skaratso

So about three weeks ago my wife’s removal of conditions was approved and she received her 10 year Green Card.
 
Now she is eligible to file for U.S. citizenship on the basis of the three year rule. She entered the United States with her K1 visa on September 30, 2017, we got married November 7, 2017, and since then she’s only been out of the country once for a 10 day trip (not counting the handful of other times we’ve been across the border into Canada for less than 24 hours).
 
The question is whether to file now, or wait to see what the Biden administration does about the more objectionable changes to the Civics Test. Specifically, questions where the answers exclude immigrants. For example, changing the correct answer for “Who do your state senators and representatives serve?” from “all the residents of the state” to “all the citizens of the state.”
 
I know the changes are minor in that regard, but, much as the Constitution makes clear that the Census is to count ALL the people residing in the country, a state’s Congressional leaders are supposed to serve ALL the residents of their state, citizens AND immigrants alike, and the idea that even the immigrants are not included in the answers is EXTREMELY repugnant to me as both the child of an immigrant who chose for 25 years to not get US citizenship and now the spouse of an immigrant as well.
 
So, what do others here think? File now or wait and see?

If we decide to wait it certainly wouldn’t be for very long, maybe another month or so. There’s no way my wife wouldn’t want to be able to have a say in the 2022 midterms.

So about three weeks ago my wife’s removal of conditions was approved and she received her 10 year Green Card.
 
Now she is eligible to file for U.S. citizenship on the basis of the three year rule. She entered the United States with her K1 visa on September 30, 2017, we got married November 7, 2017, and since then she’s only been out of the country once for a 10 day trip (not counting the handful of other times we’ve been across the border into Canada for less than 24 hours).
 
The question is whether to file now, or wait to see what the Biden administration does about the more objectionable changes to the Civics Test. Specifically, questions where the answers exclude immigrants. For example, changing the correct answer for “Who do your state senators and representatives serve?” from “all the residents of the state” to “all the citizens of the state.”
 
I know the changes are minor in that regard, but, much as the Constitution makes clear that the Census is to count ALL the people residing in the country, a state’s Congressional leaders are supposed to serve ALL the residents of their state, citizens AND immigrants alike, and the idea that even the immigrants are not included in the answers is EXTREMELY repugnant to me as both the child of an immigrant who chose for 25 years to not get US citizenship and now the spouse of an immigrant as well.
 
So, what do others here think? File now or wait and see?

So about three weeks ago my wife’s removal of conditions was approved and she received her 10 year Green Card.
 
Now she is eligible to file for U.S. citizenship on the basis of the three year rule. She entered the United States with her K1 visa on September 30, 2017, we got married November 7, 2017, and since then she’s only been out of the country once for a 10 day trip (not counting the handful of other times we’ve been across the border into Canada for less than 24 hours).
 
The question is whether to file now, or wait to see what the Biden administration does about the more objectionable changes to the Civics Test. Specifically, questions where the answers exclude immigrants. For example, changing the correct answer for “Who do your state senators and representatives serve?” from “all the residents of the state” to “all the citizens of the state.”
 
I know the changes are minor in that regard, but, much as the Constitution makes clear that the Census is to count ALL the people residing in the country, a state’s Congressional leaders are supposed to serve ALL the residents of their state, citizens AND immigrants alike, and the idea that even the immigrants are not included in the answers is EXTREMELY repugnant to me as both the child of an immigrant who chose for 25 years to not get US citizenship and now the spouse of an immigrant as well.
 
So, what do others here think? File now or wait and see?

So about three weeks ago my wife’s removal of conditions was approved and she received her 10 year Green Card.
 
Now she is eligible to file for U.S. citizenship on the basis of the three year rule. She entered the United States with her K1 visa on September 30, 2017, we got married November 7, 2017, and since then she’s only been out of the country once for a 10 day trip (not counting the handful of other times we’ve been across the border into Canada for less than 24 hours).
 
The question is whether to file now, or wait to see what the Biden administration does about the more objectionable changes to the Civics Test. Specifically, questions where the answers exclude immigrants. For example, changing the correct answer for “Who do your state senators and representatives serve?” from “all the residents of the state” to “all the citizens of the state.”
 
I know the changes are minor in that regard, but, much as the Constitution makes clear that the Census is to count ALL the people residing in the country, a state’s Congressional leaders are supposed to serve ALL the residents of their state, citizens AND immigrants alike, and the idea that even the immigrants are not included in the answers is EXTREMELY repugnant to me as both the child of an immigrant who chose for 25 years to not get US citizenship and now the spouse of an immigrant as well.
 
So, what do others here think? File now or wait and see?

