-375-5283 and follow the prompts using your receipt number, you can get the latest details for your case.

Although the snail mail letter has not been received yet, I just checked and learned which office will be receiving our case from the Vermont Service Center. Looks like Mesquite, Texas will be reviewing our case. Hoping for a quick approval!

1 hour ago, Lily2017 said:

Hi all. I'm an October 2017 filer and I follow this group as well. My case was trnsferred to a new jurisdiction yesterday. I'm VSC but thought that only CSC cases were being transferred. Have any September VCS cases been transferred too? Thank you all. 

As of this morning, our case was also transferred to another office. No idea which one, but letter is en route with explanation. At least that is progress! We are September 2017 VSC filers. 

If you are celebrating, Happy Thanksgiving!

6 hours ago, cwlyip9976 said:

Thanks! 

For my zip code, only Baltimore office is shown.  I don't mind to take a longer ride to other field office.

Completely agree @cwlyip9976! We are in the same situation. There seems to never be an opening for the Baltimore field office. My wife DID go to a different office in Baltimore County for her biometrics...it was pretty hidden and nobody was there. Took her 5 mins and done. Would love to go back to that location but it is not listed unfortunately.

Anyone else have tricks for getting InfoPass appts at Baltimore???

We received a response today from USCIS for our case inquiry. USCIS stated they are processing ROC cases approximately '14-17 months from the date we received your petition'. Furthermore, they stated we need to make an InfoPass appt for passport stamp to obtain further extension. This seems strange. Has anyone figured out any rhyme or reason why some received 18-month extension letters while others, like us, received nothing AND need to take a trip to get a passport extension stamp?? 🤔

@Lily2017 That is very helpful! We will submit an inquiry and see what happens. Thanks for the input😃

@Jay&M My wife is in a similar position with her 1 year extension letter set to expire in early December. Did you get any notification the 18 month extension letter was being produced or it just arrived unannounced? We are starting to get nervous due to early December not being far away...

Awesome, thanks for the @gregcrs2 and @Starkilla09! Appreciate it.

Hi VJers, hoping to gather some input from others regarding financial rationale for I-751. My wife (GC holder) and I (USC) are getting ready to send our ROC packet. In the packet, we will be including evidence from our bank showing a shared checking and shared saving account. My wife, who is employed, has her paycheck direct deposited into our shared savings account. My paycheck is direct deposited into our shared checking account, which we use to pay our cost of living bills (credit cards, utilities, auto lease, etc).

We are saving up to purchase our first home. In turn, my wife's paycheck is used for this purpose, hence why her paycheck is deposited into our shared savings account.

Is there a need to explain this situation as part of our submission? We are including bank statements and materials showing we share both accounts (shared account numbers). Curious though if we need to explicitly call out why our paychecks are deposited into different accounts.

I wanted to follow-up and provide insights for others! FINALLY, months later, my wife's Social Security card issue has been resolved. Needless to say, it took getting a member of Congress and their staff involved to rattle some cages at SSA. My wife received her revised card and we can now move on from the amazingly inefficient and backwards ways of the SSA world.

For anyone in a similar position, if you have tried the suggestions made by other wise VJ members to no avail, I would suggest your next step should be contacting your elected officials. That seemed to do the trick for us.

It's amazingly frustrating that the process is so problematic. As you mentioned @Dave&Rosa, we have completed these steps. The only part my wife and I have not done...yet..is demand to speak to a supervisor. After the SSA employee confirmed that my wife does have a valid GC/EAD in her married name, she sent away copies of all her info, including marriage certificate showing name change, to DHS for verification. We are in the waiting game again. Tracking things online via the SAVE database look up, our case did get returned to SSA today from DHS. I wish they would tell you what the results were, but that would be much too easy so of course that info is not provided. We also opened up Congressional inquiries with our elected representatives to rattle cages for answers. Time will tell if we get results...

My wife is in a very similar situation with SSA. Seeing this thread has been quiet for a bit, @CaptainMewBu did you ever get this resolved? If so, we would really be eager to hear the steps it took to get the revised SS card printed.

