N0mad

34 minutes ago, arken said:

I guess contacting congressperson doesn't hurt though not sure if they can help. At this time waiting is the only option.

 

If you are in a rush, you could still file 2020 tax return as Married Filing Separately and amend to Joint tax return after your spouse gets SSN.

I see, I didn't realize that you could file separately without SSN (e-file system won't allow it, but reading more about it it looks like I can still file by mail). I will look into it, thanks.

30 minutes ago, JeanneAdil said:

not sure who told u that she can not get i ITIN

 

ITIN. An ITIN, or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, is a tax processing number only available for certain nonresident and resident aliens, their spouses, and dependents who cannot get a Social Security Number (SSN).

 

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/taxpayer-identification-numbers-tin#:~:text=SS-4PR PDF.-,ITIN,NNN-NN-NNNN).

The manager at the local IRS office told us this, and it's consistent with your link. I think your interpretation of "cannot get a Social Security Number (SSN)" is different from IRS interpretation. According to IRS, she CAN get an SSN, it's just taking much longer than they expect.

My wife and I are dealing with a frustrating situation due to how poorly local SSA office has been handling the issuance of her SSN. I was wondering if there is a similar option to writing to a local Congressman to get the issue expedited as with USCIS cases that are being held up. Basically, there are a lot of moving parts, to make long story short:

• in 2020, our primary residence (a home I owned) burned down, insurance has agreed to reimburse me but I need to buy a like-kind property within 2 years (1 year has already elapsed, and I need to show submitted 2020 taxes to lenders)
• we filed an extension on 2020 taxes anticipating that she would have her Green Card in the fall
• in summer of 2021 she received her EAD and shortly after (September) we had her interview and she received her Green Card
• we requested her SSN in August using EAD documentation (because like with many others, we did not automatically receive an SSN despite requesting it on the forms we initially filled out), SSA told us not to resubmit the application with her Green card as that would introduce additional delays
• local IRS office has told us that we need to wait until her SSN is issued before submitting our 2020 taxes since she no longer qualifies for an ITIN
• without her SSN, she still can't get paid (even though she can and has started working)
• because we can't file taxes without SSN, we can't make offers on any of the properties on the market because lenders require last year's taxes to be filed (meanwhile the clock is ticking)
• to date, 4 months after requesting it, we have not received her SSN (a process that SSA has claimed would take 4 weeks). Based on SAVE portal, we see that her SSN application got returned twice already to SSA, after calling local SSA office, the reasons seem to be:
  • 1st time SSA clerk forgot to attach a portion of the file (which resulted in a delay until Nov 3, when it was resubmitted)
  • 2nd submission had a discrepancy in the address (because our old primary residence burned down), and this seems to be causing another several-month delay
  • the file was just resubmitted for the 3rd time and we're still waiting for it

Meanwhile, we can't purchase a new home until we get my 2020 taxes submitted (and are running out of time with insurance reimbursement), which we can't do until my wife gets her SSN, and her 2021 income likely won't be paid until 2022, pushing us into a higher tax bracket. Basically, the apathy exhibited by SSA in processing our case is causing real financial harm to us. The only complaint form I see online for SSA seems to be to report fraud, which is not applicable here, if anything this seems more like negligence. What are our options? Can we write to a local Congressman to get them to follow up with SSA as some people recommend with USCIS? Is there another agency we should contact who can expedite the process with SSA? My understanding is that it should never take 4+ months to get an SSN, even in post-COVID world. Thanks.

We're in similar boat, but we never received any notice. Got the greencard in September, local (Boston) SSA office is by appointment only, which requires you to snail-mail all documentation ahead of time. When they scheduled an appointment, they said that they need to request it by mail. We waited 4 weeks, called them up and found out there was a clerical error that resulted in our file just sitting there until we called (not sure why they didn't inform us). The clerical error has since been fixed, but another 3 weeks later there is still no word from them. This dysfunctional system is getting really frustrating at this point.

Thanks, I forwarded the PDF over to them, hopefully they'll back off seeing how it's official guidance from SSA.

We don't have an ITIN for her either yet. Based on talking to IRS, we will be filing an application for ITIN with the IRS at the time of filing our taxes (IRS won't let you apply for it ahead of time, we already tried) and not sure how long it would take them to respond with an ITIN after. From what I've read, tax returns with ITIN also take longer to process.

