Tom and SooGyeong
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Posts posted by Tom and SooGyeong
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I am still of the opinion that the sudden wave of approvals was an anomaly that was caused in part by the temporary government shutdown. The petitions are supposed to be processed in the order that they are received, and there are still petitions that were filed back in June of 2017 still waiting. Perhaps a couple of bank box style storage boxes were pulled out of line for a data update to one or two petitions, and rather than put the boxes back in line, they put them on some adjudicator’s desk.
The historical data still points to mid to late summer for January 2018 filers.
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1 hour ago, mrandmrsBRS said:
What app are you guys talking about?
- mrandmrsBRS and hobbitspouse
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Our case has never been transferred. It went directly to CSC and remained there.
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9 minutes ago, divemaster19 said:
How long does it take to get your card in the mail after approval ?
About 10 days +/-
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16 minutes ago, Simonbln said:
All of you who got approve - congrats.. just one questions did you receive notifications via email or text? I'd rather rely on that and stop checking my case
I have these two Apps on my phone, (have had them since I-129f days . . . and they are both synced with my USCIS Case, and will send me text messages when action takes place.
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- Popular Post
Not to be a downer, but statistical data forecasts that most January 2018 filers will be waiting until June to be approved.
I went back 2 years and harvested from VJ all of the petitions that were approved. Then I separated them by month, and audited the posted dates. These were well over 1000 individual petitions, over a 2 year period. The results spoke of tremendous inefficiencies in the adjudication process. In any given month, the ‘average’ wait time by month was consistently around 500 days.
Usually, less that 20% of those petitions were approved before the 30-day window centered on that average wait time. The percentage of petitions that were approved in that 30-day window (day 485-515) varied from 50% to 80%, with the remaining petitions being approved well past the 500-day mark. The spread each month between the shortest wait and the longest wait (again in any given month) varied wildly from as little as 200 days to a whopping 500 day gap... and that is in a single month’s group of files petitions.
The 500-day average calculates to 16.5 months, and currently the posted wait time for I-751 petitions is 15.5 - 18 months.
i believe that to be an accurate forecast.
The few petition approvals from late 2017 that we are noticing are representative of that historically consistent monthly 20% that get lucky and are approved a bit ahead of the average.
Because of the slight acceleration of the process in recent weeks (from the additional adjudicators that have been added to the workforce) I think that 15.5 - 16.5 months wait is more likely what we will experience. The mean of that spread is 16 months, so my best guesstimate is to look for the majority of we January 2018 filers to be approved during the month of May. Just 4 months more, and we should get there.
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3 minutes ago, jcspeed said:
For I551 stamp? We didn't have to pay anything, I had to request an appointment by calling USCIS and waited for them to call me back and schedule an appointment. They said it would take about 48-72 hours for them to call back but we were fortunate enough to receive a call and make the appointment for that same day! If you search for your local office on USCIS website and it says that they do not take InfoPass appointments, you have to call the 800 number and request the appointment. You need to bring expired green card, extension letter, and foreign passport.
Additionally, the Foreign Passport cannot be expired.
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41 minutes ago, jcspeed said:
Thank you! I was able to make an appointment today, still waiting here!
Knowledge shared, is knowledge squared. Happy to hear that you were able to make an appointment so quickly!
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29 minutes ago, jcspeed said:
Hello all,
I have not been keeping track in this forum, so I am posting in December 2017 and January 2018 filers for I-751. Anyways, we filed our I-751 in either end of December 2017 or January 2018, and received a letter extending his conditional resident status for one year (until 1/30/19). Did anyone else get only a one year extension? I have been seeing a majority of people have gotten an 18month extension. His application is being processed through Vermont Service Center. He already did biometrics but we haven't heard anything else yet. Did anyone else get an additional extension after the one year extension? I submitted an inquiry online through the USCIS website, is there anything else we can do to extend his status? His job is already aware his status will expire and said they will have to terminate him if he doesn't get any new documentation. Would it be worth it to make an appointment at a field office?
Most of the January 2018 I-751 filers have received both a 12-month extension letter and a (second) 18-month extension letter.
Yes An Appointment At Your Local Office is Necessary AND WORTH IT.
SO, when your 12-month extension letter has only 30 days or less remaining, you should go inline here:
https://my.uscis.gov/en/appointment/us
and make an INFOPASS appointment. They only schedule out to two weeks forward, so it may take several tries. Once you make the appointment, your spouse should take his UNEXPIRED foreign passport, and all appropriate paperwork, including the expired greencard and soon-to-expire 12-month extension letter, and your local office will place an I-551 stamp in in his passport. This is the same as an extension letter. I-551stamps are sometimes for 6-months, sometimes 12-months, depending on the Local Office.