Reading the above responses, I am hoping folks can provide some insights to a unique situation. My wife received her conditional GC/EAD in December 2015. Back in 2008 she worked on a J1 visa in the US, applied and was assigned a SS number. Her card has the valid for work purposes blah blah statement on it. Fast forward to 2015. We got married in August 2015 and went to the SS office in August 2015 and December 2015 to show proof of marriage for a revised SS card to be produced in her MARRIED name. After SSA failed on both prior attempts to produce a card in her married name, we returned in February 2016 to demand movement on this issue. After we insisted that SS check the SAVE database, the clerk told us that my wife's name does not match in the SAVE database. In turn, no new card in her married name could be produced. I pointed out..and showed the clerk...the green card issued to my wife in December 2015 with her MARRIED name. After leaving the SS office, I called USCIS, spoke with a Tier 2 (?) manager who confirmed in the their system my wife's file does not use her maiden name, all references are in her MARRIED name. Therefore, SSA or USCIS is pulling some funny business.

Has anyone experience a similar situation?? If so, how did the situation get resolved so that a revised card is printed in the married name? REALLY would appreciate any input from others who went through this frustrating experience.

How did that go? Did you manage to get the updated SS card?

My wife received her green card about a month ago and funny enough, the card does have her middle name that she wanted added. So her SS card and driver's license do not have her middle name, but her green card does. We are going to revisit the SSA and see if we can get her middle name added. If we get through that, the next stop will be with the MVA to get her middle name added.

Big surprise...(sarcasm)...no update from SSA. My wife still has not received an updated SS card. We have been checking the SAVE database and it shows my wife's case was checked and returned back to SSA, so ball is in their court. Given the holidays, we are going to wait until mid-January and see if we receive something in the mail. If nothing by then, back to the local SSA office we shall go...again!

Such a crazy process! My wife, K1 approved w/EAD+AP in hand, is in the same situation as @DJConan described. All we are trying to do is change her existing SSA card from her maiden name to married name. Social Security (SSA) claims to have submitted the name change request in August, after we married. This was before the EAD/AP was approved. We returned in early October to the local SSA office to inquire why months had passed and we still have nothing to show in terms of progress. The SSA employee explained that everything was submitted correctly in their system back in August. However, her materials were still being processed by Department of Homeland Security (USCIS) and only after USCIS completes either the EAD/AP or AOS would the SSA database be updated reflecting that my wife exists with her married name. We took this advice at face value and left the office feeling we made some progress. Unfortunately, we still have nothing from SSA. My wife called SSA twice today to inquire. In both instances the SSA employee said they could provide no info over the phone and to return to our local SSA office to inquire what is going on. Based on your valuable input, we will go back again to the local SSA office with my wife's freshly issued EAD/AP card containing her married name to show she really, truly exists under this name according to the US government! Hopefully SSA will cooperate and realize she can get a revised SSA card issued with her married name.

Anyone else have similar situation to share...especially advice for navigating SSA on this issue?

Hoping the amazing Visa Journey community and it's collective knowledge can help us out!

My fiancee arrived in the US on July 9, 2015 on a K1 visa. She previously worked for a year in the US from 2007-2008 on a J-1 visa. While working here on the J-1 visa she obtained a Social Security card and number (SSN). Her card has printed on it "Valid for work only with DHS authorization".

We are currently working through the Social Security process for her K1 visa. My question is if other former J-1 visa holders who obtained a SSN and later came to the US on a K1, does the card originally issued to you and the number remain valid for things such as marriage license application, drivers license application etc? I have researched on here and found a thread exactly dealing with this issue. However, it makes me nervous it dates from 2006 and I haven't located any more recent confirmation either on this site OR on ssa.gov to confirm the responses from that 2006 thread.

Any former J-1 visa holders who can weigh in on this would be super helpful and appreciated!

Finally! So freaking happpppyyyyy:) Issued today (July 2) in Frankfurt, following interview/approval June 9.

Keep up the hope!

Having read through nearly the entire thread, I've seen very little mention of the US Embassy in Frankfurt.

Anyone else here with an approved K1 via Frankfurt awaiting delivery? We were approved morning of June 9...

Hi everyone,

We recently received our K1 NOA2 and will be working through the US embassy in Frankfurt.

We are now preparing materials for next steps, especially the I-134 Affidavit of Support materials. One question I have is regarding the "statement from employer" essentially testifying to the nature of my job, salary, etc. Since I am a US federal government employee, does my SF-50 qualify as proof for I-134 purposes? I'd really appreciate input on this...especially any other feds in the VJ community!