Teemo

To put it bluntly, your marriage seems like(removed) and the USCIS called you out on it. It's applications like yours that slow down the system for everyone else. Deserved denial, an appeal won't help unless and until you have a bona fide marriage, where you know, family actually attends your wedding and you have real conversations not made up ones. 

Had my interview on 8/26, they gave me the same letter "held for review" and said it could be up to 120 days, but then the IO told us "it does not take that long." 3 days later my case was approved. So it should be fast. But sometimes things fall through the cracks or they just take forever on stuff. It sucks but doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong. Definitely do infopass/call USCIS/file a request etc. Don't even let your lawyer do it, do it yourself, you'll be far more engaged and persistent than he will. 

47 minutes ago, margazux said:

May I ask what is a routine secondary inspection ? What questions do they ask ? Thanks!

Sometimes I got zero questions. Sometimes I got 3 or 4 questions: where did you go, how long did you go for, why did you go there. One word or sentence answers were sufficient. Was never longer than a couple minutes (plus wait time which was only bad one time when I was stuck behind a plane that just landed from China)

I traveled 7x using advance parole in the last year, and am a long time overstay. No problems getting in all 7 times. Secondary inspection every time but was quick and painless. 

4 hours ago, americaninlove said:

I will for sure when I’m back in the country next week. But since they said he has until end of November to reply, and his interview is end of September, it’s not likely they will deny his application before the interview, is it?

Agreed

Just now, Ly&Ri said:

Its 2019 and things change all the time. Has anyone attempted to travel recently and had any issues? Please advise.

I traveled 7x in the last year on advance parole as a long time overstay and never had any issue. I did a ton of searching on this forum and others and could not find someone with issues using valid AP to re-enter. It's not zero risk, but it's minimal. Matter of Arabally has not changed and this issue has not changed. 

I got approved for my green card via AOS on 8/29! Interview on 8/26, PD of December 4, 2017, in Manhattan. Loooong wait but so relieved and happy. My review of the interview is here: https://www.visajourney.com/reviews/view-dos-cis-reviews.php?entry=26971

Good luck to everyone!

11 minutes ago, Ermin&Zijada said:

I understand that and I get that in most cases nothing would go wrong but we personally did not want to risk it. I am currently in the process of becoming an immigration lawyer and interned at an immigration firm over the summer. You would be surprised by how many routine things take a turn for no good reason at all. Even court procedures that have been in place for decades have changed seemingly over night. 

I was going to let this go until you said are going to become an immigration lawyer. Unlike many here, I have great respect for lawyers and those who would devote their lives to helping immigrants navigate the law. However, when I became obsessed with this advance parole issue, I started polling many different lawyers. I found them online, in forums, I called them up for free or cheap consultations etc. In the end, I got an answer from 10 of them on whether to travel on AP as an overstay. Do you know how many of them did not know or understand Matter of Arabally? 6 of them. 6! 60% didn't know this basic thing that would affect my life so deeply! Look, this is one of my threads online if you want to see an example: https://my-secure.justanswer.com/question/index/3a7c0ff9803c4431a522b9383a9d5583

These are professionals who go to school for many years and get paid a lot of money who don't do even the most basic research to understand something. Anyway, of the 4 who did know Matter of Arabally, two of them STILL told me not to go! why? One of them didn't understand it very well and the other said "this deals with overstay not unauthorized employment." Technically he's right, but practically he's dead wrong as pretty much every overstay has unauthorized employment. IO will not bar you from using AP because of unauthorized employment when you are married to a US citizen and knows it will be forgiven. 

So that left 2 immigration lawyers out of 10 who knew Matter of Arabally and could confidently explain it and give me comfort. 2! So in my small sample size, only 20% of immigration lawyers knew what they were doing. This is depressingly small and made me cynical about immigration lawyers and using such highly paid professionals. 

So I urge you, understand the immigration law. But also understand the case law. Understand what is happening on the ground. Understand practicality, not just theory. Understand what clients and travelers and applicants are experiencing and conveying. And give the very best advice you have, not just the most conservative advice or the advice that has ZERO risk just because you're a risk averse person. You can always qualify something. No lawyer said to me I have 100% chance of getting in. They put the risk in context. You can always tell your clients it is not guaranteed. But if you tell your clients "don't travel on AP because it is too risky" despite Matter of Arabally telling you otherwise and the experience of 10s of thousands of travelers, you will be in the category of 80% of lawyers I would tell people to stay away from like above. And that would be a damn shame. 