My wife was one of the people stranded in US during COVID, so we applied for Adjustment of Status from her B2 Visa (I am a US Citizen). At the same time, knowing that she won't be going back, I added her to my health insurance (there is an option to specify that the person does not yet have an SSN).  We filed our AOS/EAD forms back in September, got I-797 confirmations (with MSC prefix, so looks like National Benefits Center) but nothing else so far. What worries me is that looking at the timelines on this website, it seems to imply that NBC has completely stalled their processing so I have no idea how much longer it will take. In the meantime, I need her SSN both for our taxes (I'm planning to file through local office that would submit an ITIN application at the same time) and for her health insurance, which keeps bugging me to provide them with her SSN and threatening to remove her from the plan if I don't. I explained the situation to them a couple months ago and at first they seemed to be understanding, but now they're back saying the same thing.

Aside from providing them with all of our USCIS paperwork and explaining that it's a very inefficient and tedious process and that we're kept in the dark the whole time, I don't know what to do. How do others handle their health-insurance situation when in this situation (since it's required by law in US)? Can health insurance company legally deny her for USCIS stalling? I should also mention that so far we've only used it for routine annual appointments (vision test, physical, dental cleaning).

In case of I-485 for a spouse (beneficiary), is I-944 Part 1 to be filled out by the petitioner (US Citizen) or by beneficiary? I didn't see this explicitly stated in the instructions, but I'm guessing beneficiary? Also, for household assets, can we list petitioner's assets (real estate, bank accounts) even if the beneficiary isn't on the mortgage or given bank account (because they were obtained prior to marriage)? For information regarding tax filing, do they only care about US or beneficiary's home country as well? It's kind of problematic for us to obtain tax statements from beneficiary's own country while within US and petitioner's income is high enough to not need it.

We just received our K-1 NOA2, we know the next steps based on the forums, but are a bit confused about possible gotchas with Moscow Embassy that we heard about from others. It is possible we were misinformed or misunderstood something, so I wanted to clarify:

• I've heard that processing times have gotten much longer recently, and many people choose to fly to Poland or Ukraine to get Visas (this was from a person obtaining a B-1 and may not be applicable to K-1)
• On several forums, including this one, I see threads about people moving their K-1 interviews to other embassies (https://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/663101-moving-interview-to-another-embassy/)
• Skimming the Russian section of this forum now, I don't see much mention of this problem anymore

So are processing times still an issue in Moscow embassy or has the situation gotten better? How feasible is it to do the interview in Moscow without transferring the case? What's the expected wait time? Is transferring the case to another Embassy like Ukraine worth it or would it just waste more time?

4 hours ago, HispanicLover said:

APPROVED!!!

Congrats!

Now I'm getting lonely here in the NOA2 waiting room.

I'm at 125 days as well, I did try filling out the form on the website last week and the server refused it because "it's still within normal processing time" until the 7 month mark unfortunately. I tried calling to talk to a human, but it seems like all their prompts now redirect you back to the website, which already refused my request.

118 days, still waiting

So I may be reading tea leaves here, but based on looking at NOA1 dates for members who did and didn't get approved already, as well as trying consecutive WAC numbers on USCIS website tracker before and after our own (which also mostly correspond to I-129F), I'm seeing the following:

• Very few cases from 9/23 got reviewed yet (so it doesn't look like the real processed ratio is higher than the 25% we see here, if anything it seems even lower portion was processed, and that's official USCIS data, so it's not affected by people forgetting to update their timeline)
• Of ones that did get reviewed, all but 1 are RFEs, with 1 approval (I doubt they single out RFEs so most-likely explanation for this is they already reviewed our applications for preliminary errors and sent RFEs to ones that were obviously wrong, submitting the rest to additional background checks, which we're now waiting for)
• I'm seeing more cases reviewed on 9/25 than 9/23 (so maybe different days are processed in batches, somehow the 9/25 batch made it ahead)

OP, just wanted to confirm that we're in the same boat as you. Our NOA1 was also 9/23 and we're still waiting, seeing people from 9/26 getting approved before us got me worried as well, but I was told to expect some variance by other members. Overall, doing a timeline search between 9/20-9/27 (approximate timeframe) I see 31 applications and 7 approved, so it looks like they're about 25% into processing them. Hopefully we'll hear from them sometime in the next week.

Our NOA1 date was 9/23/2019, based on VIsaJourney timelines and similar timelines for other members, I'm seeing that we were supposed to hear back by 1/7/2020. When looking at similar timelines, I'm seeing members whose NOA1 date was a few days after ours already get their response several days ago (same processing center, CSC). Is it possible to have someone who applied after you receive their NOA2 ahead of you from the same processing center? Should I reach out to USCIS or is it too early?

