EldestElderSon

30 minutes ago, HRQX said:

Was the $220 USCIS Immigrant Fee paid before or after entering the US?

When to expect the green card: https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/expect-green-card

Info about the $220 fee: https://www.uscis.gov/forms/uscis-immigrant-fee

In the meantime, her endorsed Immigrant Visa is a green card: https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/temporary-i-551-stamps-and-mrivs

Honestly, I am not sure if I paid that fee. Was that included in the IV fee? I guess not.

I'm looking at the instructions, and we have no DOS ID number. The USCIS website said the consular officer should have given us a USCIS Immigrant Fee handout. We received no such thing. What can we do to find it?

Hi,

My spouse happily got her IR1 visa and has entered the USA!

Is there a way to track the delivery of her green card and SSN? Most guides mention looking at USCIS, but that seems to be only for people who were adjusting status in the USA. How do I track the delivery of these items if my spouse entered on an IR1 visa?

Thanks!

Okay!

From, that I understand that she doesn't have to submit police certificates since those 3 countries are not of our current residence and she didn't live there for 12 months. That solves dilemma 1.

Dilemma 2, I am not sure about.

Thanks, where is this from?

Additional question:

If we got a police certificate 1 week before we left a country permanently, can we use it?

Hi all,

I have two dilemmas:

First dilemma:

I recently posted a question about the necessity to get police certificates in every country that my wife lived in. We decided it wasn't necessary because she didn't live in any of the countries for more than 12 months or more.

HOWEVER. Now that I am looking at the civil document upload screen, it has sections for each of these three countries. Now I am nervous. Maybe they are required because when you add up these three different countries it was more than 12 months outside of her country of nationality combined. She lived in these countries consecutively before returning to her home country.

Or maybe it just shows these upload sections automatically because I listed these countries in her residence history. I can click on "Not applicable" and then write a comment on why I chose NA. 

What do you think, am I interpreting this correctly in saying these are not necessary? 😟

Second dilemma:

There is a discrepancy between what NVC says about police certificates and what the embassy pre-interview checklist says. You can see what NVC says above. However, the Ankara embassy says:

"The original police certificate from your country of current residence and countries of previous residence."

This is really confusing. Because now it seems like I do have to get all these different police certificates. Can embassies have more specific/special requirements than NVC? Or maybe its just inaccurate/outdated or not precise enough?

Anyone can help?

Another question:

The NVC says you only need to submit police certificates if you lived in a country for more than 12 months.

However, the embassy website says " If you are older than 16 years of age:  The original police certificate from your country of current residence and countries of previous residence."

So which one is it? It sounds like the embassy is requesting the certificates no matter what. This is really confusing!

Given that one country we lived in only for 2 months is showing up, I suspect that its just showing up automatically because it should be required. Then again, it could be counting it consecutively (you were out of the country for over 12 months all together).

Hi,

I recently posted a question about the necessity to get police certificates in every country that my wife lived in. We decided it wasn't necessary because she didn't live in any of the countries for more than 12 months or more.

HOWEVER. Now that I am looking at the civil document upload screen, it has sections for each of these three countries. Now I am nervous. Maybe they are required because when you add up these three different countries it was more than 12 months outside of her country of nationality combined. She lived in these countries consecutively before returning to her home country.

Or maybe it just shows these upload sections automatically because I listed these countries in her residence history. I can click on "Not applicable" and then write a comment on why I chose NA. 

What do you think, am I interpreting this correctly in saying these are not necessary? 😟

15 minutes ago, JeanneAdil said:

i see you both lived in Europe so probably not an issue

 

it is more of an issue for the high fraud countries

 

 

Do you mean that it is okay for us to translate it on our own?

Hi,

I'm filing my documents for NVC.

For the USCIS, my wife translated her own marriage certificate and USCIS accepted this. However, I heard that is this may not be possible for NVC - meaning we would have to pay for a translation.

However, only 3 of the pages really needed to be translated....the rest of the marriage booklet can be understood by a "legend" that translates each section of each page into English. This works in the way that the reader would look at the number of the section they want to read, then look at at that number's section in the legend and read its equivalent text in English. Its unnecessary and really expensive to get these pages translated - which are blank of any inputted information anyways (its for birth of children and death of family members events, which we have had none so far - but there is like 20 pages for this). 

For USCIS, I just compiled this text into the document and my wife verified the translation.

However, since I will probably use a translator, what is the best way to do this? Should the translate only translate the pages that really need translation, and then I attached the rest of the English compilation after the translation? Or should I ask the translator to insert the compilation into their certified translation? 

What works?

I got my approval letter! It happened on the 8th. Funnily enough, the online site has not updated yet and still shows it as received. It took 248 days!