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On 1/6/2019 at 11:11 AM, mrandmrsBRS said:
Do I really need my passport once the 18 month letter expires? My paSport is expired and it would cost me a little over $200 to get a new one and I don’t have that kind of money right now 😪
If I may offer a word of caution:
When your 18-month extension letter date expires, the requirement to remain in country while your petition is processing is, you must make an infopass appointment to your local USCIS office and get an I-551 stamp in your passport. They WILL NOT stamp an expired passport. You must therefore have renewed your home country passport prior to that. If money is not currently available, you may need to borrow from family and friends, as it is a Requirement, should your Extension letter expire before your conditions are lifted.
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14 minutes ago, zilchfox said:
Oh! We already have two of those, this is good to note! I appreciate the response.
Certainly. If you already have two of those, then you are better prepared than you thought. Just be sure to include that evidence in your petition packet.
I also agree with your earlier statement about the size of some of the petitions mentioned in this forum... Way Too Large.
USCIS needs quality verifiable evidence. If you submit that, then rest easy. Quality proof is far stronger than quantity proof.
Also, you should not fear traveling out of the country. My wife and I have traveled to South Korea together twice with her expired GC and extension letters, (both 12-month and 18-month), and she made a month-long solo trip and back. Border control simply asked to see her GC and and extension letter, and once she presented them, she was waived through without question.
- zilchfox and JulianaGigi
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3 hours ago, zilchfox said:
I won't be able to submit for a few more weeks as that begins the 90 days for me, but gosh, I've been seeing people send in massive parcels of evidence for I-751. I wish I wasn't so afraid of cameras, the photos of us together are few and far in-between, lol, but we're always together – I'm even meeting him for lunch at work today. I think a massive parcel of like 300+ pages is kind of excessive, though...no? I know when I sent in my AOS, it was just a small packet with like 8-10 photographs together, some other evidence, and never had an RFE and everything was fine.
With that said, I guess I got a few concerns:
- My name isn't on the house. At all. The house existed under his and his parents names prior to me even moving here two years ago, and it's stayed like that since then. The moment I was allowed and able to work, I started paying rent to help out with mortgage payments, however under no real contract or documents signed for such. It's been the same address all the way back to the original K1 filing.
- We DO have a joint savings account, but we have separate checkings accounts. We're both with the same bank
- I financed my own car, however he should be on my insurance as a secondary driver – likewise I believe I am also a secondary driver for his car as well as his parents vehicles.
- I have a plethora of credit cards, however he is only an authorized user on one of them, and didn't want to be authorized on the others because he didn't want them to hit his credit (the first time I added him as an authorized person, his credit score dipped). We both have excellent credit.
- I started a business for art and design, and while we plan on working together in the future on it, I am the sole owner of it. The business is registered to the same house address as the original K1 filing.
- Him, myself, and his parents are all on the same phone plan with AT&T since the very beginning. His father owns the AT&T account, however we are both authorized users of it.
- I am paying for both of our iPads and iPhone financing through Citizens One Bank, however his name isn't officially on it at all, just me for all four devices.
- Sadly, we never left the country for any sort of travel to go see my folks back home in Canada, so no evidence of any of that happening. This is all in part due to politics and tightening of border security, and a number of my friends from Canada have already been barred from entering the U.S. for admitting to smoking pot once in their life. While we've never touched the stuff, I'd rather not risk international travel until I am a citizen.
- We filed taxes jointly for both 2016 and 2017, and obviously plan to for 2018, too. In addition, last year I had to sign up for a FAFSA account to sign off as his spouse for him to renew his student loan payments.
I personally think we're gonna be okay, but it's just a weird hodgepodge of stuff that's definitely joint, and others that aren't. We're not trying to live within the means that we believe USCIS would be happy, but rather live the way we want to as a happy married couple like anyone else would.
If you are concerned that your hodgepodge of evidence and the perception that there are some ties, but some definitely noticeable points of separation in these layers of evidence, I would recommend three inexpensive additional pieces of evidence that may alleviate any worries, while simultaneously adding strength to your petition:
First, if you do not already have one, draw up a will that names the surviving spouse as sole beneficiary in the event of a life ending event.
Second, grant each other Powers of Attorney. This will allow access and control of those currently disconnected assets/liabilities, such as the homes and credit accounts.
