greenalien

Hi!

I'm currently on an F1 visa working under OPT. My girlfiend (US citizen) and I plan to get married soon, but my OPT expires in July. If we do get married and file for GC, what happens to my work status? Can I keep working or do I require a new EAD card? If I need a new EAD card, what happens in the interim when my OPT expires (in July) and the new EAD card arrives?

Thank you so much for your help!

i was an F1 OPT to GC as well. do you qualify for a STEM extension when your OPT expires in july? once you submit your GC application, if you dont turn in the i765 (which i didn't), then you can work until your OPT expires in july (assuming you have no more STEM extension to fall back on). if you apply for the EAD with the i765 in your i485/i130 packet, then you can work under your new AOS-in-progress status.

I've only managed to find others' reviews from this location from about two years ago. Has anyone been recently, and, if so, were cell phones permitted inside? (Obviously, our cell phones have cameras—it's 2015.)

yea i rmb seeing people poke on their smartphones in the waiting room. i was at the LA office in may 2014.

Hi everybody, I sent all my forms at the beginning of January and I received my work permit a month a go!! ao happy, and now I m waiting to be called to the interview. I was wondering I believe somebody told me to bring some prove of bonafide marriage, what did you guys bring to the day of your interview?

also, taxes are due tomorrow and if you filed your taxes jointly, definitely bring a copy of that into the interview. our IO liked it. a lot.

also your K1 visa

Thanks.

Is the Interview for I-485 at the same assigned ASC?

or Which USCIS office handles interviews?

no your interview office is definitely different than your ASC. in answer to your question, i moved counties and changed USCIS interviewing offices as a result, while my AOS was in the testing & interview stage. definitely no delays, i got my interview appointment within 10 days of when i moved.

Greetings,

I know this question maybe redundant but I am just wondering how long does it take you guys to get the green card after you got approved during your AOS interview. I have look into some members' timelines and it seems like it could take 6 days, 9 days, 10 days or even a month to touch the green card.

And also, from interview approval to green card, does the online case status always work like this:

Day--: Interview, approved, Case status changed

Day--: Card is ordered, Welcome Notice mailed <------ is there any difference between "card is ordered" and "card in production" ?

Day--: Card is picked up by USPS, tracking number will follow <----- does this status always show up on the online USCIS system? YES AND MAKE SURE YOU WRITE DOWN THE TRACKING NUMBER BECAUSE THE STATUS CHANGES TO SOMETHING ELSE FROM HERE AND YOUR TRACKING # WILL DISAPPEAR

Day--: Green card on hand

Thanks everyone in advance

well i got approved on a monday and had my green card under my pillow by saturday morning. so like, 5 days?

depends on your interviewing IO, mine asked for both passport AND birth certificate

i waited 4 months before being notified on an appointment. definitely keep preparing evidence while you're waiting

Hi VJ folks,

I have my AOS interview coming up soon. Wife and I plan to carry originals + copies of all documents they list on the interview appointment letter. + more proofs of marriage via photos etc. Any tips for the interview and if you have any questions to share from your own experience?

Thank you for the help, as always!

well here's my transcript and here's the list of stuff i brought to the interview i've also heard of people saying how they were in and out in 15mins so i guess it all depends! good luck!!

I am about to file for my husbands AOS, do I mail in the petition and I 485 at the same time?

Thank you

Melody

i'm assuming your husband is in the US. the answer is yes, and there are a few other forms that USCIS requires too. if i'm not wrong, we had to file the I485, i130, i864, g325a's (one for sponsor one for beneficiary), i693. you can also file the i131 and i765 for free, but i didn't file those.

well it depends on the field office, i *think* LA allows cell phones and San Bernardino prohibits them? either way, i brought nothing electronic to my interview at the LA office because i wanted to make *very* sure that i couldn't be turned away from the building for any reason.

I am a USC and my fiancé came here 4 weeks ago on a F-1 we will be wedding in Feb. We are desperate for answers on a few things. First off where do we start! When can we apply to change status, applying for ssn, work release and such. Thank you for your time looking forward to answers! God Bless!

so your fiance had no immigration intention 4 weeks ago, and suddenly decided to start the immigration progress now? that (very) short turnaround time is a huge red flag IMO.

