Joshua Kaufman

I know she could reschedule; the question is: should she?

Thanks for clarification regarding the Affidavit. No, we never had a child together. He son is from a relationship she had before we met, but suffice to say that her son and I have a good relationship.

Yes, she could also try to reschedule - I believe there should be instructions for it on the appointment letter?

The Affidavit of Support I am refering to is not an official form. It is just a letter from you (one of evidences suggested in I-751 instructions). It should say

Affidavit in Support of Name's application to remove conditions.

I (your name), a former husband of "Name", born on xx/xx/xx in "City", support my former wife's application to remove conditional status of her GC. Then you explain that your marriage was bona fide, you can write about how you met, story of your relationship and reasons for divorce. That you are in good relationship and you have a child together, right? So you can say it is important for you that both parents continue to have access to the child, so you need them to stay in the US.

You can notarize this letter if you like.

There will be a divorce decree very soon - probably this week. I unfortunately can't attend the interview. They didn't exactly call ahead to see if I could make it - surely interviews have been rescheduled before for this reason?

The advice to bring as much evidence as possible is good. We have some evidence, but not a lot. Is the Affidavit of Support you're referring to an official form somewhere? This one? http://www.uscis.gov/i-134

If you could attend this interview with your not yet ex-wife (there is no divorce decree yet, right?) that would be the best. Cases when I-751 were converted to waivers happened that way - during the couple being interviewed.

Do bring evidence with you - originals AND copies. Bring more than you have to, photographs prior to separation, whatever you have.

If you absolutely can not attend this interview, write an affidavit of support for your wife (details of the marriage and reasons for divorce) and provide her with all the evidence you can. With that, she could go to an InfoPass appointment and explain the situation to the Immigration officer. IO may be able to help or suggest the best way to deal with the situation. As is, there is a miscommunication between you and USCIS, and that rarely ends well.

Thanks so much for your replies, Okalian and Vanessa&Tony!

Does anyone else have any advice to offer?

P.S. Should I create a new thread to ask the interview question?

Here's the latest: We filed the I-171 last year. USCIS sent an RFE back in October, which we returned along with an explanation that we were filing for divorce but didn't have a divorce decree yet. We expect to have a divorce decree within the next week or two.

Today we received an appointment for the I-171 Joint Petition. USCIS is asking me to be there and that we bring as much evidence as possible to establish that our marriage was bonafide. First off, I can't be there as I'm not currently in the same city/state as my ex-wife. Secondly, I'm a little confused why they're asking for all the evidence when they already sent an RFE. I guess they want us to show the same evidence again?

My question is this: given that I can't be at the appointment, should we cancel it even though we'll be divorced by then, and we'll have a divorce decree to present? Or should we reschedule it so that together we can explain our situation to the officer?

As always, thanks for your help!

Unless ofcourse it's based on abuse

No abuse here. In fact, I'm happy to say that we're still good friends

Thanks for confirming my understanding. Merging would be fine, thanks.

you don't need decree to remove conditions. all you need is good faith marriage waiver.

If your attorney is saying to get decree, he is wrong, check with other attorney.

This is contrary to most of what I've read on VisaJourney and elsewhere. I'm pretty certain that I need a divorce decree in order to file a I-751 waiver.

what you mean you don't have divorce decree? did you got served or not?

I mean that I filed for divorce but don't yet have the decree. Please see the thread for full details.

This is the best, most honest course of action. Hopefully the revelation that your have filed for divorce after the initial filing for ROC might initiate another RFE for the Divorce Decree. Unless it's a complicated case you can get the final decree in a couple of months.

Thanks for your feedback! I feel like I'm doing the best thing too.

I posted a thread over in the Removing Conditions on General Residency Discussion forum before I knew about this forum, so I thought I'd link to it from here. My situation is that I'm unable to file an I-751 waiver because I don't have a divorce decree, and I'm trying to decide on the best approach. If you have any suggestions please chime in on the other thread. Thanks for your help!

So here's our story:

• We married in good faith but have been separated since February 2009.
  
• In July 2010, our immigration lawyer instructed us to file an I-751 with the intention that we could convert the I-751 to a waiver upon submission of our divorce decree.
  
• We filed the I-751 and received a Request for Evidence with a deadline of October 19.
  
• We filed for divorce in September 2010 and at the time of writing do not have a divorce decree.
  

There doesn't seem to be any easy solution for our situation. We can write a letter explaining the above along with evidence that we married in good faith, but I assume that USCIS will still deny the I-751 and initiate removal proceedings. As Just Bob explains above, she'll have a day in court and she'll have to ask for the removal proceedings to be put on hold until the divorce is final. In any case, I believe we still need evidence that we married in good faith.

At this point, I'm planning to write a letter as I describe above so they know that we're at least trying to do the right thing. Any other advice in the meantime would be really appreciated. Thanks so much for your help, everyone!

So you can either wait for the denial and file alone or look around for any evidence you can lay your hands on and hope whoever has your file is in a good mood.

Are you also suggesting that I just give them what they're asking for and hope they don't request an interview? Again, I'm concerned that this could potentially get me into trouble if they don't see what they're looking for.

If you filed the 1-751 jointly and you have enough evidence, i vote you give them what they want and get it over with.

That would be easy enough, but it's that fraud? If they request an interview or find out that we're separated then things could become much worse. That doesn't seem like a good thing to do.

