Shiran

25 minutes ago, laylalex said:

This should be good news for everyone. Being pro-choice doesn't mean being pro-abortion

I agree with that. The path "rare and safe" was never via "not-legal" but via sex/reproductive health education, easy, stigma-less availability of contraceptives, easy judgement free surrenders via adoption, and guilt free support during gestation. 

4 hours ago, Shipmaster said:

Thanks. I don't see DS-3025 anywhere in requirements for documents to be taken to the interview, but will do as you say.

You do not take DS-3025 to interview, but you will not be in for a good time after you get married and start dealing with AoS application. It might thing like a long time from now, but it won't be. The issue tends to be not vaccinations themselves, but having accurate records of them that USCIS will accept.  DS-3025 will be in the sealed envelope, but she is suppose to get unsealed copy of it for her own records. If she had recent visits, make sure DS-160 matches her K-1 visa application (the AA number from it) not her previous visa (B1/B2 probably?) Sometimes system messes up. Paying should not take up too much time, just print out slip from https://www.ustraveldocs.com/ua/UADepositSlip2.html?fee=62&quantity=1 and take that and money to nearest Aval Raiffeisen  bank branch. Take a picture of the receipt they give you so you don't lose it. You will need to input a number from that receipt into ustraveldocs site, then wait a day or so for it to percolate. Once it does, it should  open calendar for actual scheduling the appointment. Be mindful not to check TOO many dates, or you get 72 hours lockout.

2 hours ago, geowrian said:

I can just say that my wife adjusted from K-1 and got CF-1, and those who adjusted from others got CR-6. This is in alignment with the above.

Although it really doesn't matter - a conditional resident is still a conditional resident and needs to do ROC. It would only be an issue if it was IR-6 (no ROC needed).

Thanks.

This is what our NOA2 for I-485 looked like:

So, they are fully aware we were adjusting from K-1, but for some reason decided to assign CR-6 instead of more narrowly focused CF-1. Since she is indeed "spouse of US Citizen" I do not think CR-6 is wrong, though CF-1 is certainly more narrowly accurate. I think we are going to roll a die and let it be. I do not think USCIS would have a reasonable expectation for average person to be familiar with COA codes. We got 2 year card, as was to be expected and that is good enough. 

3 hours ago, Shipmaster said:

Shiran, I want in particular to thank you anf of course all other members in the same boat as I. You were right on the button, NVC received my case on August 28, and as you predictied it left NVC today. I am leaving for Kiev on 24th and my fiancee is joining me there on 28th. I told her today to schedule the Medicall as soon as she can. On arrival I will fill the DS-160, pay the fees and schedule the appointment. Any further hint/advice you wish to give ? Thanks again.

Glad that shipped out ok. I would suggest not waiting until 24th to pay actually. Did she create the profile on UStraveldocs site? You would want to open up your calendar as soon as possible. While generally interviews are easy to get in Kyiv, a few struggled a bit recently with at least one member who ended having cancelling tickets and then then rebooking different flight. She should be able to schedule medically literally today. My personal experience only with medicom, and I didn't hear a single complaint about that office from anyone either.

Payment to the bank takes at least a day to clear, and util it clears you won't have access to the calendar. Both medicom and MRV payments are done in UAH, so keep that in mind if you only have USD. Do not forget to bring 5x5 cm pictures to the medical, as well insiset on making sure your DS-3025 is marked as complete. (E.g. K-1 completed volountarily completed all vaccinations) She should bring her "anketa" and vaccination records with her, they know how to transcribe them. 

6 hours ago, Ksenia_O said:

Here is from USCIS :

 

 

https://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/AFM/HTML/AFM/0-0-0-1/0-0-0-27276/0-0-0-32908.html

I saw that. It seems sometimes they issue cards under CR-6 instead of CF-1. I agree, CF-1 appears to be "more correct" but ... does it even matter in practical terms? It is a conditional card, so we will have to go through RoC regardless. 
 

@geowrianany thoughts? 

On 9/16/2019 at 9:32 AM, ALFKAD said:

So which rights of women have been subjugated the past 50 years or so?

