mollenne

Hi All,

I'm helping your replies will put my mind at ease: My husband attended his oath ceremony today in Atlanta. No family was allowed inside, so it was only him and the other new citizens. After they gave everyone certificates, one of the leaders ushered a large group of the new citizens into a hallway and told them to wait there. But, after that person left, the group of people went to the elevators, including my husband (just following the group). Now he is worried he might have missed something critical.

Would there have been anything additional he needed to complete while he was inside after getting the official naturalization certificate? Thank you.

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to circle back and let everyone know that we were able to renew his Israeli passport at the Atlanta Israeli consulate without any problems. They did not ask for his green card or any other documentation regarding his immigration status in the U.S. - for many of you, this what you indicated, but I wanted to come back and close the thread!

If anyone is interested, they did want us to get an apostile stamp on our marriage certificate because his status with the Israeli government was "single (not married)" when he had his soon-to-be-expired passport, and we needed to get the apostile stamp added to our marriage certificate since we were married in the U.S. Regardless of what nation you're from, you might encounter something similar if you renew your national passport stateside after getting married in the U.S. - maybe that's common knowledge to some, but I did not know that. It wasn't a big deal or cost to get one, but it was one extra step.

Thank you all for contributing your comments!

Hi all, can anyone offer their guidance/experience please?

My husband's Israeli passport expires in January 2019. We are currently in the waiting period for his ROC paperwork to be processed. We did receive the 18-month extension letter (we filed for ROC in March 2018).

We know it is much easier to renew/extend a valid passport rather than deal with it once it expires. Will this potentially mess anything up with his immigration status? Has anyone had issues with passport renewal during their waiting window for ROC? The plan is for him to do it at an Israeli embassy in the US. We are trying to figure out what it involves (nobody picks up the phone!).

Has anyone had experience with this? If so, please share. He is just terrified of the unknown.

Thank you.

On 7/22/2018 at 2:07 PM, missileman said:

" Five hundred years ago, Michel de Montaigne said: “My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened.” Now there’s a study that proves it. This study looked into how many of our imagined calamities never materialize. In this study, subjects were asked to write down their worries over an extended period of time and then identify which of their imagined misfortunes did not actually happen. Lo and behold, it turns out that 85 percent of what subjects worried about never happened, and with the 15 percent that did happen, 79 percent of subjects discovered either they could handle the difficulty better than expected, or the difficulty taught them a lesson worth learning. This means that 97 percent of what you worry over is not much more than a fearful mind punishing you with exaggerations and misperceptions. "

Thank you so much for posting this. I really needed to read this today.  @missileman

On 8/11/2018 at 11:35 AM, aleful said:

hi

 

a month before the letter expires

 

 

Do you mean a month before the letter's "Received Date" hits one year? There is no specific "Expiration date" on the letter, I am assuming "Received Date" on the letter is what this means? My husband and I have the same question as OP for his ROC situation.

We paid for certified translations of everything (including some traffic court documents). My husband is fluent in English but it gave us peace of mind to have that stamp of the certified translator. Our process was not held up by any documentation issue, and so while that cost us a few hundred dollars to translate everything, it gave us peace of mind and certainly didn't hurt our process.

I say, if you can do it, do it. It's good to keep these documents and translations when you get to the US. Just my opinion and experience!

Just now, Yuda1718 said:

Mine was was last Friday feb 10 they only cancelled the feb 9  

 yes so I am a us citizen now 

and Israeli same as u BTW lol 

Oh awesome! Congratulations!

OP -- What ended up happening? Did it get rescheduled? Did you have to persevere through the snow?

Yes, I agree with F8dog -- only you will know which is the best for you, all we can do is let you know of our individual experiences.  I cannot emphasize enough that you should look at both processes very closely, try and imagine how you would go about meeting the standards of those processes, make your own pros/cons list, and if possible try to ballpark an estimated cost.

In general, CR1 might be more useful to you, just because you take care of everything (green card, work permissions in the US, getting married, etc.) all up front.  Is there a reason why you would prefer the K1 over the CR1?  Like would you really prefer to get married within the US instead of your girlfriend's home country? Sometimes this is a big deciding factor for a couple's process.  These are the questions to ask yourself.

My husband and I decided to do the K1 because at the time the wait times were much shorter, and we just wanted to be together and could not get married in Israel.  I think it ended up costing a bit more just because of the adjustment of status process once we did get married and file for his adjustment in the US -- but we didn't care at that point because we were together.  We had enough income to support ourselves until he got his work permit.  If you think this could be a major stress (supporting you both under one income while your spouse waits for her work permit), then a CR1 would probably be more attractive to you.

When you make your decision, think of the entire process, and how that might look. Consider the worst possible scenarios, be realistic.  Try to imagine how life might be if you go either route.

Unless you are both Jewish, you cannot be legally married in Israel; you are correct in that they do not have civil marriages (my husband and I could not do this either since I am not Jewish but he is).  We would have had to get married in Cyrpus or any other country that recognizes civil marriages, then do a CR1.