If we decide to wait it certainly wouldn’t be for very long, maybe another month or so. There’s no way my wife wouldn’t want to be able to have a say in the 2022 midterms.

So my wife's receipt number also started with LIN and the status changed similarly to yours. 5/13/2020 fingerprints reused from previous biometrics and then yesterday (1/6/2020) new card has been ordered, with no other updates in between.
 
That happened a lot faster than we expected. Will update further once we get notice card is mailed or we receive it.

I stand corrected. Thank you.

When my father applied for his citizenship after over 30 years of being a Green Card holder I was allowed to serve as his interpreter for the interview and civics test. They had his entire file too and went over everything as if he were still going through the K1 process. At one point the officer showed me his original divorce decree and asked me if it was my father's birth certificate (if he had turned the page he would have seen the translated version), then hunted through the files looking for it. He couldn't find it. So I politely asked for his file, located the Greek government form stating that his original birth certificate was destroyed when the municipal building housing those records was burned down during World War II and that, to the best of their knowledge, he was indeed born "approximately" around the date my father used as his birthdate. The officer was like, "but where is his birth certificate?" I showed him the translated version and said, "it says right here that the original was destroyed in the war." "But they would have issued him a replacement." "This IS the replacement." "OK, whatever." The rest of the interview went fine and my father was approved.
 
He was polite, but he sure didn't seem too bright.

If you send statements from your bank you really should send every single statement. Also, you could probably get away with one or two bank accounts. No need to do all four. People have received RFEs for the missing months in the past. My wife and I sent all the statements from our bank account. Do the same with the credit card. You could probably get by with just one of the credit cards, no need to do all three.
 
For the tax returns, you can just send transcripts from the IRS. You can request those from the IRS website and they usually take about a week to be mailed to you. You don't have to send in the whole return. Each transcript is like two or three pages.
 
The rest of your list looks pretty good.
 
Also, continue to gather the evidence. Save all your water bills and insurance bills and other stuff and continue to do so up to the date of your interview (or you receive the 10 year card if they waive the interview), so that you can bring it with you to the interview in case they ask for it.
 
I'm attaching a picture of the packet we sent to show you how much paper everything was.
 

We have also been notified that my wife's case has been updated to show biometrics taken. They must have reused her fingerprints from when she adjusted status (she came here on a K-1 visa). And our service center is listed as the one in Nebraska. (case number starts with LIN).

Good luck to us! 🤞 

I just took ours to the post office today. My wife's conditional Green Card expires March 15, 2020. Checking the website today it still says to use the 12/2/19 edition of the form, so we should be good to go.

We used AirBnB as well. As my wife was from Alberta we made a 10 day trip out of it and did the medical examination and then the interview a week later. The place we stayed in was very affordable and not too far from where we needed to go (about a 15-20 minute drive to downtown Montreal). I had my own car as well (I drove 650 miles from Ohio). There's lots of sightseeing to do there so we had a very good time.
 
We stayed here.

We used AirBnB as well. As my wife was from Alberta we made a 10 day trip out of it and did the medical examination and then the interview a week later. The place we stayed in was very affordable and not too far from where we needed to go (about a 15-20 minute drive to downtown Montreal). I had my own car as well (I drove 650 miles from Ohio). There's lots of sightseeing to do there so we had a very good time.
 
We stayed here.

My wife is just going to mail the application to her mother for her to fill out the guarantor section and sign the photo and then she'll send it back to my wife. Then we'll drive up to Windsor (we live 2 hours from the border) and she'll apply in person at a local passport office.

Yes, we were invited back together. We were not interviewed separately. Most of the questions were directed towards the applicant (my wife). There were no personal questions that neither of us knew the answer to. I was barely asked any questions at all. As I said before, when my wife omitted my middle name, the officer prompted her by asking if I had a middle name.
 
The demeanor was not a casual conversation, but it wasn't a grilling either. She was friendly and polite, but also very direct. She had the paper file containing everything we sent them so far, including the K1 visa applications and the Green Card application (which echoed what I saw when I acted as interpreter for my father's N-400 application in 2013... they had his paper case file going back to 1972, when he arrived in the US). I made a comment to my wife during the interview that they saved the envelopes I used to mail my K1 application and that we used to mail her AOS application, and the officer smiled at me and said, "yeah, we keep those too."
 
But, it is clear that processes are slowly changing there as well. It is clear that they are computerizing things, but slowly. For instance, my wife's medical examination results were available to the officer on the computer, but the physical file had not been sent to the field office. At the end of the interview, when she handed us the paper stating she was recommending my wife's case be approved she was a little apologetic when she said, "I don't know if my supervisor is going to want to see the physical copy of the medical results or not. If they do, then it will take two weeks for them to be sent to us." The fact that the case status online changed to "Case has been approved" the very next day after the interview, and the fact that the actual Green Card arrived in the mail on 3/22/18, just a week later, mean that her supervisor did not request the paper copy.
 
