l.j./1999

I believe that if a child is under 18 years old, has a green card, and has at least one U.S. citizen parent, she can qualify for derivative U.S. citizenship. (This does not apply to stepchildren - only biological or adopted children.)

Look at the instructions for form N-600, the application for a Certificate of Citizenship, which is the form you would file to officially establish her citizenship, and see if it applies to you. Here is the link to the form: http://www.uscis.gov/n-600

Hope this helps!

This was an interesting read! I particularly found it informative to read their criteria for assigning a "fraud grade" of A - C and for scheduling interviews in the Removal of Conditions cases:

(from http://www.uscis.gov/propub/DocView/afmid/...ite=#0-0-0-608)

hi LJ! i was wondering if you can share with me how did you prepare the notarized letter from your parents about your housing situation. im thinking of doing the same thing ..my problem is, we are living w/ our parents in law & house is under their names. so probable i could ask them to sign an affidavit.. pls help!!!

mylntn,

We actually haven't gotten the notarized letter yet, but I was thinking of something along these lines:

The final version will probably have more detail, and if anybody reading this has put together a similar letter, we would certainly welcome any suggestions for improving it!

Thank you ALL for the feedback and suggestions!

rachel,

I can't believe you got an RFE after sending all that evidence! I definitely want to avoid an RFE. I will try to get at least 2 affidavits, although our closest friends here are not U.S. citizens (which I think is what USCIS prefers for affidavits), but in the end I can only provide what we have.

I hadn't thought to write a letter describing our marriage -- I can certainly put that together and put it toward the front of our application.

I don't think you can use the cellphone bills because the one you're on shows your Mom's name on it. You can send in other bills, even if they are addressed individually to you or your husband, as long as they are all sent to the same address...your home address.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing about my mom's cell phone bill, since it doesn't have my name (although from my mom's last name matching my maiden name, they could tell that we are related). I do have my own account on the cellphone company's website that gives me access to records for just my cellphone number, even though it 's part of a family plan. When I log in it shows my name and phone number in the corner. (The name is the one I entered into my online profile.) But the actual bill my mom gets in the mail doesn't have my name.

Anyway, we do have electricity bills in both names, cable bills in my name and phone/internet bills in hubby's name. All showing the same address. I agree those are better evidence and we'll definitely be including samples from throughout our marriage.

Thanks for the feedback!

Thanks for the reassuring comments-- it really does make me feel better. My husband calls me a worrywart -- meanwhile, he couldn't even tell you when his own greencard expires!

I think the main reason for my anxiety is that our apartment is owned by relatives and there is no lease/mortgage/deed in our names, so we have to resort to secondary evidence to show that we are actually living together. Our previous apartment was also rented from family. (We have been very lucky to have family that was able to help us out with living arrangements!) We don't have a car or any other joint property, don't have kids.

Here is a list of the evidence we should be able to provide, in addition to cell phone records:

- Notarized letter from my parents about our housing situation

- Copy of our state IDs showing same address

- Copies of Change of Address confirmations from the Post Office for both of us from when we moved last year

- Copy of bills in each of our names with same address (our electric bill is in both names, the other bills are in one name)

- Apartment insurance in both our names

- Tax returns/transcripts showing joint filing in 2006 and 2007

- Copies of joint bank account statements from throughout our marriage (maybe 5 statements per year?)

- Copies of credit cards showing the same account number as well as receipts showing purchases made by each of us on the same card

- Copies of enrollment forms for joint health insurance, first with my employer (when we first got married) then with hubby's employer (as of a few months ago)

- Confirmation that we are beneficiaries on each other's IRA retirement plans

- Designation of Beneficiary Forms that my husband filled out when he started his current job

- Photos of us with family and on vacations (combined with boarding passes from a couple of plane trips)

Well, hopefully that's a reasonable amount of evidence, if anyone has other suggestions, please post them

I think we will also ask a couple of friends for affidavits, although I really hate bothering them about it, but it probably would be a good idea since our application is weak in other areas.