We went the K1 visa route, and it went very well for us.  You will definitely need to meet again and have pictures and evidence for when you file for the K1... as well as be engaged of course.

It is helpful to have the passport stamp -- but if you recall, when you enter/exit Israel, they do give you a slip of paper that acts as a passport stamp.  My husband and I saved these each time I visited, as well as our physical boarding passes (definitely save the boarding passes, not just the confirmation of your ticket purchase -- a boarding pass is PROOF that you traveled to visit each other or together).  My husband and I also had pictures of us together with his parents, so if either of you also has family in Israel, definitely take pictures with all of you together. This is great evidence.

I am not sure how much more that would complicate things, but to second with Ben&Zian, you cannot petition through Israel if she currently does not have legal status there, Nepal would be the country instead.  I am not sure how complicated things will be since she has two previously denied B2 visas.

My husband was able to expedite his EAD application because he had a job offer letter.  Have you already had your biometrics appointment?  The next business day after my husband's biometrics appointment, we called USCIS and requested an expedite on the grounds that he had a pending job offer.  After we called, we went to our local representative's office and made an official request for them to follow up with the USCIS request.  This was approved within about 7-10 days, and he had his EAD card in his hands within 2 weeks after we made the initial request.

Wow -- I'm so sorry this was such a long wait for you, but you are right: patience is a key player in all of this.

I hope everything goes smoothly for your journey moving forward!

@Georgia16 - Best of luck! I am sure you will be fine. It just seems like it was an extra verification step. Definitely call the number they should have provided you when they first informed you about the verification; I am glad I stayed on their case and followed up consistently.

At least all of the tests are out of the way!

It's possible for the timelines for the consulates to fluctuate, depending on the volume or depending on the case itself. Just keep checking every day, I am sure you will see a status change soon.

At least they have responded to your email and it sounds like you have been approved. I completely understand, it can be annoying to wait. Even after my fiance and I saw the status change to "Issued" it still took several days (over a week) to get the visa in hand.

I recommend not making your travel arrangements until you have the visa in hand!

Hmm.. I'm not sure how much "klout" your brother would have since it seems like he is not the original petitioner, but you could always try to reach out to the congressperson anyway.

Try this link: http://www.house.gov/representatives/

In the upper right corner there is a field to input the zip code (presumably, your brother's zip code for the US address) in order to see which representative to reach out to.

In order to get in touch with a Congressperson, you'll need to find out who it is that represents your district where you live in the US (assuming you are the petitioner and you currently reside in the US?). Usually this can be done with a quick search, but this link might help: http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

Usually on the representative's website they have contact information and the services they can assist with. It is helpful to have copies of relevant information so they can take your information and make inquiries quickly, and also follow up with you.

I have had firsthand experience with this when we requested my husband's EAD to be expedited and they were really great, but it also helped that we had our information ready for them. You may even consider typing a letter and delivering it in person (we did just that and dropped it off in person with the administrator -- just another way they can keep your request organized and have your contact information).

From my experience physically being there, they will not let you in unless you have an appointment. Did they say in their email what the next steps are?

I have never been able to reach them via phone, only the immigrant visa inquiries email address (I assume this is how you are maintaining contact with them also?).

I wonder if the delay happened with your paperwork/case because of the holidays in Israel around that same time frame. My fiance had his interview almost exactly a year ago and when we emailed them questions in September/October they took extra business days in getting back to us.

Did they keep is passport when he left the interview? How were things left off? Did they request any other information from either him or you?

I honestly don't know to be honest. I would assume it'll take trump a while to get going. I'd say you won't see any significant change until July-August 2017. Personally.

A lot can happen within the first 90 days of a new presidency.

President Obama accomplished quite a bit, it's an important milestone and he might try to pass a lot more legislation than you might expect. Especially with a majority of Republicans in the other branches of power.

Hi --

My husband came to the US from Israel on a K1 visa. We put the 129F petition packet together ourselves, but we did hire a lawyer in Israel to handle a few specific questions that were unique to our case.

My husband had a traffic violation incident about 8 years ago in Israel and he did get his license suspended for about a year because of it, and did have some court documentation concerning this that we needed to provide to USCIS. Having a lawyer from Israel who specialized in US and UK immigration did help us with our questions regarding this. She also helped do some certified English translations of this paperwork, which was kind of expensive, but also worth it for peace of mind.

We did not have any RFEs, and he was able to successfully immigrate here on a K1 and also successfully completed AOS and currently has his conditional resident green card.

If he did not have this special circumstance concerning his record, then we would not have needed the lawyer. If your fiance has no prior incidents and no "out of the ordinary" circumstances, then yes, you can probably compile everything yourself and be fine.

However, if you have some special circumstances regarding your relationship, or any issues with background and the law, or other issues with drugs/alcohol/violence, then yes, I do recommend working with a lawyer to help guide you. Working with a lawyer in Israel who speaks and reads Hebrew and English and is familiar with both Israeli law and US immigration law was much more helpful than working with an American immigration lawyer. She was able to give us more Israel-specific information that allowed us to make more informed decisions.

