JacobP

On 10/25/2021 at 7:44 PM, JacobP said:

Update on this, passport was shipped today, coming from Tucson according to tracking. Pretty fast, I must say.

 

So Expedited Renewal, Locator 19

Delivered to PA Facility on Oct 18

Received by Department of State on Oct 20

Shipped on Oct 25

Got my new passport today. It's the next-gen version. It shipped from Tucson but the return address is from Dulles, VA, which probably confirms that 19 is the DC office.

On 10/24/2021 at 4:55 PM, JacobP said:

My expedited passport renewal application was received on 10/20 and the locator number is 19, which is apparently DC. Anyone have timelines for DC out of curiosity? Seems less common from searching around.

Update on this, passport was shipped today, coming from Tucson according to tracking. Pretty fast, I must say.

So Expedited Renewal, Locator 19

Delivered to PA Facility on Oct 18

Received by Department of State on Oct 20

Shipped on Oct 25

My expedited passport renewal application was received on 10/20 and the locator number is 19, which is apparently DC. Anyone have timelines for DC out of curiosity? Seems less common from searching around.

Re: Medicals

As far as I know, your overseas medicals don't expire as long as you filed the I-485 on the basis of your K-1 and your medical wasn't over 1 year old when you filed. The new vaccine requirements shouldn't invalidate the old medical, the new requirements should only apply to anyone doing a medical after the 1st of October. I think that 4 year extension for the I-693 was super limited and mostly doesn't apply anymore.

4 hours ago, Ophelie Houlmann said:

Good morning everyone. I finally got my interview scheduled! I was wondering one thing; how was your interview? Did they separate your spouse and you in two different rooms to ask questions? Were you always together? 

We weren't separated at any point, we were hardly asked any questions besides clarifying what was on some of the evidence. Your mileage may vary because some other people clearly have way different experiences.

39 minutes ago, laylalex said:

Congratulations!!! Was this at the downtown LA office?

Nah, this was at the San Fernando Valley office down in Chatsworth. VisaJourney needs to add it sometime. On another note, the I-485 case status updated to "Approved" tonight at 9pm, after saying card was produced last night. Seems like all the cards tend to update like this.

And the case was just updated to "New Card is Being Produced". At 8PM at night. I guess they're working late.

1 minute ago, LegalAlienn said:

Glad it went smooth and that you didnt have a really uncomfortable interview like I did. Your status will probably change tomorrow afternoon to new card being produced and hopefully by the end of the next week you’ll have your greenie 😊

Well her green card, I'm the petitioner lol. Yeah, it was hardly anything. They didn't even ask us anything about our relationship, we were totally prepared to tell our whole life story if they asked. Dunno why, but I'll go with it for now.

17 minutes ago, Siggy said:

Hope you will get good updates on your case.. what proof of relationship have you submitted at e time of AOS application? 

Maybe a couple dozen photos, as many flight receipts as I could scrape up, and photocopies of whatever passport stamps we had. At the interview I gave them a couple of our joint tax transcript, copies of my employee benefits with with her on my health and dental plans, and a letter from my parents stating that we live with them along with a mortgage statement. They actually specifically requested that letter since we don't have our own place at the moment.

Well that was easy. They barely asked us anything, just went over a few of the photos we submitted in advance looking for ones with our parents, then took some additional evidence I had, and explained the I-751 process. Case is under review, they mentioned they had to do some security stuff first, no updates on the case status yet.

About to drive to our interview appointment today. Wish us luck!

On 9/8/2021 at 12:45 PM, JacobP said:

She got a SSN on her K1 I-94 but it's in her maiden name. She did ask for a new SSN card on the I-765 so hopefully they just update the name for us and avoid the headache of getting another appointment.

So she actually did get an updated SSN card today, same number but married name now, so that saves us some trouble. Will probably try to get an appointment for another one without the "work authorized only with DHS approval" text when she gets her green card, but at least it won't be a huge problem.

Technically, vaccines aren't required for K visas at all. The embassy can't refuse a K visa over incomplete vaccines, but come AOS you would need a civil surgeon in the US to sign off on your vaccines, and it can be hard to get a civil surgeon to just do vaccines and not the entire medical. Also not sure how panel physicians overseas feel about skipping on the vaccine check.

That being said, the DS-3025 vaccine form that panel physicians fill out and submit to the embassy does have a few categories which they can blanket waive, including not age appropriate, flu shots out of season and "not routinely available" as stated earlier, so vaccines can still be considered complete in these cases and this will normally be accepted by USCIS at the time of AOS. 