We will be applying for Removal of Conditions on my husband's green card in about a month. We are kind of weak on evidence and are thinking that sending cell phone records showing frequent calls between us might be helpful. (Actually, a friend of a friend casually knows somebody at USCIS and asked him for general suggestions on what to submit as proof of marriage, and cell phone bills was one of the things he mentioned.)

My reason for concern is that my husband and I don't have a joint cellphone plan. I've been on a family plan with some of my relatives since 3-4 years ago and the bills are in my mom's name. Hubby got his own cellphone plan because his previous employer reimbursed him for the bill (his current employer doesn't, but he's stuck in a two-year contract).

I wonder if not having a joint plan would be seen as a "red flag" of some sort? Or would it be okay to just include a note that we kept separate plans since hubby was reimbursed for his own cellphone bills at work?

I am probably overanalyzing this and am inclined to think we should just include the cell phone records, since more evidence is generally better than less. This whole process is stressing me out to no end-- we were lucky to get through AOS without an interview, and this is the first time we've had to gather evidence of our marriage.

Any opinions and/or experiences would be greatly appreciated!

USCIS seems to have an issue with hyphens and other special characters. My husband has a hyphen in his name that USCIS always replaced with a space on the NOAs, EAD, and green card. Perhaps if you make a special request, they will correct the spelling. (We wanted to minimize our dealings with USCIS and decided not to contact them about the error.)

My husband and I have different religious backgrounds (he's Christian, I'm Jewish - although neither of us is strongly observant), and neither of us would be offended by any kind of well-meaning holiday greeting. If someone wishes me a Happy Anything, I'd smile and wish them the same back.

While I think it's silly to be offended by someone's choice of greeting, I also don't see a problem with people wanting to avoid offending others, especially living in a diverse city like New York where there's always a good chance the person you're greeting isn't Christian. I've found that most people, even if they're not offended at all by a sincere Merry Xmas (especially coming from someone they don't know well), do appreciate you showing interest in their culture and finding out what they actually celebrate.

I'm sure it won't hurt to sign yourself up, but I believe that you are supposed to be automatically registered when you submit your AOS application. My husband was 25 at the time he applied and never did anything separate to register, but we got some kind of card in the mail from Selective Services around the same time as his AOS approval confirming that he had been registered.

I believe the "Temporary Visitor" label is normal for anyone who is not a permanent resident. My husband had the same label on his first Non-Driver ID, and then shortly after getting his green card he went to the DMV and requested that they remove the TEMP VISITOR label. I don't think there's anything they can do till he has the green card in hand, but he should still be able to use the ID in the meantime.

I've taken dozens of short Greyhound bus trips over the years and think that it's a totally fine (and extremely affordable) means of transportation. I am from NYC where we have a big bus terminal and buses to nearby cities tend to be popular (perhaps because many New Yorkers don't own cars). Boston also has a nice bus terminal. The town where I went to college had a bus terminal near campus that was used by a lot of college students. But I bet that in many parts of the U.S. people are not as used to taking mass transit so you'd find more unpleasant bus stations and perhaps some creepy fellow passengers.

However, I wouldn't use Greyhound for a long bus ride (maybe 5-6 hours max). It would be too exhausting, especially with a child.

I think they are supposed to put the full name at the bottom in the machine-readable portion.. But in my husband's case they just put the middle initial and not the whole middle name at both the top and the bottom of his card.. When he went to the Social Security office to apply for a new card without restrictions, they said the name on the card has to match the greencard exactly.. So even though his first Social Security card had his full name just as it appears on his passport, the new unrestricted card has just a middle initial instead of the whole middle name. Kind of frustrating, but we're hoping it won't cause any major problems for us since he still has the passport if anyone asks for proof of middle name.

Another NYC couple here! I've lived here most of my life and love it (in spite of the hot summers and cold winters). My husband moved here from the Philippines about a year ago. We finally bought him enough winter clothes this month to last through this cold spell. My husband is from Manila so he's used to living in a very urban environment, I think it made his adjustment much easier.