I'm also wondering if maybe I'm going by a different date. On NOA1, there are 2 dates: received and filed. I'm going by the received date since that is also the date that shows up in the online status check form. Should I be going by the filed date (9/26/2019) instead?

@carmel34 The only potential red flag they may raise is relatively short time knowing each other (several months) compared to other couples here, who often know each other for several years. This is also why I was thinking of attaching additional evidence showing how well we fit in all other dimensions (culture, hobbies, etc.) but I don't know if this is really a red flag or I'm just over-worrying. I may be overthinking it since "how long have you known each other" is not a question on I-129F either.

She is in Russia. Does it help to front-load this evidence for Moscow embassy?

One of the bullet points in K-1 guide mentions an optional step of providing proof of ongoing relationship (tickets of future trips, chat logs, etc.). In another post I've been reprimanded for trying to explain how my fiancee and I met (something other online sources recommend), being told that USCIS doesn't care for a love story, they just want 1-2 sentences with concrete dates showing evidence of having met once in the last 2 years. Reading other member's RFEs and official USCIS instructions I see absolutely nothing about proof of ongoing relationship. Some other posts even mention that it's just clutter that slows down processing of your application. Despite it actually being recommended in the VisaJourney guide (unlike a page of explanation/summary of how we met and summary of our trips together, which several members told me USCIS doesn't care about), I don't see any evidence of USCIS wanting this information. With the explanation of how we met, at least a case can be made that it's overly verbose answer to question 54 of I-129F. With proof of ongoing relationship, I see no way to tie it back to I-129F at all. So does this information help at all or is it just clutter? I also want to clarify that I have plenty of evidence to attach to our case, but if it just clutter that USCIS doesn't care about, I'd rather not add it.

8 hours ago, HP+IC said:

Don't make your life harder, go on I-129F with what her valid загранпаспорт says. Or have her apply for a new one with Maria if her name was ever spelled that way before on expired passport. If she doesn't have a patronymic on her foreign passport, don't mention it on your paperwork. Knowing that I corrected the spelling of my name to something acceptable in the USA but my son has had a passport by then with no opportunity to change it. So be it, his school in NYC is full of Dariias, Mariias even Iuliias and they are not the most difficult cases out there. Really, no one cares. If she really does, she will change it at naturalization.

PS: it is better to abstain from changing her last name after marriage unless you have a very strong reason to do so. The amount of paperwork upon arrival is overwhelming, and topping it with a fresh name change will make it even harder. I am really happy we were advised not to change my last name until naturalization.

One of the reasons for wanting to change last name is that she doesn't want name ambiguity/confusion for our future children, which we'll likely have before naturalization.

36 minutes ago, CM&KV said:

Main name is what is listed in his  external passport (the one to travel out of the country), since these need to match.

Listed as other names, his Ukrainian transliteration and  the different spelling of his patronymic name, I even went as far as to make a note on the attachment saying these are transliterations.

So based on what you're saying, we would need to use "Mariia" for now since that's what her zagran-passport states? Do you know if we'd be able to change it to "Maria" at the time of obtaining our marriage certificate in US (since we will be changing her last name to match mine anyway)?

My fiancee has her name spelled weirdly (Mariia) on previous B-1 paperwork and her загран-пасспорт (zargran-passport). Can we put the correct spelling (Maria) on I-129F form for K-1 visa (and then mention Mariia as other names on later forms (i.e. DS-230), or do we have to state her first name exactly as it appears in zagran-passport and deal with renaming her on later paperwork years later (after naturalization)?

Thanks guys, another question. If I received my own citizenship through my parents naturalization while being under 18 (I have Citizenship Certificate but no Naturalization Certificate), should I claim "Naturalization" or "U.S. citizen parents" for  question 40 on I-129F? I'm not sure if the latter option is only applicable to people born abroad or for people such as myself as well.

@Pitaya I'm still confused about the situation with mailing original Intent to Marry letter from the beneficiary when she's located on the opposite side of the world? Does it need to be original or can it be a scanned document? The original is not practical to obtain until the next time we see each other (in a month, and I wouldn't be able to mail the packet until I'm back to US a few weeks later). It seems like this would be a common problem, and I didn't see USCIS instructions specifically claim that they want the original (although VJ instructions say so). Can we send a scanned copy?

Regarding the name ambiguity, her actual name is indeed written in Russian, my confusion is from the fact that she has it written differently from what we'd prefer in her B-1, travel/itinerary docs we plan to provide as evidence, and also differently in her social media accounts. Will this be a problem or will UCSIS staff understand that this is simply a translation quirk of the office where she obtained her B-1 visa?