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RamonGomez

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  1. RamonGomez
    Interesting! I understand this perfectly now. I would think it's possible to guestimate current wait times. For example (I'm making up numbers here), if you applied in 2009 maybe there were 500k petitions head of you, but if you apply today, there are 650k petitions ahead of you, so you'd estimate roughly a 30% longer wait than what is currently shown in the Visa Bulletin. I am greatly oversimplifying the situation, and there are a ton of future unknowns as well with immigration.
  2.    RamonGomez reacted to a post in a topic: All-in time for F4 visa?
  3.    RamonGomez reacted to a post in a topic: All-in time for F4 visa?
  4. RamonGomez
    The only thing I'm confused about it the 25 year figure. Right now the dates in the November Visa Bulleting are Mar 1 2009 (Table B) and Jan 8 2008 (Table A). That means someone who submitted an I-130 on or before Jan 8 2008 is eligible for an NVC interview. That's just under 18 years. Assume 1 year for the interview and visa issuance, so that's closer to 19 years? Of course that assumes wait times won't get longer in the future. This also means I-130s submitted March 1 2009 or earlier are eligible to go the NVC document process. Again - just want to make sure I am understanding this, not looking to argue
  5. RamonGomez started following All-in time for F4 visa?
  6. RamonGomez
    I'm asking this mostly out of curiosity for my own information, but how does the F4 all-in process look? My understanding is: File I-130 for sibling with USCIS. The priority date is the data when USICS receives the I-130. USCIS approves the petition and then the petition sits around until the PD is current. Doesn't really matter how long USCIS approval takes since the PD won't be current for a long time. Suppose it takes 20 years for the priority date to become current. Does this mean that the I-130 is sent to NVC 20 years after is was first received by USCIS? The NVC process is then started (documents, interview, and holdups like administrative processing, visa issuance) which could take months to years. Pack and move. Am I understanding this process correctly?
  7.    Frankjavir reacted to a post in a topic: N 400: Do you think it's worth doing N400 with a lawyer or myself?
  8.    OldUser reacted to a post in a topic: N 400: Do you think it's worth doing N400 with a lawyer or myself?
  9.    OldUser reacted to a post in a topic: I-797-C Notice of Action Typo in Name
  10. RamonGomez
    Our longtime attorney charged $750 in 2023 to (1) review my wife's submitted N400 (2) meet with her for an hour and strategize before the interview and (3) attend the interview. Basically $250/hour which I though was reasonable. She knows all the ISOs at our office and was on a first name basis with the ISO that did the N400 interview. She took extremely detailed notes in case USCIS tried to pull a fast one, and definitely chimed in, clarified where necessary, etc. Both of the interviews were trivially easy.
  11. RamonGomez
    We had a similar thing happen, but for our ROC I-751. Somehow a "q" (lowercase Q) got changed to a "g" on the receipt, despite the petition being completely correct. Tried to use the chatbot, talked to a T1 agent twice, submitted numerous online service requests... nothing worked. Finally wrote a letter and snail-mailed it to the service center. Sent the letter on Monday, on Friday we got a "Name Has Been Updated" status change and didn't have any issues going forward. So snail mailing the California Service Center might be your best bet...
  12. RamonGomez
    If she has a Q visa, can't she just apply for a residence permit and renew it indefinitely?
  13. RamonGomez
    My wife's exam was covered. We have a large healthcare system here (several hospitals + 20 clinics) that had exactly one semi-retired family medicine physician who only did immigration physicals one day a week. It was billed as preventative care and fully covered by our insurance. Not sure if that would still be the case today.
  14.    2022 reacted to a post in a topic: Left country without advanced parole, now trying to return on emergency tourist visa
  15.    est11 reacted to a post in a topic: Scary experience Australian airport CR1 I-551 stamp, worth a good read !
  16.    RamonGomez reacted to a post in a topic: Scary experience Australian airport CR1 I-551 stamp, worth a good read !
  17.    OldUser reacted to a post in a topic: Scary experience Australian airport CR1 I-551 stamp, worth a good read !
  18. RamonGomez
    An entry refusal, even for something as black-and-white as an improper visa, can take 2-4 hours of processing/paperwork by customs and immigration. Then the passenger needs to be held, fed, and cared for medically in a secure facility (not all airports have one onsite), and finally a return flight needs to be arranged. It could be days before one is available. This is very costly and can be avoided by a gate agent doing a two minute cursory check. And there is a central database called Timatic which all airlines use for determining entry eligibility (e.g. what visa do Indians need to enter Panama). But as we found out, there are edge cases and nuances which are not 100% obvious, as happened in our case. CBP also has a hotline which airlines can use 24/7 to resolve any potential issues before a passenger boards.