Oh, and I think Staten Island is the most underappreciated borough As I recall, it was not that long ago (in the 80s maybe?) they were actually talking about "seceding" from NYC!

I have this problem too. Whenever I restart the computer I have to log in again. I have DSL so I don't think I have different IP numbers, but I'm not sure? I know that cookies are enabled because I stay logged in to other sites that I visit without problems. Oh well, good to know I'm not the only one experiencing this!

We live in NYC and paid only $25 to get the vaccination supplement for my husband back in February.

I don't know if that doctor has changed his price since then, but I do know he charges a lot more if you don't have vaccination records and he needs to perform some kind of test on you to find out which vaccines you need.

If anyone is interested in the info for the doctor we visited in Brooklyn, I posted it in this earlier thread: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6781

My husband and I just came back from Mexico yesterday. He's a Filipino citizen so I think the immigration rules are about the same as for Thai citizens - visa not needed if you're a Green Card holder, but needed in all other cases. We had no problems getting into Mexico or back with him using his Philippine passport + Green card. The whole process was very smooth and painless.

By the way, both of us got our passports stamped when we entered Mexico! Maybe they dont do this at all POEs, but at the Cancun airport they do

Your situation is not totally uncommon, my husband was also the one to immigrate from the Philippines. We went through the whole process last year and I don't think it's much different for a male applicant, in fact some of the process is probably easier for a guy (the CFO seminar, in particular). Good luck

Wow, I'm really surprised to read about this. At least here in New York I've never seen cold meds behind the counter, they're always on the shelf along with the other products. (Maybe it's a Walgreens policy? We don't have many Walgreens in my area so I don't know if they're more strict than other pharmacies)

I buy Sudafed and Nyquil several times a year and so far have never had to show an ID. The last time I had a cold was about two months ago, and I had no problem buying medicine at my local pharmacy.

However, I almost always carry my driver's license on me so it would not be a real problem to present an ID if they required it. But I don't get why they would prefer one ID over another! That's frustrating!

Don't worry, the EAD and AOS applications are processed separately. Getting your AOS transferred will have no effect on the EAD.

My husband got his EAD approved after his AOS was transferred to CSC back in May.

NMN = No Middle Name

Yup! I had to fill out some forms for my job (I'm a government employee) and was told to write NMN instead of leaving my middle name blank. You would think that whoever generates the greencard would know that abbreviation, but I guess not.

They omitted my husband's midde name on his greencard (except for the first initial), which is quite annoying since all other IDs have to have the same name as the greencard, but we didn't think it was worth replacing the card. Good luck with getting your problem resolved !

The way I understand it:

E-mail # 1 = Welcome Letter was mailed

E-mail # 2 = Greencard was ordered

E-mail # 3 = Greencard was mailed

I don't think there is a separate "approval notice" although I could be wrong. At any rate we didn't get one. I've always understood it as "approval notice" = greencard.

Congrats - you should be getting the card any day now!

My husband got his Td shot at a free clinic here in NYC because the panel physician in the Philippines told him he needed to get it when he came to the U.S. The information was indicated on the Vaccination Worksheet they gave him in St Luke's Medical Center in Manila.

Ironically the civil surgeon ended up looking at my husband's records and telling him that he hadn't needed the Td shot after all because he had one in 1998 and they are good for 10 years.

Congrats to jmk71171 and laraandjeff !

LaraandJeff, your interview notice sounds like a mix-up but I think it's a good idea to set up an Infopass just to be on the safe side. I seem to recall a couple of similar cases a while back but I don't remember the exact details, I believe the couples were told that the interview appointment was a mistake since they already had the greencard by then.

Our case took 79 days to get approved, which seems to be longer than average judging by other people's timelines. They don't seem to go in order and it's really a mystery to me why some cases get approved in a couple of weeks and others wait several months. Now that we're approved it's such a relief to be done with the process without having to go through a stressful interview.