Good luck in your emergent career and I wish you a long and successful one. 

Hi @Kiolasdo you have a (good) update here?

6 minutes ago, Ermin&Zijada said:

In fact I am. Considering the political climate towards immigrants is still very much unstable. We waited for the Green Card before traveling and would recommend doing so to all others. Glad it worked out for you Mr. Snarky!

Well, we could do a lot of things because of isolated incidents. We could never take an Uber because an Uber driver killed a passenger one time. But it's not so rational to do so. Matter of Arabally is settled case law, unless it gets withdrawn which would be all over the forums.  It has been in effect for years. I researched this so much and got very comfortable with it. It's not a loophole or a mistake or something temporary. If you leave and use AP to return, you have not "departed" the US and are not triggering the bar. I used it 7x and my long overstay never came up. Sounds like you were scared of not getting in because of some security issue. I understand it's scary. It was scary for me too, which is why I spent so much time researching it. There is no upcoming travel ban that would happen with 1 day notice. Trump learned his lesson there within 48 hours. He couldn't do it again even if he wanted to. It's not rational to use this as your argument. The only rational argument against it is "I can absolutely do it, but it's scary and not worth the stress and mental toll." That resonates. But hopefully my experience doing it 7 times can give others some comfort. 

7 hours ago, americaninlove said:

 If his interview for green card is in four weeks it doesn’t really matter if his advanced parole application is denied, right? But will this affect his AOS interview? And could there be any issues with him coming back in the country next week? We are freaking out! 

 

Thank you for any info!

It matters because they would deny the whole application if they think he has abandoned his application, not just the AP. So send in the evidence and also bring in the evidence to the AOS interview

On 3/27/2019 at 1:24 PM, Ermin&Zijada said:

Tell that to the people who were held up at airports for hours upon hours. Im sure to them it wasn't "completely illegitimate". I also think its quite a different story for someone to weight the dangers of visiting Canada and lets say a muslim majority country.  

Dumb. AP is AP. Yes if you go to Iraq or Syria you might have a problem. But that is because of reasons other than the AP, it's because you might present a security risk. I went to a Muslim majority country for 11 days using AP. One of the 7 times I used AP. All were routine to get back in, perhaps on this visit I got one more question "Why did you go to this country."

Are you still using this one incredibly isolated incident (an illegal and confusing travel ban that got reversed 48 hours later) to scare everyone out of using AP?

On 3/23/2019 at 10:13 PM, KatenkaMishka said:

Yep, that’s absolutely correct, that new change came into effect on August 9th of 2018, so now people who are out of F1 status automatically started accumulating unlawful presence since that date. My only hope and saving grace would be if  they wouldn’t count my days being out of status because they happened prior August 9th of 2018, and also as you mentioned that Matter of Arabally case. I have ongoing conversations with lawyers for years now , all of them say that traveling with AP isn’t considered to be a “departure” , therefore 3/10 bars can’t be triggered in case of unlawful presence . But I’m still afraid and never met a person who would actually travel on AP with similar situation. I guess I’ll be the first one lol 😂Thank you though , your information is correct and helpful!

I traveled using AP in a similar situation. Long term overstay, subject to 10 year bar. I traveled on AP not once, not twice, but 7 times. 3 for vacation with my wife, 4 times for work. All were identical. Sent to secondary screening. Routine questions. Stamped and sent on my way. I researched the heck out of this. All IOs know Matter of Arabally and know what to do. They see dozens of overstays on AP everyday and they should all get in, barring a security risk or the app gets denied when they are out of the country. 

1 minute ago, Greenbaum said:

Then what was he referring to?

You've missed the joke 3 times now. He said watch your wording (with a crying with laughter emoji) because she said cash in "hand jobs." Hence the lesbian reply. 

7 minutes ago, Greenbaum said:

There never was a reference to anything to do with the LGBTQ community from @geowrian answer. He/she was letting you know that jobs that are "cash in hand" jobs are taxable income. If you file a for a tax year and do not divulge that income you are now creating tax fraud. Just saying.

 

BTW, the US IRS is not bias to where their money comes from.

That's not what @geowrian was referring to...

17 minutes ago, geowrian said:

The OP shouldn't have an issue getting back into the country with a missing or damaged green card - if they can get to the border. The issue is how would they board the flight? Without proper documentation, the airline won't board them.