Hopefully she can get the vaccine she wants as soon as she can regardless.

1 hour ago, Kaatje said:

Received card yesterday!

Nice! Did they never update your case status? My wife's updated yesterday to show "case approved" on both the EAD and AP. I have informed delivery to give me a tracking number regardless of whether the USCIS tells me or not.

7 hours ago, canadian_wife said:

Did you read the link HRQX posted?

 

good luck

I read the thread and the impression I got was that some WoM cases weren't succeeding in the first place (as in the writ was never granted by the court), not that negative action was being made in response to the WoM, with the "expired K-1 petitions" being a separate issue. 

And even then, for cases such as IR-1, there's no such thing as a petition expiring. Has someone had their IR-1 denied as a direct result to a WoM?

18 hours ago, canadian_wife said:

That decision may be a denial.  Are you prepared for that because you forced their hand and they had not finished with your case and could not approve you?

 

good luck

Are there any examples of someone's case being denied because of a writ of mandamus? This is a common response to the subject on here, but I haven't seen an example of it happening.

1 hour ago, LegalAlienn said:

Same here... I’m so confused, this doesn’t make sense! Oh well 

Yeah this is pretty standard. The case status says the card was ordered, then it says it was approved. No idea why, but that's how it is.

2 minutes ago, HolaHola said:

That was exactly what I was trying to get once I arrived in the US back in October 2020. All the SSA offices were (and still are) closed and I realised I could have gotten a SSN too late....glad you guys were able to get one!

Any word if the EAD itself was mailed yet?

3 minutes ago, Kaatje said:

After my first marriage dealing with name changes I decided to keep my own name knowing the hassle with that 🙈🤪

We're young and naive, it's ok.

1 minute ago, Kaatje said:

Yesn same here, got my interview coming monday. But I got my SSN card in the mail today, yay!

She got a SSN on her K1 I-94 but it's in her maiden name. She did ask for a new SSN card on the I-765 so hopefully they just update the name for us and avoid the headache of getting another appointment.

Wife's EAD was updated to being produced today as well. A little close to the interview but whatever.

13 hours ago, laylalex said:

I stole JacobP's trick (i.e., using the chat function) to find out our interview date when all we knew was the notice was coming. October 7th! We also didn't expect to get an interview this quickly. 

The LA area field offices must've sped up or something recently. Granted, I think you're in the actual LA field office which is faster than mine, but still, it's great you guys got a date!

On 8/25/2021 at 12:07 PM, KevinOtgoo said:

Our Biometrics were completed on July 19th. We submitted an expedite request for the EAD the next day (July 20). As of today no further updates. I chatted with Emma on Friday and got the standard blah blah blah...just wait from the very unhelpful agent.  Just wanting to vent today.  Happy to see so many of you moving forward.  

They got completely jammed with expedite requests recently as word started spreading on how to do it and how many people had positive results. It used to be something people only did occasionally when EADs weren't slated to take over 8 months.

Wife's interview got scheduled for September 30th. We asked a live chat agent for the date today so we didn't have to wait for the mail, but we got the status update last Friday. Seems oddly fast for our field office, considering their estimate completion time was 11.5 months at a minimum (used to be 14 when we filed!), this would've been 8.3 months not counting any time between interview and issuance. No idea why we're ahead of schedule all of a sudden, was honestly expecting to wait another 2 months, but I'm not complaining! 

Being interviewed separately is unusual, being asked for evidence you live together and other evidence is standard, and having your case not approved immediately is something that happens to plenty of people. It's hard to tell why the IO made those decisions, but it's behind you guys, there's no point in worrying about it for now. With any luck they'll approve your green card any day now now (could take several weeks though, you know how the USCIS likes to drag things on). The worst case scenario is they schedule a second interview, it's rare they deny applications outright after 1 interview, but chances are 1 interview is enough for approval.

8 hours ago, laylalex said:

I subbed to your timeline and just saw you got your biometrics -- congrats! Really hoping we aren't too far behind you, this has been an insane wait.

Thanks! Yeah it was a biometrics appointmentment. The status didn't update online saying it was coming, which apparently it hasn't done for anyone. We made a service request on June 21st since the I-131 was technically out of processing time, which said to expect a reply by July 13. The appointment notice was dated for July 10, so maybe that had something to do with it? Or it was a coincidence. Either way, it's good that they're doing something after 6 months.

Informed Delivery is telling me there's a letter from the NBC in the mail, but it hasn't been delivered yet. Could either be an RFE or Biometrics. Praying for the latter.