Third, purchase two basic Term Life Insurance policies, designating each other as the sole beneficiary in the event of a life ending event.
Those three things will bridge any gaps in your evidence, and demonstrate criss-crossing financial responsibilities for both assets and liabilities.
(just my ($0.02)
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South Korea does not allow its citizens to immigrate to another country and obtain Dual Citizenship. If my wife filed N400 and processed through that, she would forfeit her Korean Citizenship. However, after we have received her 'permanent GC' (10-year renewable), we may choose at some future time to move to South Korea. Then I will be the one who must apply for and carry the Resident Alien Card. That process takes only 2 or 3 weeks in Korea. After living there for 1 year with a Resident Alien Card, I can apply for Korean Citizenship, and obtain a Dual Citizenship status, complete with a Korean Passport/ But, I would need to demonstrate self-support, have a home with a verifiable address, and a bank account with a minimum of $30K on deposit, and pass the language exam, equivalent to TOPIC level 4, which is reputed to be quite difficult, and requires at least 3 years of intense study.
So, to prepare for any future possibilities, I am studying now. Who knows what the future may hold, so we are choosing the path with the most available options. If my wife became a US Citizen, moving to South Korea at some future date becomes much, much harder.
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My Guesstimate is still Late June to Early August 2019 for most of us
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13 minutes ago, rfejzullari said:
Thanks for the quick answer
She does carry her expired Green Card and both the letter just in case she gets pulled over (even though we live in Ohio we have immigration checkpoints from time to time). I just wasn't sure what was needed to cross into Canada and back to the US. What about a copy of our marriage certificate?Marriage certificate would not be needed, since I-551 Green Cards do not distinguish how they were obtained. The only 'clue' is that the issue date and the expiration date displayed represent a 2-year window of time, thereby identifying it as a Conditional Green Card, which are issued for Resident Aliens who obtained their Green Card through marriage. Your Marriage Certificate had to be presented and verified in order to receive the Green Card in the first place, and hence is not needed to travel. Your wife will just need her Expired Green Card and the 18-month extension letter (original, issued on USCIS light green card stock paper).
My wife traveled to South Korea this past June with just those two documents, and we are both traveling to South Korea this month as well. For Added Backup, I took a photo of both sides of her Green Card, and the Extension Letter, and emailed them to myself. In an emergency, should her documents become lost or stolen, I can pull up the email on my phone and show that she does indeed exist legally in the USCIS database.
Enjoy your travels!
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19 minutes ago, rfejzullari said:
So my wife and I are traveling to Canada at the beginning of December. Does she need to carry her Green Card, both extension letter (we have one for 12 months and one for 18 months), and our marriage certificate in order to pass though to Canada and back to the United States?
By Law, as a Resident Alien, your wife should Always carry her Green Card with her, even day to day here in the States. Because the Green Card is past its expiration date, she should also have (a copy) of the 18-month extension letter with her (at all times) as well. The 12-month extension letter has been superseded, and so it is not needed.
For this trip to Canada, ABSOLUTELY, Carry Both the Green Card and the (Original) 18-month extension letter.
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13 minutes ago, mrandmrsBRS said:
You seriously deserve a medal for what you’re doing for this group!
Even if we had to 2-3 months longer at least we wouldn’t have to get another extension, correct?
Correct.The current 18-month extension is added to your temporary Green Card exp. date. Being January filers, most of our GC exp. dates were for April 2018, making the 18-month extension out to October 2019
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- Popular Post
Fellow January 2018 Filers,
This cold and snowy weekend, I have gathered as much data as possible from USCIS and Visa Journey Filer’s reported information. I have filtered that data through numerous counting formulas and used a bit of Kentucky-windage to try to forecast when we may be completing our Adjudication Waiting Period. Here are my findings.
Over a 9-month spread of filers from July 2016 to March 2017, the average wait time was 520 days.
On average, 40% of the filers in any given month were adjudicated within a 30-day window of the average, (meaning +/- 2 weeks of the 520 day monthly average).
USCIS is reporting to receive on average approximately 14,700 I-751 petitions per month.
USCIS is also reporting to process on average only 9,250 per month, and rolling some 5,450 forward (deficit) each month.
USCIS is reporting that currently, there are 259,200 I-751 petitions waiting to be processed.
With their current averages of 14,700 received per month, we can calculate that approximately 154,000 of those petitions are behind us in line. That leaves 105,000 in front of us, which at the current rate of 9,250 per month would be about 11 month’s wait, if all things were equal.
