Moe428

21 hours ago, stillbaffled said:

Congratulations fellow Canadian! I'm so happy for you. I'm waiting to hear for me. It now says 3 months! 

Hope it goes well for you.  I was surprised this took all of 3 months.  USCIS isn't known for this kind of speed in the recent history.

I had my interview and oath ceremony yesterday.  It was quite smooth except for waiting for the oath ceremony after the interview, but still better than having a separate path ceremony.

Is it actually random though? Almost everyone in the southwest appears to get assigned WAC.   Similar trends are observed in other states.  Yes there are exceptions but I am talking about where the vast majority appear to end up 

1 hour ago, L and J C said:

Hi there, when you applied for global entry with your expired GC and extension letter, did you just put the expiry date of the extension letter (your expiry date + however long the letter extends it for) on the Global entry app? Thinking of trying this as well. My situation is ROC (I-751). Thank you. 

I didn't go for global entry - I was going for TSA PreCheck.  But the TSA PreCheck employee did exactly what you mentioned and it worked.

I was in a similar situation, and I included the lease agreement and renter's insurance in ROC packet.  It is also important to include a letter explaining why you have two addresses and why you may be living separately part time.

I answered Yes on question 22 and for the explanation I gave the second address and mentioned there's an attached letter with the explanation.  I also didn't file AR-11 because it didn't make sense.  

FWIW, my ROC completed without interview or RFE.

1 minute ago, Crazy Cat said:

I don't think so.  Once a case status changes to "Case is ready to be scheduled for an interview", the local office comes into play.

Had we not filed the N-400, who knows how long it would have taken for the I-751 approval.

Not sure if OP's I-751 case is in that state.  OP can confirm.  The vast majority of I-751 cases don't require interview assuming N-400 doesn't get filed.

43 minutes ago, Crazy Cat said:

Your local field office is the driving factor for I-751s, instead of the service center. 

Not if OP hasn't filed N400, which they haven't.  So its still dependent on the service center.

1 hour ago, pm5k said:

Presented both.  Officer said "it isn't a green card so it doesn't do anything"

Bad training.  In my case, they called someone to verify the extension letter could be used to extend the expiration date.

Do you mean getting TSA precheck or going through an airport with TSA precheck?

Actually it doesn't matter, I have gone through both with expired card and unexpired extension letter.  It did take 3 months to get TSA precheck approved - not sure if it's related to expired GC and extension letter or not.

I was in a similar situation myself.  On my I-751 I selected the checkbox "Have you lived at any other address"? and mentioned the other address in the additional notes section, and wrote an explanation letter.  FWIW, my I-751 was approved without an RFE or interview.

3 hours ago, OldUser said:

Meanwhile Hacking changed the tone about N-400 while I-751 pending. Now he suggests applying (opposite to advice given only a few months ago):

 

 

I would still suggest waiting if the service center is WAC, or if any of the other service centers come back down to less than 15 month at 80th percentile.  

WAC seems to be regressing so it may not be long before it makes sense to file N-400 with a pending I-751.

5 hours ago, Stein said:

I was born a US citizen.  I've never been called.  "They" say that the jury duty pool isn't tied to voter registration records.  I've not registered to vote for almost 30 years.  I've never been called.  You decide based on those two points.

You probably got lucky then.  Odds are an individual will get called at least once, and probably more than once throughout their life.

24 minutes ago, Stein said:

In my 55 years I have never, ever been called for jury duty.

Which country? My wife was called in both 2021 and 2022.  I was also called but I used the juicy "I am not a US citizen" reason to excuse myself.

In any case, it's something to consider.

1 hour ago, Kai G. Llewellyn said:

Damn. Are they okay with folding it? xD Because as LPR's we're supposed to have proof of our status at all times.

I folded it into 4 levels for a year and re entered US 3 times using that paper.  Now it's another question what that paper would look like after 4 years of folding.  I only had to have for a year.

You have listed the advantages, but let me list a couple more disadvantages:

1.  No need to perform jury duty

2.  If you ever need to permanently leave the US and are OK with losing your GC, not getting US citizenship is a better option.

There is one other advantage to be aware of, and that is being able to sponsor your parents or siblings (parent sponsorship is quite fast). 

