Scandi

Greencards are for living in the US. Your parents haven't lived in the US at all, not even once since becoming greencard holders in 2018, from what I understand. That's ~6 years of being greencard holders and getting away with not living in the US, they have been lucky. They should give up their greencards and then you can file for them again once they have actually decided they are going to live in the US. While greencard holders can generally stay out of the US for up to 1 year at a time, the border control agent can absolutely report them after being outside for only 6 months if it seems they are not actually living in the US (and clearly they don't and never did, they can see their entry/exits dates in the system and know these ppl don't live in the US and therefore shouldn't have greencards).

Personally I waited until my then USC fiance received the email from the embassy that described what to do next. That happened a little while after the status changed to "ready".

A-number and USCIS account umber are two very different things. All immigrants have an A-number. Only those who have previously filed a petition ONLINE have a USCIS account number. Many of us never filed a petition online because the petitions were paper filings only back then, so we don't have any such numbers. You will get one after you have submitted your online filing, so you just skip that question when you fill out your petition.

We have seen British people getting RFEs for not translating their ENGLISH marriage or birth certificates. Resend the certificate and write a very short explanation that it IS in English - If the English part is on a second page I would also make sure to make an extra copy of that particular page and add that as well, on top of the certified one. In my country we don't have birth certificates for instance, so I made very sure to put post-its on the "extract from the population register" where it said this is the ONLY "birth certificates" we have in Sweden. It's USCIS after all, they often need things explained to them in a very clear way.

No issue at all.

Why would you send a second one? Several people, including me, told you to wait. It still hasn't even been that long. You're making it so much harder than it needs to be. You can't handle US immigration like this, or you'll drive yourself mad. Every part of this journey is slooow.

It's only been 8 business days, give them at least two weeks to cash the check. If rejected, you just resend it after fixing whatever the issue is.

Payment amount incorrect is usually a generic thing all reject letters state along with the actual issue. I for instance had an issue printing the form and it ended up cut off at the bottom without me noticing, and my rejection letter also stated payment amount incorrect along with "outdated form" or similar wording because the form was messed up. Nothing wrong with my payment. I sent back the same stuff but with a new printed form and the i-765 was accepted just fine. If you can't find anything wrong with your filing, resend it and include printouts from USCIS' website and highlight the part where it says i-765 fee is waived when filed together with a i-485. Also include a copy of the i-485 receipt notice.

Personally, I brought my USC husband's passport and birth certificate. I also brought the interview letter, my greencard, driver license, all of my passports (two expired and one valid), a few more docs proving a bonafide marriage (3 year rule) and the entire tax return that we had filed just a couple of days prior (no transcript available yet). Before the interview started, the IO wanted to see my ID/DL, my greencard and two of my three passports (the valid/newest and the oldest with the K-1 visa in it). After the interview she scanned my tax return into their system. So in my case nothing was needed from my husband, and no extra evidence either (I had already uploaded a ton in my online account and been through ROC a year prior, so that probably helped). If you owe taxes from previous years, make sure to bring your payment plan. We didn't owe but I have seen others having issues for forgetting to bring it.

A fee increase is one thing, it's expected. But to go from a free EAD and AP to have to pay over $600 each, that's huge. A massive change.

Doesn't matter. USCIS likes to see the same address on the tax return, so you can send both your and your spouse's separately filed return transcripts instead of one jointly filed. That shows you reside at the same address.

They seem to have many different ways of saying that your card is in the works of being shipped out. In my case, the very first status was "card is being produced", a day or two later it changed to "case was approved" and yet a few days later it changed to "card was mailed to me". Maybe you just missed the first status about your card being produced, sometimes the status updates quickly right after each other within a minute even.

There were several parts I couldn't figure out, the IO just changed them as she saw fit at the time of the interview. No biggie.

Probably because they have no way of collecting the fee afterwards, if they do call you for a bio appointment.

No need to overthink anything, just scan your docs and upload them. If they have any questions they will ask you at the interview. Likely they won't care about your evidence at al since you already sent a lot with your ROC. Just upload a few docs, you can bring more to the interview if you want to.

So jealous, I would LOVE to have my own bedroom so I could get better sleep. 😭 Having a whole queen size bed to yourself is what dreams are made of.

Everyone I know that had travels scheduled after the interview, let the IO know at the time of the interview, so they wouldn't be called for an oath until they were back in the US again.

What do you mean by "during her stay here"? You make it sound like she has no plans on moving to the US, only staying briefly?

Legally she cannot work without having both SSN and a document allowing her to work (EAD in her case). My husband was self-employed and mostly working from home when I moved here and obviously I helped him with his work instead of just sitting around. Would've been super awkward staying in bed all day while he was working hard in the next room. 🤣

It's almost certain that you will have an interview for either the AOS or the ROC. Since you didn't have one for AOS you're very likely to have one for ROC instead. Only in rare cases both interviews are waived, so don't count on that happening. The interviews are super easy and nothing to worry about. I always loved the interviews when I went through the process, it was fun and very interesting. I would've easily had an interview at every step if I could choose.

Not sure I understood it correctly, but here goes.. So with your current joint bank account situation, your wife doesn't appear to be using it other than to transfer a fixed amount into it every month? IF that's the case, even if both of your names are on it (are they?), that's not considered a joint bank account in regards to what USCIS wants to see and won't help anything in regards to proving co-mingled finances. With joint checking bank accounts they want to see both of you actively using it, spending money via it etc. If her only relation to that account is putting a fixed amount of money into it every month, and not using it in any other way, that doesn't really prove anything. To USCIS, that could be her just paying off a personal loan she got from you, or her being your room mate and paying her part of the rent that way, or whatever. It doesn't help proving a bonafide marriage. Do you have savings accounts, money markets or other financial "savings" in both of your names? If you do, send proof of that.

You don't need to go to court if you want to take your spouse's last name, the marriage certificate is the name change document if you decide to take their name. You can for instance bring your marriage certificate to SSA and update your name today. For other types of name changes (ie first/middle name, not related to marriage), you need to either go through court or wait until you file the N-400. For USCIS however, since you already filed, it's a hit or miss trying to get them to update your info. Legally it's not an issue, you have the marriage certificate to prove your name change, but it's well-known making changes with USCIS (whether it's a name or an address) is usually a royal pain in the butt. So you greencard may or may not have your married name on it if you send USCIS a letter or bring it up at a potential interview. You haven't filled out your timeline so it's harder to know how likely you are to get an interview or not. I had a name issue with my AOS application and was lucky enough to get an interview, so I could fix the name issue right there and then.

It means adding as much evidence of a bonafide relationship as possible with the actual petition. Most of us hardly sent any evidence at all with the petition (other than proof of having met in person). We brought all the rest of our evidence to the visa interview at the consular stage, and we did fine because we interviewed in low-fraud countries. For high-fraud countries, many VJers will tell you to frontload the actual petition so the consular officer already has a lot of it on hand before the visa interview. Many times it appears that the CO has already made up his mind before the actual interview, and will refuse to look at any evidence you bring in person.

You should always expect to have your biometrics taken with every single petition you file. Some get their reused, but the normal is still to have new biometrics with every petition.

Yes we had to back then (2015), it's very possible things have changed since. Back then we had to fill out an additional form called G-325A, which I believe is not in use anymore. On that form it was asked for "Former husband/wife's" name, date of birth, date and place of marriage, date and place of divorce. It was difficult info to try to get a hold of tbh, so we just winged it. It was never an issue.