TearsOfBabylon

Ditto ^^ but dec 13 and Jan 12 bio apt.
@Ln Em it's a waiting game. 
@rhealy6322 congrats ! 

wuuuhuuu ich habe grad meine Case number bekommen  

It's.. really not. Lol.

Aussie (so can do ESTA) chiming in on this one.  
 
Because despite "unrestricted" travel (we have all seen horror stories of people being turned away at POE or given a hard time so they're worried about trying again), that doesn't mean that we have unrestricted time off to travel for your we.   Or even unrestricted money to travel.  I know you can get some great prices for flights from the UK or even Canada, but there's plenty of places where air travel is prohibitively expensive or the cheap flights you get will take 2-3x the time which then means you're losing out there (you want to do a 2 week visit and find cheap flights? Great! But you're losing 4/5 days of those 14 in travelling back and forth) 
 
Say for example, like us, you make the decision to get married in January 2018? Great!   Say that neither of you can travel until at least August or September because of work and family commitments.  So you get married in say August.   Then by the time you file all the paperwork for the CR-1 it's now September.  So then you're waiting until at least September 2019. Probably even October or November.   And if you're lucky you may be able to make 1-2 short (~2 week) visits during that year, if you can afford it (flights door to door for me never cost less than $2,600 total for a single round trip) and if your work will give you the time off.  

Now compare that to... you decide to get married in January 2018.  You put in all the paperwork a few weeks later (call it the first week of Feb) and if things go very very well for you, you'll be there by December or January 2019 (obviously if nothing goes wrong). 
 
I know plenty of people say that the CR1 is superior because you can work/travel/drive right away and it works out cheaper (apparently the state I'll be moving to has no objection to me driving on my Aussie licence so that's not an issue) but honestly I'll take ~6 months of being a housewife, getting settled into my new home, bonding with my new family, training the puppy we're going to get, plotting/planting our vegetable garden and getting to know the local area over spending the extra 6+ months working out the time difference to see if I can squeeze a 5 minute phone call in on my break at work, stressing about if my job is going to approve time off so I can be there for our birthdays (being born close together is helpful) and if we're going to have another stretch of 6 straight days where we can't do more than text when the other is asleep due to totally opposite work schedules (yay for being a shiftworker).
 
So in short: different strokes for different folks.  Most adults (I like to believe anyhow) have the foresight and ability to delay gratification long enough to consider what's going to be the best option for them in the long run. 

 

Just got the "approved" email today for the ead and ap. No job or expediation. Judt good ol' fashioned patience. We sent our packet in dec 8th

You are having headaches and bone aches in England? Oh no! Sounds like a medical expedite for the sibling visa  (..sarcasm mode).
 
Your family can't sponsor you until they become citizens. Then the process will take like 12 to 14 years. So better find some good painkillers for those English pains. 

Herzlichen Glueckwunsch und alles, alles Gute!

Mein Visum ist daaaa!! Yayyyy
Ich hab meine Flug jetzt für den 21.04. gebucht. Es ist noch so unfassbar viel zu tun und an so viel zu denken. Ich kann es immer noch nicht glauben. 
Ich muss mal ganz schnell loswerden, dass ich so froh bin, dass es VJ gibt. Dieses Forum und die tollen Leute hier helfen so sehr dabei, die langen Wartezeiten, die vielen Fragen, Unsicherheiten, Ängste und Momente der Ratlosigkeit zu meistern. 
Ich drücke euch allen hier weiterhin die Daumen!! Hilfe ich muss packen....!!!!🤣

EAD was approved today and updated to card in production on the DHS website. I expedited based on job offer on March 13, faxed in documents a day or so later. My priority date was Jan 12, so not sure how much the expedite helped, but at least it'll get to me around the 90 day mark... and I hope it's a combo card, I applied for AP but that status has not changed online. Anyone have experience with expedited EAD also getting AP at the same time?

