antoineD

got approval texts and emails this morning - but no physical letter yet. yay!

Hi everyone 
 
just a quick recap about our case.
same sex couple here our Uscis office is Baltimore Maryland.
so we applied in February but there was a mistake with the papers so it was returned and was received again on end of February .
fingerprinting was a month after then we waited till they assigned our interview on November 16th, the interview went well, all usual questions about how we met and family members names and addresses, nothing out of the ordinary.
the IO told us that we have a strong case and she will try to finish it by same day.
but we didn’t hear from them for 2 whole months so I raised a service request on January 15th and the day after I got the notification that our case was approved ( I don’t think my SR had anything to do with that) and my husband received his actually green card 2 days ago.
 
hopefully my time line can help someone on here and thank you for all the information you’re sharing.
 
best,

Approved on the spot!! What a relief 

Hello fellas,
 
A long time since my last post so finally I'll give an update too.
 
First of all my card was in the Mail the Monday after Thanksgiving. No update online, I checked the USCIS online account there was no Info of Card being produced. So don't worry if nothing happens online maybe you'll just have the card in the mail. USCIS online status updated I January to card was mailed.
 
Second it's been now a year living here and it was a very fast one. We had our court wedding and moved in our new home, I got my job and a car, we had our wedding party and my family came over and then now we have a baby expecting in march this year. So many changes, so many tough days, stressful days and a lot of amazing days. 
 
I hope you all are doing great too and hopefully you will get your cards soon. If you're having a glass in your hand while reading this... cheers to many more great years and lots of love..
 
 
Sascha

Congratulations brother.Hopefully I get mine soon too

Got my interview notice today for Jan 23 in SF. 
 
WOOT!

I would STRONGLY suggest not to apply for citizenship based on marrriage when you not together anymore, this can open a can of worns as you must make a statement to USICS about what happen and let them know you split up. Don't even think of faking it. Why can't you just divorce if the marriage is over, and file under 5 year rule? Why to risk? 

I think getting your own credit card is required for building credit. Joining your spouse's will certainly help in demonstrating to USCIS that you share finances, but it's still his/her line of credit, not yours, that's being built up.
 
Please note that if you're married, even if you're using different credit cards or have different loans, state laws may still hold you liable for your  spouse's debts (some, not all - feel free to Google it) - but getting a separate card limits, not removes that risk.

It's such a big part of people's life here in the US... it's pretty scary actually. As umabanana stated it's for things, that you might first even think are not that important like getting a loan (until you all of a sudden need one). However if you are trying to move into a new place, a lot of landlords want to run a credit check on you. If you don't have good credit, they won't even consider your application. Where I live in SoCal I've even seen apartment listings that specifically stated that they you shouldn't even bother about applying for this plac f you have a score that is lower than 750. 
I have two friends that have a terrible credit score that got ruined through other people (ex husband or fraud). They've explained to me how limited they feel and what effects it has on their lives. My friend wants to get a student loan bc she decided she wants to do additional classes... she will have super high interest rates bc of her bad credit. 
 
I first refused to get a credit card too bc where I'm from you really don't use them. That was until my husband explained how crucial it can be in the future to have a good credit score here in the US. 
Even if you don't plan on using it. Just get a credit card and put it somewhere safe. Make one charge a month automatically taken from your card (could be something like Netflix fees, auto insurance, Spotify fees), pay if off each month on time and you'll have an extremely good credit score after a year that you can use when you actually need it. It's not going to hurt if you have one, you'll never know when your good credit score comes in handy.

For everything basically.
getting a loan, buying a car, buying a house, renting an apartment, opening a bank account, getting a new credit card. 

just received my AP acceptance letter after my application was received on Sep 15. I know I should have applied together with all the other forms, but I'm glad I finally got it.
 
No word yet on AOS itself.

Do you mean you want to live in Canada? If you want to live in Canada you don't need a green card for the US. What it is more, you cannot get a green card if you are going to be living in Canada. 

Let's loop this back around to constructive options available to people if their case is outside of the normal processing times posted on USCIS' website. There have been suggestions to:
Talk to a Tier 2 representative File a service request that their case is outside normal processing times Make an Infopass appointment Contact Congresspeople and Senators, and get them to place a service request on your behalf (which USCIS has to respond to) Is the ombudsman an option, or is that for cases well outside the normal processing time? As has been pointed out, we don't always get the information we want from these actions, and they have varying (random?) levels of effectiveness. Are there any other useful actions people can take?