That doesn't actually matter. Maybe if all sexes were treated equally since USA inception date, you could argue there is no need for such amendment, but they weren't. You do not build a house on a swampland, and just shrug off "Well it stood for last 10 years ok, no need to worry"  Instead you have Jefferson saying things like "were our state a pure democracy, in which all its inhabitants should meet together to transact all their business, there would yet be excluded from their deliberations 1. infants, until arrived at years of discretion. 2. women; who, to prevent deprivation of morals, and ambiguity of issue, could not mix promiscuously in the public meetings of men. 3. slaves, from whom the unfortunate state of things with us takes away the rights of will and of property. "  

ERA is there to codify that that legally all sex should have legal rights, if for no reason to prevent from someone coming along and "abriding" them in the future. 

15 minutes ago, JP John said:

I am curious why you are using a binder vs an accordion file?  I am wondering if I missed that we have to have a binder or is it just a personal preference?

 

They will not care about binder or the file. You will have to go through airport style security though, so no metal, no hard to take off shoes. They will ask for things to give to them, so your goal is to make it easy for yourself to find them quickly. They will not take your binder of file, just pages from there (they heavily prefer letter sized paper so it is easy for them to file into your literal "A" file. This will be one of the few times when you actually get to see it. 

1 hour ago, Romei said:

Hey i gave my interview today !! I have no updates yet , i am wondering how much time do they take to make an update?

From what I've seen, usually within a day, if you are not approved on spot.

I posted detailed timeline for us here: 

1 hour ago, americaninlove said:

For green card interview, what does this mean: All documentation establishing your eligibility for lawful permanent resident status.

 

In practical terms it is your passport with visa stamp and I-94 as well marriage cert. While we brought I-94 with us, the interviewing lady said she already has a copy that we sent with original packet, and doesn't need to see it. 

29 minutes ago, nekotakacho said:

How did you find this link? Do you have a link for 3rd quarter/May filers? Thats good info there!!

It is publicly available information on USCIS site. I do not believe they released 3rd quarter data yet. They should be releasing it soon, possibly later this month. 

3 hours ago, Toastbear said:

I thought you get the EAD after 3-8 months and then the greencard interview takes about a year or two. Like when I check my office, they are still in March or something like that for the AOS.

 

Some offices (Ohio, and Carolinas come to mind) tend to be very fast, with no to little backlog. So yeah those will get done fast. Other, have backlog in 10000. The processing actually is speeding up, with most offices processing more application than what they take in, which help shrink backlog little by little but the process is slow.

You can see some statistics here for I-485

https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Reports and Studies/Immigration Forms Data/Adjustment of Status/I485_performancedata_fy2019_qtr2.pdf

1 hour ago, JoelThai said:

The pattern I am seeing for San Francisco is that EAD/AP approval often takes 180 - 210 days (or more).   

 

The current inquiry date for EAD is April 4th, so you are officially outside of normal processing. Have you put in request? I am guessing the delays have something to do when they separated your cases. You said you didn't show "Ready to schedule" until some time in August? 

8 hours ago, Artem&Karolina said:

Looking at the tables of other couples, we filed on May 24, and should have received NOA2 at the end of August.

It is never clear why some cases take longer than others. People can speculate. It looks like you filed at the very end of May, so it was barely over 3 months, I wouldn't worry about it. Do keep in mind 129F delays usually have more to do with petitioner, petitioner background, history etc than beneficiary. 

28 minutes ago, Sylvia123 said:

we don’t have rings and didn’t really do a big wedding celebration,

We didn't have engagement rings either. Weddings rings were never brought up. We were not separated, nor questioned separately. Note, that our experience, at our office, can vary pretty drastically from yours. For example, we were handed a piece of paper right away at the end of 30 min or so long interview telling us we were approved, but in many cases I hear people get a different notice that case neither approved nor denied, and has to under go additional processing. We were not asked any intimate or uncomfortable questions, I guess the closest one could be "You got married 13 days after meeting in US, don't you feel it is too fast?" 

To answer your questions, my suggestion is make sure you know details of your own story, and your answers are consistent with each other. Do not interrupt each other. They want physical pieces of evidence which they will keep, so make sure what you hand to them is easy to file (Letter sized pieces of paper, not single pictures) We arranged pictures in collages on letter sized paper, 3 pages, with 20 or so pictures total, they kept all of those. Scans of medical, electrical bills etc. In your case it might be rental agreements. Joint bank account showing both names. Not much overall. 