So I got everything together, copies of everything USCIS sent me over this process. On the list for the interview it says I need a completed i-864 form which was already sent in and was received by them. Then its asking for W-2's and an employer letter verifying current rate of pay and weekly hours. Can I skip all that since they received the I-864?

well you don't need to redo your i864, but i brought a copy of the completed form (which i had saved on my computer) to the interview just in case. the IO i got didn't ask for the i864, but did ask to see my and my husband's paystubs which listed our then-current rates of pay. we also brought our most recently filed tax return as well as all supporting documentation for it (i.e. INT 1099's, W2's etc) and the IO took all of that. so no, i don't recommend skipping on the W2 and whatnot.

(Feel free to migrate this as necessary, not sure where it should be)

Hi! I'm the USC half of this relationship, still new to all this so bear with me and please tell me immediately if anything seems questionable. My girlfriend's OPT (non-STEM, master's) is up at the end of July, and we're trying to figure out what all the options are for her to stay in the country. She has an offer of H1B sponsorship from her current employer, so that's a possibility, though the idea of paying $3,000 (lawyer's fees, her employer's covering filing as they should) for probably a lottery ticket seems moderately insane to me. They seem to have plenty of experience with filing it, so my assumption is the only theoretical issue would be whether there are enough slots.

My understanding is that Option B could be AOS. We've been living together since last June - joint lease, joint utilities, joint finances since last July, etc. We met two years ago (her second semester on F1, so there was no immigration intent on entry), and have been seriously discussing engagement/future for 6+ months (even have September emails from jewelers to show it). There's no rings on either of our fingers yet, but everyone around us knows that's clearly the goal, it's just a question of the right timeline. We'd prefer to have a larger family-and-friends ceremony a little while from now when there's time for party planning logistics.

What would you all do? Is a trip to city hall even an option? If so, would we have anything to worry about if we're not **technically** engaged a few months before we'd file (even if anyone who'd get asked about it knows we're ring shopping)? Does USCIS care if you just have a teensy city hall thing and not a big family wedding? Does H1B or AOS stand a better chance at getting approved? If she were to file for H1B, not get it, but we got married prior to her OPT expiring, would AOS still be a possibility or would that raise flags? Is country of citizenship relevant, particularly if they don't currently have any sort of LGBT rights and therefore living there together would be difficult?

Thanks in advance for your answers, I know I asked a lot of questions. There's still a part of me in shock at what all this post-DOMA world entails, and I would love for her to be able to stay in this happy little home we've made.

yea we did a trip to the county clerk's office and didn't even have any family members there (we had circumstances that sort of made it that way which we explained to the IO), and were approved on the spot. so yes a trip to city hall is definitely an option. we also got married prior to my OPT expiring, that was not an issue during our interview.

i've seen posters talking about IO's asking about rings during the interview, and the IO definitely wanted to see our rings during the interview, so i recommend getting them prior to the interview... anyway good luck!

PLEASE HELP!

Our marriage interview is in the beginning of February, I will receive my EAD/AP in one week, Should I bring my EAD/AP to the marriage interview or it is not needed?(I'm scared that they keep it or something lol)

Should I bring my USCIS receipts or not needed?

We have a co-sponsor, we submitted photocopies of his W2'S taxes and employment letter proof, all of october 2014 . Do I have to bring his new taxes and a recent proof of work? (also I don't have originals of his taxes, is that ok?)

Not having the originals of the taxes is ok for sure because we didn't have ours and were approved we did bring the tax transcript that we requested from the IRS though.

for our interview, the IO didn't take my EAD/AP or USCIS receipts.

Thanks a lot for your responses guys. Here is the latest list we have. Are we going to have a chance to show other evidence during the interview if we don't submit much as sogreeny mentioned? sogreeny did you only include one proof and got the interview notice afterwards without RFE? I really appreciate your help.

Proof of a bona fide relationship

· A short summary of our story

· Rental Agreement

· Proof of old address

· Joint Bank Account

· Letters from family/friends

· Photos of us

· Random text messages

you definitely have a chance to show more evidence during the interview. my husband and i bought so much evidence to the interview, it looked like we were actually trying to set up camp in the USCIS office, like we were each carrying 1 box of evidence plus 1 giant binder. we looked kind of ridiculous.

if it helps you, here's a link that contains a link to my 130/485 cover letter, and you can see what evidence we included in our package.

Thank you CdnRN ! I think it's the first one, too. Because I'm applying it under a brand new category.