Just wanted to let you guys know that we had our AOS interview yesterday at the San Fernando Valley office here in Los Angeles CA.  We arrived 20 min. early to our appt. My wife and daughter were asked for their Employment authorization card to match the interview appointment notice and then we were given a number to be called for the interview.  We were called in by a woman immigration officer about 15 min later.  She did ask my wife if she understood English.  If not, she would see if there is an officer there that could translate Vietnamese, or see if there's anyone in the waiting room that could translate.  Otherwise, we'd need to reschedule.  My wife said that she understood as long as she was speaking slowly.
After sitting down in her office, she took pictures of my wife and our stepdaughter with her webcam.  She asked for our ids..driver licenses.  She then asked if we had originals of the birth certificates, passport, marriage certificate, divorce decrees and of my naturalization certificate.  ( I am a US Naturalized citizen).  I totally forgot about bringing my naturalization certificate and didn't think about bringing it with me since I'm the US citizen and brought my US passport with me.  She asked why didn't I bring it?  I just answered that I totally forgot about it.  She didn't say anything at that point.  I thought for sure she was going to reschedule the interview for missing that.  Anyways, she didn't and went on and inspected the original documents.  She basically compared the originals to the copies I had submitted with the AOS packet.  It was all in front of her and she would mark in red little notes to the copies in the packet.  She was curious as to why the date of my first divorce was different from the original I had.  I told her I wasn't sure.  It was still in the same month, but different date. She asked if she could keep the original and I said sure..keep whatever you want (didn't want to make thing difficult as it was).  
She also asked for the social security numbers of my wife and step-daughter and wrote them down on the application.  
Then she started asking questions to my wife about how she met me, how many times did I visit her, who the father of the child is and where he lived.  She then pointed to me and asked who I was and my birthdate.  Asked her if she's ever been to the US before.  While asking the questions, she was writing our answers on a piece of paper.  She then went over the packet and started asking her questions about the criminal section of the application such as had she ever been arrested, was she ever part of the Communist party etc...  On a few questions, my wife didn't quite understand so I had to tell her in English the meaning of it.  Like she asked if she was ever arrested...she didn't understand the word arrested, so I asked her in English, "Have you ever gone to jail?", and she said no.  The immigration officer was sort of smiling.  She did ask her one more time if she needed a translator and my wife said maybe.  I told her are you sure? (I didn't want a translator cause I didn't think we'd find one and we'd have to reschedule).  So my wife said..just speak slowly.  Finally she turned to our daughter and she asked her who's this? (pointing at me). And my daughter answered "Daddy".  My wife said step-daddy (NOOOO!!) but then the immigration officer said that it was ok...it was good for her to call me daddy (which she does at home).  So I think that sealed it for us.
She also looked at my tax transcripts and asked if I had the full form of tax year 2016.  I said no..I only brought my tax transcripts.  She said the reason is because on the tax transcript, it showed 4 lines of dependents even though there were no names and social security numbers there.  I told her no, it was only me and sometimes my daughter who I get to claim every other year.  She looked at it again but didn't say anything else.  Probably because I make good money and that even if there were 10 dependents, I'd still qualify to be a financial support for the application.  
She then asked if we had any other proof of our relationship... So I handed to her our joint bank account statements (she asked for our bank cards...I handed her mine but my wife didn't bring hers), life insurance showing being a beneficiary, my company health insurance summary showing them as dependents, join lease agreement with both of names on it, and pictures since she's been in the US.  She looked at them and pointed out one picture of us attending a high school graduation and she asked who that was in the picture with us.  My wife answered that it was my daughter (from a previous marriage).  
At this point, she then said, based on what she sees, there is no reason why my wife and daughter wouldn't be able to get a green card.  She said she would approve my daughter on the spot but then it would take 2 days to run another background check on my wife to make sure nothing has come up since the filling of the application.  And then after that, they would be getting their green card in about 2-3 weeks.  She did gave us a tip that for the removal of conditions (which is for the 10 year green card) that if we submitted every month of the joint bank statements since getting her 2 year green card, that there would likely be no interview when we applied for the 10 year green card.  Basically submit everything that we can to bypass the interview. I think I put everything that I can remember of what happened at the interview. Probably forgot some minor details.
I apologize for the detailed summary of our interview, but all in all, it took about 30 minutes for the interview.  To sum it up, bring all the originals of any documents you have...birth certificates, divorce decree, marriage certificate, naturalization certificate (if you became a US citizen via naturalization) and passports. Make sure you bring the actual Tax forms that were submitted to the IRS and not the tax transcripts that was sent with the AOS package in case they have any questions because it's much more detailed than the transcripts.  
Apart from that, it was nerve wrecking especially since we didn't have a couple of documents that she was asking about but it was a good experience as she was very nice with our daughter afterwards and joking with her.
 