The fact that "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." somehow is proving to be  controversial to ratify by majority of states for the last 50 years or so, speaks for itself. It is pretty much right up there with slaves only counting as 0.6 of a person.

1 hour ago, JoelThai said:

If anyone has any insight into the "normal" timeline of EAD/AP processing and the I-485 changing status to "ready to be scheduled", I would be interested in what your experience was.

I kept Google spreadsheet of each and every permutation and status change.

Here is the detailed timeline:

Notice for biometrics we did a "walk in" We went to ASC basically right away after getting the notice, and not on a scheduled date that was a month out. I don't know if it played any role in speeding up the process. Case changed to "Ready to be scheduled" for I-485 on 8 of May. So that is quite a bit earlier than the date you mentioned.

6 minutes ago, JoelThai said:

Thank you for listening.   But my wife is still waiting after 6 months for an EAD/AP card and expects to wait at least another 12 to 18 months for a greencard.   I hope you understand my position.  I feel a little bit better after getting that off my chest. 🙂

 

Yeah, I don't blame you. And I looked at your timeline, and seeing how you had no RFE, I am not sure why your EAD/AP not approved yet, you filed 2 full weeks before us, and as far as I could tell they go mostly in chronological order for EAD approvals. I was using CaseTracker to scan batches of 500 apps, and we were approved at about time I expected when other people who filed at/around same date were getting approved. Obviously GC is a different story. SF has over 12000 cases backlog last I checked. 

6 minutes ago, Prizm123 said:

i am starting to wonder what is the point of AP and EAD now if they are going to all arrive in a fairly similar timeframe, seems a waste of time and resources to have them separate and finished separately if it will all be approved at the same time anyway...

Well, you can kinda see how system Originally meant to work which made sense:

K-1 enters US, K-1 authorized for work for 90 days, they get EAD stamp in passport at PoE, good for 90 days.

Couple gets married, files AoS/EAD/AP. 

EAD/AP gets approved a month down the road, good for a year.

I-94 expires as well as EAD passport stamp from PoE, but that is fine as EAD/AP card is still good

At some point later AOS interview happens and GC is issued, EAD/AP is collected and destroyed.

Clearly that is how the system was first conceived to work. But with delays, and eliminations of EAD stamps in the passport, it becomes unglued, confusing mess that doesn't make sense. Filing for EAD/AP is still good, because well.. it is free, relatively easy evidence that you will have regardless, no interview, and it is good to hedge your bet in case GC takes much longer than 6 months. It just weird how in our case we got both at almost exactly same time. 

6 hours ago, Shipmaster said:

From my side everything is ready, I am just nervous to schedule her interview not knowing for sure if it will hit ready status. Again, just to remind you NOA2 reached NVC on Aug 28, so really I should be seeing 'IN TRANSIT' on Sept 17-18 latest on CEAC. Don't you think I should wait for that ? Thanks.

I would wait until it shows "In Transit" There were cases when NVC would return case to USCIS instead of forwarding it to Embassy. It is rare, but it happens when NVC finds an issue with the case that USCIS misses. 

It will show "In Transit" once it leaves via DHL. DHL typically takes 3 days to deliver it, so they will signed for late in the afternoon on Friday in Kyiv at US Embassy. Usually they eager to get out from the compound, and get their weekend drinking on, so they let them sit over the weekend, and finish hatching it next Monday. 

It MIGHT change to ready before the package physically arrives, because electronic copy is send at same time, and arrives a lot quicker, but you will not be able to have interview unless physical copy is there and status is "Ready"

59 minutes ago, Shipmaster said:

NVC received NOA 2 on Aug 28, my CEAC status still same. Hoping my case ships to Kiev on Sept 17, when do you think I will see READY status on CEAC ? Thanks

if it ships on the 17th, Should be fully ready on 22 (when it is Monday in Kyiv) possibly sooner on Friday. 

Just now, Hello729 said:

I see. But if I withdraw my affidavit of support now, I will be off the hook?

For the purposes of immigration yes. Child support / divorce is a matter of family court. 

1 minute ago, Hello729 said:

So if we go this route, will I have to be bounded by the affidavit of support when we are divorced down the line?  (Sorry for asking dumb question)

Yes. Until she becomes a citizen, or gets enough credit for legally working.