  19. RamonGomez
    I have some sympathy for the airline employees. There are close to 200 countries in the world. So you take a random traveler that goes up to your desk. They have one of (roughly) 200 passports. And they can be flying to one of 200 countries. That's 40,000 nationality/destination rule sets. Now throw in different statuses and visas (naturalized citizen, permanent residents, student/work visas, extension letters/stickers) and it gets even more complicated. After my Chinese mother-in-law visited us, she wanted to go to South America for a few weeks to visit my wife's sister. Her US visa was in her old expired passport. At the time Peru had a very specific brand-new rule that allowed her to visit visa free. We were at the Delta check in desk for almost 30 minutes with 4 employees googling/calling/checking their databases to verify that she was eligible to enter. Finally the manager overrode the warning and told us that he was going to trust us and that we "better not let him down", because if we were wrong, Delta would be fined $10k and he would get a warning for the refused entry as his name was on the override. 🥵 She entered without even a single question from customs in Peru.
  20.    RamonGomez reacted to a post in a topic: I-751 December 2021 Filers
  21.    nastra30 reacted to a post in a topic: Is filing N-600 really necessary?
  22.    mam521 reacted to a post in a topic: Is filing N-600 really necessary?
  23.    Lemonslice reacted to a post in a topic: Is filing N-600 really necessary?
  24.    OldUser reacted to a post in a topic: Is filing N-600 really necessary?
  25. RamonGomez
    I am currently running into this issue. My stepdaughter got her US passport automatically when my wife became a US citizen. We are applying for another country visa and that country's embassy is asking for my stepdaughters certificate of citizenship as the date she acquired US citizenship is not on her passport. They are not accepting her mom's naturalization certificate as proof. Now I know why the N600 fee is so high - it's probably because the only people that file the N600 absolutely need it in a handful of edge cases. Even if it cost $3000 we'd probably have to bite the bullet and pay. Really bummed about this. But the point of me posting here was to provide another case where a US passport might not be sufficient (applying for visas as a naturalized US citizen).
  26.    RamonGomez reacted to a post in a topic: 3 yr versus 5 yr rule. Does it matter?
  27. RamonGomez
    Right now N400s are being processed lightning fast, especially if you file online and already have an approved I751. By fast I mean 6-8 weeks from submission to oath. There's no guarantee that'll happen going forward the process could go back to the 1-2 year grind it was a few years back. So I'd apply now. It's not that much more paperwork.
  28.    RamonGomez reacted to a post in a topic: Overstaying with an Esta-deportation
  29. RamonGomez
    This seems crazy to me. There are illegal immigrants that live decades in the US and have had interactions with police and haven't ever dealt with ICE. Others who do get caught wait months or years for their removal hearing, and these are people who entered illegally, not on a visa or VWP. I'm also not sure your attorney is correct - afaik you will have issues adjusting status once removal proceedings start (which is ICE basically just telling you to leave if you're here on the VWP). Assuming all this is real, buy the ticket, and talk to 2-3 of the best attorneys you can find before your 30 days are up, at the very least, to confirm that you absolutely must leave and that there isn't some technicality/loophole that can buy you time or an appeal.
  30. RamonGomez
    We went through this and it was super simple. My wife naturalized around November 2023. Wife got her passport a few weeks later. Then applied for stepdaughter's passport with mom's naturalization certificate and custody document as part of her divorce decree (two parents need to sign if the kid is under 16). Stepdaughter's passport arrived in a few weeks. Under 18 - adoption is one option. When we looked into that, it was NOT cheap. but that's because the biological dad has been MIA for 12+ years, and we'd have to show that we tried to find him in China and get his permission by hiring a PI, posting in newspapers, etc. I think we were quoted around $6-10k and 6-12 months by a few attorneys. Otherwise, when he is 18, he can file the N400 on his own. That's pretty much it.
  31. RamonGomez
    You're doing the right thing by researching this. But I think you are going to drive yourself crazy. If 4 lawyers all told you the same thing, including very experienced ones, I would make peace with it, DOCUMENT AS MUCH AS YOU CAN NOW about what happened at the interview, who you spoke to etc. and move on with life.
  32. RamonGomez
    My information is super out-of-date, but it took 3-4 days for the passport/visa to be delivered post CR2/IR2 interview via courier, and that was to a city 300 miles away from the consulate. But this was in 2019... basically an eternity ago. And there was no administrative processing.
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