CM&KV

Wait there are 24 hour flower shops in Russia??? Okay I think I'll be moving there then...

My husband has spoiled me when it came to opening doors for me. But I thought it was a russian thing since all his coworkers were doing that all the time with me when they were all over here for business trips. This was before him and I started dating.

**Moved from Adjustment of Status (Green Card) from K1 and K3 Family Based Visas to the RUB regional subform**
 

 
Lol, what about us lucky women who married Russian men? We're in the minority I know but we're also quite lucky to have men who still believe in chivalry towards ladies and buying flowers on all occasions...unfortunately no 24 hour flower shops here like there are in Russia, though. Such a pity.

As of December 31st 2018 you were married. You can do it as married and filing jointly or separately. I have done mine last 2 years as separately, even though my spouse has a SSN, but we don't want to include his foreign earned income yet. Keep in mind the interviewing officer will see these and it will raise a red flag why you filed as unmarried when you have proof of being married.    In the end you would have to amend 2018. 

YESSSSSSSSS! 😃 Got a call today from the embassy to pick up the passport with the visa. Thank you guys for the help🙏🏼

Was on hold for 30 minutes, and the lady said it's still in AP,  and had asked if my husband had returned his passport which I was able to confirm. She said something that the embassy is doing the AP and they might not be running at full because of the shutdown. (I had asked about the shut down) The embassy should have enough money.... there is a backlog for nearly 10 months to get a tourist visa.... plus they are super understaffed.

Was on hold for 30 minutes, and the lady said it's still in AP,  and had asked if my husband had returned his passport which I was able to confirm. She said something that the embassy is doing the AP and they might not be running at full because of the shutdown. (I had asked about the shut down) The embassy should have enough money.... there is a backlog for nearly 10 months to get a tourist visa.... plus they are super understaffed.

Chances they wont help since we are in secuirty checks and this is part of the embassy part of the petition.  But never know. When we were rescheduled they told me I would have to contact embassy to confrim the date since they rescheduled us 2 days after nvc scheduled us.  According to Ceac we been in AP at least 3 days before our interview date.
 
 

Its based off of the day you activate your green card aka when you enter the USA, not when interviewed or visa issued. There's been cases of peole having interview before 2 years and entering after 2 years and getting the 10 year greencard.

Its based off of the day you activate your green card aka when you enter the USA, not when interviewed or visa issued. There's been cases of peole having interview before 2 years and entering after 2 years and getting the 10 year greencard.

I was able to claim for an exemption on the 2017 taxes for him since he also had a SSN from his J1 visa a few years ago. I tried all of the online tools like HR Block and Turbo Tax to do all of this, I found out that HRBlock was the EASIEST to use for what I needed it to do. (He was here on a business trip and had medical insurance for those 5.5 months here, turbo tax was refusing to let me select the right options.  I'm trying to look at the HRBlock website right now to see how I did it. I selected Married but filing separately, 
 
"You can claim an exemption for your spouse only if your spouse had no gross income, isn't filing a US tax return, and wasn't the dependent of another person." When I did research on this exemption, and how I understood it, the gross income had to be from a US Source, his per diems are a non taxed item he gets for being able to buy food and gas etc on his trip. " https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/3537208-spouse-is-non-resident-alien I choosed option number 3
Also waiting till 2019 taxes to maybe hire someone to do our taxes for that year, and do the addmen the 2017 and 2018 taxes, or maybe see if we get any more back. Sadly the above option made it so I couldn't get the interest deduction on the student loans.
 
I will send you the link incase they remove the URL from this post. I know there is something in the tax guide about it, but I'm not 100% sure where it is.

Update, I'm a few weeks behind...... Holidays!
 
Still in AP since Nov 26th
Interviewed on Nov 29th, was told everything is good, asked for CV / resume, kept passport
Email submitted Nov 29th
They sent us an email for a physical copy of CV on Nov 30th.
Submitted Dec 3rd
They received CV on Dec 4th.
Dec 7th, 14th,18th, 19th, 20th case was touched.
Dec 20th Passport sent back to the Pony Express .
Dec 21st ready for Pick up.
Dec 23rd pick up passport with no visa.  Was given the following document with passport. 


Husband was freaking out thinking that we failed our interview.... I think he misread the 1st and last 2 sentences....... The Russian embassy is currently closed since Christmas or so till January 9th..... So that is like 2 weeks of holidays. 
I had to call him to calm him down, he was drunk and extremely depressed. He was hoping there would have been a visa so that he could surprise me for New Years. For Tax reasons we were going to wait till after the New Year so I could claim him on 2018 and addmend 2017 taxes.
 

Still in AP since Nov 26th
Interviewed on Nov 29th, was told everything is good, asked for CV / resume, kept passport
Email submitted Nov 29th
They sent us an email for a physical copy on Nov 30th.
Submitted Dec 3rd
They received Dec 4th.
Dec 7th case was touched
Dec 14th case was touched.
 