I am still on the fence about applying myself.

14-15 months on the low end, 26-28 months on the higher end.  Depends on which service center you are assigned.

6 hours ago, BellaUnion said:

Got a canned response - case is still within normal processing time. The prevailing advice seems to be to keep sending them in until you get some action, but we didn’t send another one since we’re out of the country atm and don’t want to force the issue while we’re away. 
 

Hoping that nothing will happen until we get back to the US. Even if we do get a notice while we’re away, it should be possible to call them and reschedule, though, with everything USCIS, that sometimes leads to its own set of problems. 
 

As far as biometrics go, it seems that not only the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, but the left hand doesn’t even know what the left hand is doing. But what can you do? We just can’t put our entire life on hold for potentially 6 months because of this.

With WAC it takes several months for biometrics update.  Maybe for other service centers the advice is to keep sending requests, but definitely not WAC.

1 hour ago, whiterose123 said:

That really sucks .. did you have an interview for ROC or was it waived ?

It was waived, although I didn't apply for N-400.  If you don't apply for N-400 and let the I-751 play out on its own, odds are it will be waived.

On 1/6/2023 at 2:17 PM, BellaUnion said:

Same at California. Filed 2 months ago. Made a SR for biometrics notice, but got a canned response - case still within normal processing time etc. 

Not sure if things have changed but a year ago it was taking 6 months to show that biometrics were being reused.

Well, this thread is headed for closure.  My final thoughts before it is locked.  IMO the comment about risks associated with poorer countries is going to trigger some people, and rightly so.  It's another way of saying that white privilege did help.  I know mindthegap's situation is not typical, but I am talking about people filing from the "friendly countries" like Canada, EU etc.  

10 hours ago, mindthegap said:

I’m happy for you, but I’m also pretty mad that this happened - obviously I’m not actually mad at you, just my continued annoyance, frustration and exasperation with USCIS. Nothing surprises me with these clowns any more.
 

You apparently submitted less evidence than most, and are from a country and region that it is no secret that the US deems as high risk, that is well known for giving extra scrutiny to all applicants from….yet you get approved in a month? 
For once on here, I am lost for words. 

Congratulations

Based on what I know about USCIS and how they determine risk, for marriage fraud from South Asian countries one of the risk indicators is marrying someone not from that region, particularly Caucasian, Hispanic or African American.  If they marry someone from same country of birth or descent, that usually cuts down the risk substantially in USCIS eyes.

As for security risk, I would suspect that's more determined by the embassy than USCIS.  

54 minutes ago, Olga&Jared said:

 

Oh yeah, when I think of that other possible ocean of misery (sorry not sorry) with not getting lucky to have an officer who can approve I-751 at an N-400 interview, waiting for another 2 months doesn't seem so bad anymore  Thank you for reminding me of that! 

The annoyance of having to deal with the extension letter, especially in cases where the other party is not fully aware of it, is a big reason to prioritize I-751 over N-400, at least for the short term.  And yeah like OldUser mentioned there have been countless cases where IO wasn't able to adjudicate I-751.  It really depends on how much rush you are in to get US citizenship.  

1 hour ago, Olga&Jared said:

Did anyone else get an approval this month? I've checked that quite a few cases were approved among 17000, just a few among 18000. My case number is in 21000, and I'm starting to slowly lose hope given that we're entering a holiday season. I've started filling in N-400 application on USCIS website. On one hand, I really want to file before we hit pre-Christmas PTOs, but on the other... Ehh. I'm so torn! It looks like wait time for the interview in San Francisco local office has decreased to 5-6 months. I wonder if it makes sense waiting for another 1-2 months for possibly getting a green card. 

There have been a decent number of approvals and RFEs in the 20xxx range.  I think it's worth waiting at least till Christmas to see if any movement happens 

5 minutes ago, ODATT said:

How close to 2xxxx is your case? Trying to estimate how long it’s going to take. 

It's in 17xxx range.  I just checked and it seems they haven't started working on 18xxx yet. I would suspect they will get to 2xxxx in 2 weeks or thereabouts.

1 minute ago, JackMatt said:

Congratulations! Is your receipt number in the 1000's or 2000's?

It's 1xxxx.