yes, if it's your local office

hi everyone, we had our interview this morning! we had a great experience but no decision yet and we could even get hit with an rfe but that is totally fine and i am very satisfied with how everything went. i linked to my review of the experience at our local office in my signature. i will of course be sticking around to update our timeline with the notices we do get so feel free to ask any questions if you'd like : -) good luck to you all, hope you have a wonderful weekend!!

Congratulations and the T2 officer told me that my case is still at NBC center and  I might have an interview in the next 2 months since my background check is pending. 

I also wouldn’t believe everything the T2 officers say. I spoke to three of them so far. One had no idea about anything, the second told me to email the lockbox support team (uhhh?) and the third one told me that my case just recently was sent to “a local field office” but he just assumed it was NYC since they’re responsible for my area. My status is still fingerprint fee received and has been like that since March 3rd. No clue what the status of my case actually is, but I was told to expect an interview within 3-4 months from now at the NYC field office and they’re one of the most backlogged ones in the country. 
August 2018 seems extremely unlikely. 

Update: 
 
I was just spammed with text messages this morning by USCIS. So I go check what it is all about, and my new card is in production! I was approved without an interview, which makes what the T2 officer said even weirder. 
 
It took 236 days from them receiving it to being approved. 

I find that even the tier two officers often don't know what they're talking about. They also told me I wouldn't get the interview anytime soon and then I ended up getting it scheduled for September 29th. San Diego and San Francisco have similar processing times (San Diego is one month faster). Looking at the official processing times stated on the USCIS website, you should have your interview well before next year August. 
Field Office Processing Dates for San Francisco CA as of: August 31, 2017 Form Form Name Processing Cases As Of Date: I-485 Application to Register Permanent Residence or to Adjust Status 7. November 2016

File charges on her if she physically attacked you. Take pictures of everything as well. 
 
I believe that if the marriage was entered in good faith, OP can still get a green card if he's the victim of domestic violence? Can someone check me on this? 
 
Also, best not to generalize American men or women when at least half of all users on this site are American...

Try Canada ?
 
 

i'm not sure where britontherun got that info (no offense), but my lawyer says Stokes Interviews (where they separate you) is if you've got huge age disparity (at least violating the half your age + 7 rule), haven't met in person before getting married, or don't share linguistic or cultural things in common (like you're north indian and only speak hindi, and your wife only speaks tamil or something.)
 
almost everyone here won't have been married "for long" as many people apply for AOS right after getting married, so i don't think Stokes will apply here, guys.

Had our interview Sept. 27, 7 months exactly after we filed.  We were approved. Card should come in a week or so.  

Had our interview and it was great. Wife is the AOS applicant and I am USC.
 
The interview was very easy. Whole interview was 15 minutes at most. 
 
When we came into a room the officer said we can have a seat and offered to swear in while we were standing so we did.
Started with two three basic question based on two front pages of AOS application. Then he began asking usual questions for 20 or so questions about crime, terrorism, being affiliated with groups, and such. I noticed that first three question he asked word for word and put check mark next to them. After asking next question he put check mark on 4-5 questions, followed my another question or two while he put check marks next to other 10 questions.
 
Then he asked my wife when if she visited in 2015, followed by how we met and why her first visit with parents was with us. Then officer looked over papers and said everything looks good including affidavit of support and noticed that they got the medical form as well. Then asked if we have something to submit to which I replied with a question if he meant items to support our bona fide. He said yes and I offered bank statement with our names and copy of car title with our names as well. While he was filing those into his folder I also grabbed 4 photos that we had. After small chit chat about photos the officer looked through some papers again and said that everything looks good. He noted that our case is pretty simple and easy and we are approved. Green card will arrive in about 3 weeks. He clarified that wife can apply for citizenship three years (minus 90 days) after she receives the greencard. Before that we will have to remove conditions regardless if we have been together more than two years or not.
 
Officer was very polite and very easy to talk to. This was my second interview that I attended at USCIS and so far I am 100% satisfied with staff at Portland, OR office.
 
I also wanted to ask about medical form for everyone else still waiting but kind of forgot after he said that we are approved xD