With all the stress at work and dealing with my apartment mate..... I wish we would get our results back now so we can do any planning.

I am not here to judge your relationship, but have you evaluated the possibility that he may just want a greencard? From the outside this looks like a textbook case of someone from a 2nd or 3rd world country out for a greencard. Not saying it is but perhaps you should spend some more time with him before making such a huge commitment.

Case has been touched,

Been in AP since Nov 26th
Interview Nov 29th Told everything looks fine
Requested doc (resume / CV) at interview via email: sent same day
Requested physical copies Nov 30th: sent Dec 3rd, they received Dec 4th.
Case last updated Dec 7th. still in AP.
 
I keep checking Ceac nearly every hour...sigh. This unknown wait time is depressing and we just started it ><

We went into AP 3 days before his interview. Unsure why though. Husband was questioning why they waited till after interview to start looking at his background, sadly I only have theories.  1 is maybe they are going thru this part since they want to approve (they kept his passport and gave him the paper about his rights in the USA)
 
2 is they do it regardless if they want to approve or deny to find people that is a national security risk.
 
 
But hey he will be able to spend one last holiday with his parents and son befire moving here. Postive right? I never been able to celabrate the holidays with him. Technically our 1st and only Christmas and new year's he was in the USA and I was grieving the lost of my father (passed away a week before christmas) which was hard and he didn't know what to do since our relationship was still considered new.  So yeah I dislike this time of the year.

A few hours ago husband dropped off his CV/ resume to the document drop off location, even thought we submitted via email per the paper they gave him at the time of his interview.
 
This is one reason why I took the day off, but I had personal time off to use up or it disappeared on jan 1st. =/ was hoping to have him before this month etc etc.

He's had about 6 USA visas issued to him in the past (About 4 to his ukraine passport, now expired and we don't want to renew it yet,  and 2 to his russian passport, yes we listed all passports), all sponsored by his work and the company that he was going to have his meetings at. 
He's had about 4 b1/b2 visas, 1 b1 and 1 J1 visa, after all their interviews they went into Administrative Processing for a month, and it would be issued. His last visa was issued in May 2017 after a month of AP, this is super common with his coworkers that have to get B1 visas.

This  is stupid... ceac.state.gov part for checking visa status is not working, and my husband is currently at his interview.  
@CJlove I hope you have a big enough bottle of wine to share, I have a bottle vodka from russia we can share!
 

My apartment mate wants my husband to find him russian girlfriend.. recently changed his mind seeing how long this wait is and how stressed out I have been these last few months. Moscow, Russia is currently 11 hours ahead of Seattle.... so one of us gets no sleep on the weekends. But I am working on chat logs since on tchecklistist we needed proof of relationship (Evidence of the relationship between the petitioner and visa applicant (such as photographs, letters, or emails)) Per mosow pdf on the gov's website.  I am trying to throw the kitchen sick at this process where ever I can. 

Husband's interview is this week, I just checked his case number on the site, and it started "Administrative Processing", yesterday it said ready...... I guess they are looking at his files before he gets there? Is this normal? this process has been driving me crazy. 


His original time was Nov 27th but they moved it to Nov 29th due to them being under staffed. 

I did everything as well. All i asked help was for him to get his civil documents from other countries (i found a lawyer that could help us since the usa sees where he was born and his 1st divorce was at is Ukraine but russia took over it and they claimed that area...... And most documents are sealed with russia and not Ukraine, aka big mess.) and Russia, transulations and help with chat logs...  I messed up our ds 260 where to send his grwen card too. So i wrote a letter to the officer and submitted my valid drivers license to show proof of my current address and asking them to fix my error.
 
Im a data entry specialist.... And i have to pay attention to detail... Ugh so embarrassed. Close to none of my work comes back with spelling or typo issues, but i sure spotted a lot with my coworkers. I'm currently being trained to take over quality control at work, since the lady that does it is retiring in a month. 

My apartment mate wants my husband to find him russian girlfriend.. recently changed his mind seeing how long this wait is and how stressed out I have been these last few months. Moscow, Russia is currently 11 hours ahead of Seattle.... so one of us gets no sleep on the weekends. But I am working on chat logs since on tchecklistist we needed proof of relationship (Evidence of the relationship between the petitioner and visa applicant (such as photographs, letters, or emails)) Per mosow pdf on the gov's website.  I am trying to throw the kitchen sick at this process where ever I can. 

Grats on the interview letter! I'm hoping my husband's interview will be around thanksgiving, hopefully before. We want to know our results, but he wont physcally move here till he has a job offer and a few other things are taken care of, assuming he gets approved. If we get denied, I'll be moving there within the year.

According to https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/
You are still within processing time with Nebraska. But if I were you I would be calling everyday. Did you get a RFE? And call recently? Btw I don't know when the time tables were updated last.

Congrats!!
And we just got our interview date , Octobet 25th♡