I'm so happy!!!

Ugh, god. So I shouldn't get my hopes up with the historical processing times. It could be today, tomorrow, even a month from now. 🤔

I'm in TSC. The graph says that applications with the date of November 8th are being processed, but I look at the file queue and there are tons of unprocessed I130s still in October. What is going on??

My filing date is October 31st 2018. Should I be getting worried? Should I call them?

4 hours ago, Mrs Jones said:

Thanks.. I was able to get the case tracker😊 but I could not succeed in searching for the case before mine.. they keep telling me to enter the start receipt number and search count (up to 500) maybe I am not doing something right that is why that message keep coming when I enter it.. can you screenshot and show me how to do it please? Thank you and I will be expecting reply

Just copy and paste your case number into the start receipt number. If you want to see the cases before your number, just subtract x number from your case number and it'll show you the cases after that case number. 

Like if my case number is SRC1000 and I want to see the 50 cases before mine then do SRC950 and put '50' for the number of cases to show. Be sure to choose only show I-130.

Sure, its called "CaseTracker." It has a picture of the American eagle coat of arms in a circle with the American flag behind it. All you need is your NOA1 recepient number and it'll show you the status. You can search too and show the next x number of cases before your number. Or you can put in an earlier number to see how other cases are doing.

8 hours ago, portorusa said:

I didn’t know they do this kind of emails. Actually nice, like « don’t worry, be patient, we didn’t forget you ».

In my situation I think I’d be glad to hear anything, but this deadly silence...

I'm using an app too where you can see the 'queue' of applications. It seems that End of October and early November is still largely under review. I wouldn't worry about being rejected. It seems they check the application for improper filing when they first receive your application. RFEs on the other hand, I don't know.

I had a priority date of November 2nd at TSC. No sign of a change on the online case status, I got e-mail today saying we are still reviewing your case....can I expect to get real-time online updates? Or only in the mail?

I don't think there should be any problems. I provided a mountain of evidence and neither of us have ever been divorced. 

Waiting for it any day now. Trying to resist the anxious thoughts. 😞🤪

Hi all,

I'm preparing my spouse's application documents for NVC and I had 2 questions regarding the police certification requirements. 

First question: As it says on the State Department website:

Soo, technically my wife never lived in a single foreign country for 12 months or more. HOWEVER, she roughly lived in Italy for 5 months, 2 months in Slovenia, and then about 6 months in Austria. So, should I get police certificates for Italy and Austria? 

Second question: 

I thought ahead and we got my wife's Austrian police certificate a week before we left Austria. Can we submit this Austrian police certificate even though it was issued a few days before we left Austria for good? 

Thanks for the answers!

Hi all,

It's been 3 months since I submitted my I-130. I thought my application was flawless after pouring over every detail.

Today, I was sipping on my coffee and flipping through my PDF copy of my completed application, looking at it smugly with satisfaction. When suddenly, I noticed a mistake buried in all those papers...

One document in my evidence of a bona fide marriage is missing a page. It's a rental contract that should be three pages, yet only has two. Its corresponding translation has three pages. Its identical to the previous year's rental contract, which I included, which has all three pages in both the copy and translation.

Now, the thing is that I don't really know if it's truly missing in the application. I checked my original copies, and that third page is there. It could have been that the page was 'sucked' up with the preceding page by the photocopier when I cloned my application and therefore is missing in my scanned copy. But, now I have no real way of knowing for sure if its really missing or not. 

Now, I provided a mountain of evidence of our marriage, so its a 'minor' error. The rental contract still makes sense without that page, but the translation has an extra page. Plus, the previous year's contract which has the missing page is identical to this one. Even if they disqualified that document, there's still lots and lots of other evidence. 

If it truly is missing for some reason, what should I do? Should I send USCIS a letter explaining the issue with a complete copy of the document, or will that risk messing up things more? Will this result in a denial of application or just an RFE? Will it even matter?

Thanks juineh, maybe I'm overthinking this. We'll prepare some documents to prove strong ties to her home country (lease, job, bank account) and hope for the best, and prepare for the worst.

Okay.

If anything goes wrong and she gets detained, is there any way for me to contact her or her to contact me? I just want to have a contingency plan. Is there any procedure at CBP at the airport?

I guess I shouldn't be too concerned. When they issued her a tourist visa, they knew she was married to a US citizen, so the concern of her entering to permanently stay or adjust status was still there, right?

Yes she did. We lived in Europe together and she has an EU residency card through me (I'm a dual citizen).

Not that it really matters to a border control agent....

Thanks for the replies.

Does it help that she has multiple stamps of entering and exiting EU countries? It shows she has traveled before without intent to permanently stay.