 

In your case, the valid AP is sufficient for the airline to board you.

14 minutes ago, HRQX said:

Presumably OP's friend will fly back to the US from the Dominican Republic. For flights, before even reaching CBP, travelers encounter airline staff at boarding. Odds are the airline staff won't accept a damaged GC.

Ah I see. I never get asked for my EAD or a visa from the airline because I am Canadian so they don't think to ask for anything further, so I forgot that this affects other people. 

On 8/28/2019 at 9:20 AM, Pixelx said:

 I noticed I missed to tick yes or no on 2 check boxes...😐
Will I get the paperwork get sent back so I can correct it? That's what happened when we had an error on the check for our I-129F earlier.

No more mistakes going forward!  Way too important to make silly mistakes. Triplecheck everything. Luckily this shouldn't cost you anything, in the AOS interview they'll ask you to correct it. 

@geowrianI thought a green card was evidence of the LPR, not the LPR itself.  Trying to understand the difference between OP's situation and mine - beyond the obvious. He needs GC to re-enter because the GC was destroyed, but I'm ok entering on AP because my GC is presumably in my mailbox at that point?

On 5/16/2019 at 9:02 PM, Jackson71 said:

My wife and stepdaughter will be traveling to their native country of Russia this summer with AP, they will be flying with Aeroflot airlines.

I called Aeroflot Airlines and two different Aeroflot representatives told me that they will not let anyone board the airplane flying back to the U.S without a visa.

They said they will not allow my wife to board with the AP,  that she and my stepdaughter must have visas .

I explained to them what AP is and they told me in a rude way, "then let your wife and stepdaughter fly at their own risk but we will certainly not let them board the plane with this AP " !!

I have heard others having trouble with other airlines with AP, the majority of these airline employees have no clue what AP is , but they have the power not to let you board the plane .

Has anyone gone through this ?

I would be very grateful for any feedback or advice !!

Thank you VJ community !

What's the update here, did they get back with no issues?

On 7/30/2019 at 9:57 PM, Mrsjackson said:

I have just seen that USCIS processing time estimates on their site has changed dramatically (inquiry date went from November 8th to March 3rd). I’m March 8th and so I hope to have my AP soon. I did not file AOS within the 90 day time frame. So technically overstayed by just under six months. This wouldn’t cause reentry problems would it with a valid AP card and a pending AOS application? I’m guessing not but I like to double check everything. 

No problem, valid AP is all you need. 

3 minutes ago, geowrian said:

So how doesn't the child have US citizenship...? If he lived in the US from 2008 to 2016 (and was a USC before birth), that's well over the 5 years needed for the child to derive citizenship.

*2013

4 hours ago, geowrian said:

A green card is only evidence of your LPR status. Once AOS is approved, you are an LPR. If somebody made it to the border (i.e. by land since boarding a flight might not be possible w/o a valid documentation) with only documentation of their identity (i.e. a passport and no green card), CBP should be able to see that they are an LPR and admit them as such anyway. It might not be a fun or quick trip, but the green card isn't actually needed for admission.

 

If the officer isn't paying attention, it's possible they could parole you into the US. Being a parolee theoretically could be an issue in the event of removal proceedings (if something were to happen down the road). Lookup parole vs admission for some good readings if you're interested. It's just simpler, IMHO, to know that you were admitted instead of paroled.

Interesting thanks. But once you enter the country, even as a parolee, once you have green card in hand you are effectively admitted, no? Otherwise everyone who used AP but then got a green card would be in "parolee" status until they left and re-entered on their GC. 

1 hour ago, Visitor User said:

Did anyone in the inspection knew about MoA? Or, all they care about is that you have the AP document? Would it be apply to someone under 245i doing AOS?

 

All they care about is the EAD/AP card. They don't talk about Matter of Arabally, they just know it. They just stamp you and send you on your way. 

@geowrianis this another case where the OP would be fine using AP instead of waiting for GC in hand, because GC is only evidence of LPR?

15 minutes ago, geowrian said:

No, you'll be let in (well, under the same process as any LPR). If you are aware of approval already, it might not hurt to just make request that the CBP officer admit you as a permanent resident instead of potentially paroling you into the US.

I did ask this specific question to the IO at my wife's AOS interview.

Can you clarify? First why do they let you in on AP without your green card after it is approved? 2nd what do you mean by being let in as PR when you don't have your green card? Thanks!