Does anybody have different opinion?

Thank you all in advance!

you know that you don't *have* to file the i765 if you're already on F1 OPT right? i never filed the i765 since i was already on F1 OPT and was half a year away from its expiry when i filed my i130/i485. anyhow, if you do want to file the i765, i'd check the first box just cos it's a new category like you said.

Hi community!

So as most of you know the majority of forms pertaining a readjustment of status application specifically when you're filing I-130 and I-485 currently, out of the main forms excluding the affidavits of support (I-130,I-485, I-765) ask for pictures of the applicant and petitioner. Now, by reading some of the member's cover letters for the diverse forms I've noticed that most of them attach the required pictures to 'a paper sheet in a plastic bag.'

Now, my question is why do they mean by a plastic bag? I mean the place where I took my photos gave me a little carton 'book' type of thing that has special compartments to hold the pics but naturally I cannot put that little book in the application first because it would look weird and second because the thing contains all the pics at the same time and as you know the pics will be scattered throughout the forms that ask for them.

So how did you guys go about including these pictures in the file? I was thinking to attach them with a paperclip to their respective forms, but I find this a tad dangerous for they might get lost, and about the plastic bag I really cannot image where could I get a baggie as small to decently contain the pictures and be able to be included in the file without looking goofy.

So what are your thoughts on this issue guys?

Thanks in advance.

i got the smallest ziploc i could find it target, stuck my photos in the tiny ziploc bag, and used a paper binder to attach it to the relevant forms.

Oh you got that one right man I haven't done that yet better get into it.

However just to give you a quick brief.

Being in the states for 2 years on a F-1 Students visa currently on its OPT phase the visa still good until 2017.

Married to a USA citizen college student like I was for 7 Months. Currently, filing for AOS I-130 at the same time with I-485 and related pertaining forms.

Wrapping up the whole package to send.

About the pictures like I said I'm thinking to paste them on white sheets and add informative subtitles when is in order just to be able to better put across our point better like somebody said above, the point being we're the real deal

yea we stuck all the pictures in a word doc, captioned each picture with date, time, specific location and full names of all people in the photo. nothing too fancy.

I read something similar as well, but I also heard that the 90 days unemployment rule is pretty strict.

I really dont know what to do since I might have a decent full-time job offer pretty soon.

yea i'm pretty sure my school's designated officer told me that my F1 OPT EAD was invalid the minute i accrue 90 days of unemployment on that status so i'm guessing you'll have to wait for your EAD from the I485 =/

can't you negotiate with your possible future employer though? i nearly got put on forced vacation when my EAD card wouldn't come in and my job was supposed to start, and my employer didn't seem very bothered at me (although they seemed kind of annoyed at USCIS).

Hi guys,

My I485 case got updated to " Case is ready to be scheduled for an Interview" couple days ago.

Just curious, how long does it normally take for the notice to arrive in the mail?

Also, will all the documents required for the interview be stated on the notice? If not, what documents are needed for the interview?

Thank you for the help,

how long your notice takes depends on your service center. for example if you live in los angeles where there is a giant backlog, you could wait like 4 months for the notice to come.

and yes, all the documents required for the interview will be stated on the notice.

While submitting application for i-130 and -I-485 and other forms based on marriage by green card.should all supported document submitted along with my form be in original copies to the uscis or photocopy.?

Thanks y'all

submit photocopies with the form, bring the originals to your interview.

6 months, Los Angeles.

Thanks all for your replies

the picture they take at the biometrics appt is the one they use for the GC, better make sure you look good for your appointment

As you can see in the timeline in my signature, I did my biometrics september 3rd, 21 days ago (almost 22).

Most people, even people that did biometrics after than me, received the update stating that they are on the "testing and interview" stage. And looking people that filed in July, June, May, etc, they all take in betweeen 7 and 14 days to receive that update.

I wonder if that's something to do with my attorney. I didn't send them a copy of my biometrics receipt yet, but I think that would be just for their records.

I know that my petition is still in normal processing times, but this no "testing and interview" update is nerve wrecking.

Is there something I can do? Is there a reason to be worried or not?

no reason to be worried, my case sat in T&I for 4 months before i was assigned an interview. prepare a scrapbook outlining your relationship or something while waiting, it helps pass the time and you'll thank yourself during the interview ^^