You have a certain time frame within to provide the documents requested in the RFE notice and it doesn't look like you'll have your divorce decree in time. If you absolutely have no other evidence to show you were married in good faith then your petition will be denied. You will then have to refile with the divorce decree then. You can't convert the original one without a decree. The divorce petition is not enough. That's for sure. So you can either wait for the denial and file alone or look around for any evidence you can lay your hands on and hope whoever has your file is in a good mood. Good luck and let's know how things go. Hopefully someone else will chime in with other solutions.

Actually, I have a reasonable amount of evidence to show that we were married in good faith, but I don't understand what good that would do us at this point given that we're separated and planning to divorce. Wouldn't that type of evidence only be useful if we were staying together?

My wife immigrated to the United States with her son in late 2007, but we have been separated for about 1.5 years and plan to divorce in the coming months. I consulted an immigration lawyer about our situation and she recommended that I file a joint I-751 and then convert it to a waiver. So I filed the I-751 several months ago with a few pieces of evidence - there wasn't much that I could include since we'd been separated for so long. A few weeks later, USCIS asked her to come in for biometrics. We initially thought this meant we would be granted removal of conditions (see this previous thread on the topic), but just last week she received a Request for Evidence. The lawyer said that a RFE would be expected, and that we should convert the I-751 to a waiver at that point.

Most of what I've read about waivers says that USCIS will typically grant removal of conditions with appropriate evidence of divorce, i.e. a divorce decree. The issue right now is that we've only just started the process may not have an official divorce decree by the time we need one. I have a divorce petition - will that work? Is there anything else that we can attach to the waiver to show that the divorce is pending?

Thanks for your help!

CIS was dooped into thinking that they had separate addresses due to her being in graduate school, when in fact they had already been separated for 1.5 years and only staying together long enough for her to get the 10-yr greencard.

She's attending school in the same (not large) city: San Francisco. It wouldn't make any sense for them to assume we had separate addresses due to her being in graduate school. We never planned "only staying together long enough for her to get the 10-yr greencard. We consulted a lawyer who advised us to do exactly what we did: we just happened to get the best case scenario.

Filing a joint ROC petition when the couple is separated, is a textbook case of immigration fraud, plain and simple.

Hold on here. I never had the intention of committing fraud (we followed all the rules and never planned on separating), and I was advised by an immigration lawyer to jointly file and then convert to a waiver. This advice was based on a USCIS memo that the lawyer provided to me. I clearly stated that we had separate addresses on the I-751. I was told that the best case is that they will remove conditions without asking any questions, which is what happened. Our divorce won't be finalized for at least a few more months.

In any case, I want to do the right thing. I realize that the consequences could be dire if I screw up, which is why I posted to the forum. So while I appreciate your warning, the doomsday tone isn't exactly helpful to my situation. Do you have any practical advice?

My wife immigrated to the United States with her step-son in late 2007, but we have been separated for about 1.5 years. When filing the I-751, I stated that we currently have separate addresses. However, with the understanding that she's in graduate school, USCIS thankfully granted her removal of conditions without any request for evidence (divorce papers). We plan to file for divorce within California in the next month. My questions at this point: how will this affect her green card? Do we need to notify USCIS once the divorce has been finalized?

Thanks for your help!

We've got our AOS interview on Friday (hurray!) and I'm doing the final prep now. On the interview notice, it says we need "Original and copy of each supporting document that you submitted with your application." With the I-485 I submitted our marriage license, copy of passport, copy of K-1 visa, copy of I-94, copy of birth certificate and a certified translation of birth certificate. Are those the "support documents" that they're referring to? They ask for them elsewhere on the list so I was just just wondering...

Quick question about my wife's K1 Visa. She received her visa back in October 2007 and entered the US a few days later. We were married last November and now we're filing for AOS. However, her original visa expires at the end of March. Is this an issue or is the expiry date only related to her original entry into the US?

Thanks!

If he has a SSN, I would claim him since no one else will, and you provided more than half the support for the year.

He doesn't have an SSN currently, as I didn't think of a reason for him to have one at the time. Can he have his own SSN or does he have to wait until after AOS?

So my K-1 fiancee and I were married in November 2007, so I can file my taxes for 2007 as "Married". What I'm not sure about is my stepson.

According to TurboTax, he must be a "resident alien" (lawful permanent resident or have "substantial presence" over the past three years) or an adopted child who lived with me the entire year. He arrived in October 2007, and based on what I understand he isn't any of those. But I have provided nearly all of his support in 2007 and - pending our Green Card application - he'll be a "resident alien" in a matter of months! I'm guessing that doesn't necessarily make it okay to file him as a dependent, but with his Green Card coming so soon, it seems like something I should be able to do.

What does everyone think?!

Just to quickly follow up on this post: yes, it was very difficult to do what I wanted. Here's what we did instead. I e-filed for advance parole. I went to the immigration office the next day and gave them all the related paperwork. I received the advance parole a week and a half later.

And another: how many passport photos do I need to submit per applicant? I-485, I-765 and I-131 all ask for them, and the checklist on VJ says the G-325A needs them as well. So is that eight total? Or are the G-325A the same ones as the I-485?

(Surely there are more people on VJ who immigrated with children! If so, I would *really* appreciate your help! )

Another quick question: does my step-son need to have a social security number in order to file for adjustment of status?

Thanks!