My timeline:
 
receipt date : 12/4/2017
Biometrics:   12/27/2017
RFIE:              1/12/2018 
RFIE replied:  1/24/2018  (Updated case status to Response received)
EAD and AP approval letters received in mail on 4/2/2018 ( No Updates on case status , it still shows case was received)
 
Time to get approval letters: 119 days 
 
 
 
 

Finally some movement I got an update that the card was being produced this morning. 
 
Well one of the trackers updated. The one with the text pin number login. 
 
It says up to 120 days to deliver how long roughly did it take others to get it from this stage? 
 

How do you confuse wife and fiancee?
 

Day 110: No movement either!

Yay! And it was my request for initial interview!!!
 
May 8th! I'm so surprised! Wishing all the best to y'all!

Got my interview notice in the mail on Saturday! Interview is for April 30 in Des Moines, IA. Total surprise as there was no update on the online tracker, and I have accounts on both the My Case Status and the new dhs site - the still show "Your response to our request for initial evidence was received" Seems quick as USCIS just received our response to the RFIE on Feb 27. The interview notice was dated March 26.

Just got two approval notice letters from USCIS for EAD and AP. Notice date 03/23. Finally!
 
Good luck everyone!

Ganz genau so war das bei mir auch. Inklusive Tränenfluss

Ich hab damals zu ihr gesagt - als alles rum war - dass sie bestimmt viele Menschen happy macht. Wirklich ganz ne Nette!

 

Today, I got my driver license:) After i got my ead card, this week was pretty quick, i immediately tried to schedule my written test, luckily I found an appointment, and after that i tried to schedule my behind-the-wheel test, and i was very lucky for finding a spot for today. I am beginning working on Monday. My best wishes for you all. I feel that you all will be approved very soon🙏 I am not waiting to hear about interview soon, my local office is one of the worst ones, I hope you will🙂

Lol.  Somehow I don’t doubt that. 

I submitted the AP today! Priority mail so they should get it within 3 days. I hope they open it and add it to my dad in time 😂 now I guess I would be happier to wait a little longer for my ead if my ap was attached to it. I miss mexico vacations lol.    Otherwise I hear they send your ap as a piece of paper (if you already have your ead.  Should be interesting 😊

I'd love to work for uscis after all this but you have to be a citizen 😔

Interview on Tuesday. All our papers are ready, but I'm not sure I am. Getting nervous!

Hi All,
 
Wanted to update everyone. My fiancee finally is approved for EAD and AP as of this morning. I checked the informed delivery email and sure enough there were two envelopes from USCIS. We got lucky and the approval notice for the EAD had just enough of the first line showing through the clear window that I could read that it was approval for employment authorization. It was still a long wait to confirm I hadn't misread it. The mail man always seems to come later in the afternoon. However, we have not seen any updates on the website yet, neither through the case tracker nor the USCIS Account where there is more information. Hopefully we'll get the actual card before the end of next week!
 
For those of you wondering, our timeline is as follows:
 
Mailed AOS Package: Dec. 13, 2017 (roughly, I forget the exact Date)
USCIS Received: Dec. 15, 2017
NOA1: Dec. 19, 2017
NOA2: March 29, 2018
Days to Approval from USCIS Received: 104
Days to Approval from NOA1: 100  

Hello everybody!
 
As I am new to this forum, I am not sure if you talked about it already, so I would like to apologize if it's the case.
 
If I understood correctly, the local office doesn't deal with our EAD or travel authorisation, the National Benefit Center does. Right now, we can see online that it takes between 2.5 to 5 months to received it (the first number is the time it takes to complete 50% of cases (the median). The second number is the time it takes to complete 93% of cases.) More info here: https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/#mainContent
 
Today, the case inquiry date is October 30, 2017 (yesterday was October 29). Our application will only be considered as "outside normal processing time" when this date will be December 15, 2017...meaning we shouldn't worry for now (even if I am definitely getting extremely tired of the wait!). 
 
Sorry again if that was discussed already.
 
Have a great day all!
 
Emilie 

Or rather not know to not get paranoid hahaha