I hope this helps.

I just posted a review of our experience on our timeline, but I will include it here as well.
 
We had our Green Card interview on 3/15/18. We arrived at the federal building (Our field office is the Cleveland, Ohio one) about 45 minutes early and parked at one of the numerous parking garages in the vicinity (The one we used was for the Galleria at Erieview, which is almost right across the street). The interview notice said to bring any original documents that we submitted copies of with the application and also any evidence of a bona fide marriage. So we brought some documentation of joint bank accounts, statements that my wife is on my health insurance and named as beneficiary of my retirement accounts, some pictures of the two of us together since we were married, and some mail we've received showing we live at the same address.

There was an airport-style security line we needed to pass through (have your ID ready to show the guards), and then we headed up to the 5th floor USCIS office. There were three cubicles, two of which were occupied with people checking in, and one which was unoccupied but with a tray on the desk. We were instructed to put the Interview Notice in the tray on that unoccupied desk and wait to be called on. There were several rows of chairs in front of a door and there were probably 20 or so people there when we arrived.

After about an hour we were called to one of the occupied cubicles and my wife was photographed and fingerprinted to confirm her identity, then we were directed to go back and sit in the waiting area. About 30 minutes later a women opened the door and invited us both back into her office.

She introduced herself and there was another officer present in the room who we were told would be observing us (presumably being trained). We were informed the interview was being recorded and then we were sworn in. The officer first asked to see my wife's passport and my driver's license. Then she went over my wife's AOS application, section by section, verifying all the information, including her name, date of birth, and our address. She asked if my wife knew my date of birth and my full name. When my wife just gave my first and last name, the officer asked, "And does he have a middle name?" which prompted my wife to give my middle name. She went through about 20 of the questions ("do you intend to engage in illegal activities, are you a terrorist, etc). She asked if my wife was working and she was told no. "Didn't you file for EAD?" Yes, but we haven't gotten the card yet. 

After going through the application she looked at my wife's original birth certificate and gave it back. She did not ask for mine (though I brought it like the notice said to). She asked us to tell her how we met and wanted to know the name of the website we met on. She wanted to know when we first met in person and wanted to know why there was such a long gap between when we met online and when we met in person. She asked who travelled where first when we first met. We told her that we have met in person several times prior to filing the K1 and had taken trips together). She asked when I went to meet her in person, what day we started dating and when I proposed to my wife. She was surprised my wife knew the exact dates of all of those.

She asked if my wife was on my insurance and where I worked. She asked if we were intermingling our finances. We told her we are in the process of buying a house together. She did not ask to see any of the evidence we brought.

She looked though her computer for some items ("They didn't send the originals of your medical exam here. I see you passed it but my supervisor might want to see the originals. If that's the case it will take us an additional 2 weeks to get it here.") She told my wife she was "recommending the application be approved" and told us that when her supervisor signed off on it we'd get the Green Card in about a month. Then she congratulated us and led us back to the waiting area and we left the building.

Today (the day after the interview) our case status online changed to "Your card is being produced and will be mailed to you" so obviously her supervisor approved it without needing to see the original medical exam.
 

My wife's Green Card arrived this past Thursday. We're done with this process for now... until two years from now when we will have to do Removal of Conditions. Now on to other things, like getting a new Social Security card in her married name and getting a driver's license and a car.

My wife's Green Card arrived this past Thursday. We're done with this process for now... until two years from now when we will have to do Removal of Conditions. Now on to other things, like getting a new Social Security card in her married name and getting a driver's license and a car.

My wife's Green Card arrived this past Thursday. We're done with this process for now... until two years from now when we will have to do Removal of Conditions. Now on to other things, like getting a new Social Security card in her married name and getting a driver's license and a car.

Just one data point here, but for our office, Cleveland, the site is quoting 4.5 to 12 months processing time for the I-485. My wife's case took 3 months, so just about right about the lower end of that range.

I'm back again.
 
My wife came to the United States on September 30, via Detroit. We married on November 7. Today we mailed the applications for AOS, EAD, and AP to the Chicago Lockbox facility. Wish us luck!

Facebook chats aren’t going to prove an in-person meeting.
 
For that you’ll have to provide things like copies of plane tickets or boarding passes, hotel receipts, pictures of the two of you together, etc.

We mailed the applications on 12/5/17, NOA1 was dated 12/14/17, and my wife just had her biometric appointment yesterday (1/8/18) in Detroit. The wait for the interview is going to depend on how much work each field office has.