However, as we all know, USCIS is anything but equal, and there are anomalies and extenuating situations in every month.
I believe the 520-day average wait time, and the 40% of monthly filers falling within a +/- 2-week window of that number to be fairly consistent. That would place our January 2018 Filers window of some consistent case file action at: (by week)
January 2, 2018 ~ June 6, 2019
January 9, 2018 ~ June 13, 2019
January 16, 2018 ~ June 20, 2019
January 23, 2018 ~ June 27, 2019
January 30, 2018 ~ July 5, 2019
Again, these are approximations, and represent the middle 40% of January filers, based on past statistics, with some coming sooner and some coming later.
VJ members who fail to report their data throw a huge wrench into the calculations process. For example, there were a total of 113 January 2017 filers on VJ, (one year before us) but only 66% (75) have reported being approved. They filed 22 months ago, so some of the 38 who do not show to have been approved may have just not bothered to report it on VJ.
Those 75 who have reported being approved, range in wait time from as fast as 182 days to as slow as 659 days.
That is a 477-day spread, (15 ½ months) which is also reflected in the monthly historical data... (some months had an even wider spread).
For the January 2017 filers on VJ , (one year before us) there were no filers who fell within the 30-day +/- 2-week window around the ‘average’ wait of 441 days for that month. 43% were faster with an average of 339 day wait, while 57% had a longer wait, averaging 507 days. All of this was before in the beginning stage of the big slow-down in processing.
Some in our little group seemed hopeful that we may begin seeing a large portion of our January 2018 group adjudicated in March or April of 2019. While a few may be, the historical numbers and reality may indeed have most us waiting 2 or 3 months longer than that hoped for early spring dates.
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12 minutes ago, TabeaK said:
Wow, I can't believe it has been 10 months already...what is everyone's guess when we will hear something? At the beginning of the process I was hoping for Feb 2019 - now I am thinking more like July 2019 or later...
I still believe in my prediction (posted earlier) that the majority of January 2018 filers will have their decisions around:
June 2019 for VSC filers
July 2019 for CSC filers
I haven't rechecked those numbers recently, so I'll try to filter back through the relative data points again this weekend and see if I need to tweak my prognostication.
- shanneykar, NikV and JulianaGigi
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13 hours ago, Evetorres28 said:
Good evening, I'm about to send my package to remove conditions, could someone help me with a cover letter, to see if something is needed, I read recommendations. Thank you 😉
The best suggestion I can offer, having read many examples online, is to include in your cover letter a complete list of the contents of your I-751 Petition. An Index. I would recommend using an Outline style list, which matches the order in which you have gathered your Petition Evidence.
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My estimation of when the majority of January 2018 filers could expect some action and decisions on their petitions is still:
June 2019 for VSC filers, and
Late July 2019 for CSC filers
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On 10/17/2018 at 4:37 PM, D.Ba said:
I wouldn't count on no one asking. Anyway, as an LPR you are supposed to have your greencard on you (and therefore it makes sense to carry the extension letter with the expired card).
Even if you just drive inside one state you might be asked by Border Patrol to show your papers - think Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, etc. - because they have checkpoints inland. I guess the same in California.
That is a very correct statement. Please review the USCIS Directive Here:
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38 minutes ago, CG&LGG said:
Hi all!
Just wondering if anyone has seen any update about that proposed "public charge" immigration change that was all over the news a few months ago? The one were things like earned income tax credit, and Obamacare subsidies could cause issues with residency and naturalization. My husband and I had decided at that time to hold off on submitting for naturalization because we got earned income tax credit during our first year of marriage (but never again), and no subsidies on ACA because we had employer paid insurance.
The news has been silent on it and there hasn't been any updates.January 20 our window opens up to apply for naturalization. And now we're wondering should we go ahead and apply because it seems like nothing has been done with that proposal.
Any thoughts? Thank you! And I hope you are all doing wonderful and this process goes smoothly for us all! ❤️
In answer to your question, I do not think that you have any worries. Please review what USCIS has posted on this question, contained in this link.
https://www.uscis.gov/news/fact-sheets/public-charge-fact-sheet
U.S Citizen lives outside U.S for 9 years
in Bringing Family Members of US Citizens to America
Posted
to the best of my knowledge, (outside of committing a felony) there are Two things that will cause the Passport of a US citizen to be blocked.
One is failure to pay court ordered child support, and the other is failure to file taxes.
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/when-us-citizens-living-abroad-owe-us-tax.html