If we had to do the process all over again, I would not have changed a thing.

Good luck on your journey!

If you have pictures from your wedding that you can include, why would you not include them? You might as well share a few, it can only help, right?

In our AOS interview, the officer asked to see pictures from the wedding if we have them to show, and she also asked us to describe the day. The picture she was most interested in an put in my husband's file was the picture with me, him, and my parents. She was checking to see if the wedding meant something to us. We had a very small wedding (with like 20 people including us) and I didn't wear a white dress, it was not traditional.

She could tell that being married meant something significant to both of us. This is what you should be making very obvious to them.

I recommend not going this route. You would need to provide bank statements over the course of at least a year showing consistent income -- it's not so much about what is in your savings, it's about your income. You need to show proof of employment, and a letter from your employer that includes the salary being earned for the job.

You also need to show prior tax documentation - either tax returns or a tax transcript at least for the past year (it's best if you have this information from the past 3 years).

Your best option for the situation you are in is to have a co-sponsor in the U.S.

Basically, you could just wait until you hear from the Consulate... but some people want to get ahead of the process and make the most use of their time between when the case is approved and sent to the Consulate and the time that they need to schedule their interview. In this time, you need to make sure you have all of the documents needed for your interview (some people like inquiring about packet 3 ahead of time so they can make sure they get everything in order). It may also give you a better idea of the timeline as to when you anticipate your interview so you can start to get your affairs in order if you're planning on moving shortly after approval (my fiance and I bought our tickets back to the US literally the day he got his passport back with the visa inside, and we left Israel 4 weeks later to go to the US).

From just calling the NVC and talking to their representatives, and speaking to an Israeli lawyer who specializes in US/Canada/UK immigration, it's best to be proactive and not wait until the last minute to get your stuff in order -- it seems like common sense to some, but it's not to others.

Having packet 3 helps with more country-specific documentation that they require you to bring to your interview (for example, in Israel, they require you to bring your Form 807 -- honorable military discharge certificate -- AND anything that is in Hebrew needs to have a full English translation to accompany it -- you don't want to wait to the last minute to obtain that!).

It is advisable that your fiance physically mail you a copy of the entire packet that they submitted, so that you have a complete version and can bring it, along with the accompanying documents mentioned in packet 3 to your interview. You will want to be very familiar with the details inside those papers and be able to answer questions about them in your interview, as well as correct the CO if they are missing documents or need more information.

In general, make use of the waiting periods during this process, because you do not want to experience delays and RFEs for something you could have prevented by paying attention to the details and following directions during THIS waiting period.

Happy to answer more questions, we went through the process with no RFEs and we did see an Israeli lawyer for some immigration advice and translations, but we put our petition and all other immigration papers together ourselves.

You will need that case number (in your case, doing a K-1 through Israel, it will start with "JRS") before you can make any appointments for your interview. You need to call the NVC to get this number (or your petitioner who is presumably in the US will need to call -- it's easier to reach because they are located on the east coast of the US.). They will want to know the receipt number that appears at the top of your NOA2 in order to locate that case number. The case number is assigned to your packet once it is sent from the US /NVC to Jerusalem.

You should also hear from the Jerusalem Consulate in some way once they receive your packet/case for further instruction. You can also email them and inquire using the email address I listed in my previous post. Once you have that case number, the JRS number, this is what you will use to track your case, schedule your appointment, and submit any other necessary documentation associated with your case.

They will instruct you what to do, but in my opinion, things happen faster when you are proactive and you reach out to them first, or repeatedly.

Packet three tells you what all you need to bring to your interview, so you can work on preparing these will enough time in advance. Please read the Jerusalem Consulate information links for this on Visa Journey: http://www.visajourney.com/consulates/index.php?ctry=Israel&cty=Jerusalem

They will not let you schedule an interview until the Jerusalem Consulate receives your packet. Does your petitioner have the hard copy of the NOA2 in hand? Do you have any indications that the approved petition made it to Jerusalem?

Usually it takes a few weeks for them to receive the packet from the US because it has to go through customs on the Israel side, and things could possibly be delayed slightly because it's the holiday season. I would call the NVC and try to get a case number if you have the NOA2 in hand. If they don't have a status update for you, wait a few days and keep calling. I had to wait and call, and wait and call.

Once you can access the DS-160 (once they are ready to schedule your appointment), fill it out and submit it. Be honest. Do not lie. If you have transgressions and they ask you what they might be, please list them. The CO will ask you about it in your interview, it does not necessary mean immediate denial.

Once you submit the DS-160 and have a case number, you should be able to use the site: https://ais.usvisa-info.com/ and schedule/pay for your interview appointment. Basically, you need the case number and submit the DS-160 first, this last website (https://ais.usvisa-info.com/) is to link your case, your DS-160, and your interview appointment altogether.

I hope this helps. Please continue to update your timeline, as it helps give others some context to your questions.