mam521

Quick one: have you actually met your fiance in person?

I would wait the extra couple of weeks. Honestly, it's so not worth the headache when you're THAT CLOSE to your 2 year anniversary. Believe me, I get it. I had to pack up my kids and move out of the States (I met my husband when I was on a work visa), leaving our family home, the kids' schools, my "regular" job, still paying a mortgage back in the US and looking after rent and bills in Canada for 18 months. Hubs and I had discussed and decided anything within a 3 month window of our 2 year anniversary - we'd wait. Happy we did, even though we had to move in the middle of covid when the border was technically closed and school, work, logistics were all a giant cluster of uncertainty.

We got married March 31, 2018. We had an interview March 9, 2020. We waited until April 1, 2020 to enter the US after heeding warnings from people here. Best thing we could have ever done. We didn't have to remove conditions, we didn't have to request joint ROC & naturalization interviews, no carrying around extension letters, no ridiculous, inflated fees...none of it. With the current state of affairs, a couple of extra weeks to have that permanent, 10 year card is worth it. Considering how long the process has taken, what's another couple of weeks? Marriage is supposed to be forever. This is just a blip in that timeline.

Good lord...Monstersaurus has the zoomies something fierce...mini elephant doing burnouts upstairs. Just heard a crash and went to investigate. One of Kid1's Lego Botanicals projects has been relocated. This cat really needs some cat furniture besides a simple cat tree!

Sorry, one other question - appointment or walk in?

Absolutely this. Texas DPS will absolutely do a SAVE verification and ask you for EVERYTHING. I got screwed over during covid because our vehicle insurance cards didn't list both of our names on them (they were separate cards..I don't get it). Anyway, the DPS agent was unwilling to even look in the system to see that I was a named person on the insurance and sent me away. I was so defeated but there was a really nice State Trooper standing outside who told me not to worry about it - yeah, I was supposed to change it within the 90 days but considering the circumstances, it would be ok since I still had a valid driver's license from Alberta. A few weeks later, I managed to get an appointment at the Spring Supercenter and the lady helping me was really great. She shook her head in disbelief when I told what happened in Conroe. She got into the system, fixed some issue in my file and got me sorted. I was issued an 8 year license. @Crazy Cat how did you guys let them know when your wife got her citizenship? I have updated with the SSA but I haven't even given it a second thought for my license!

The only consulate in Canada that does immigrant visas is in Montreal. The Montreal consulate is a challenging consulate and irrespective of DCF, are likely going to require proof of domicile. Having an address only is unlikely to cut it. I'd also get those taxes filed because just because the kids' cases may be exempt from the I-864, it certainly doesn't mean the Consulate won't ask for it. You really, really don't want an RFE from Montreal because it will take forever. Yes, Dr. Cheema is in Vancouver and does immigration medicals.

As @OldUser pointed out, each case is unique. Every person who gets a verbal approval still has to go through AP (administrative processing) where further checks are done. If your record is squeaky clean and your name is not common, it's typically pretty quick. If you have lived many places, have multiple citizenships or permanent residencies, if you have a common name...all takes longer. This is precisely why the DoS advises one NOT to make travel plans until the passport with visa is in hand.

You are married to an American and have a greencard. Nothing to worry about. Also remember, there's 3 sides to every story and pretty much every one that hits a headline leaves out some important information, when you dig into them further. That news article about the Canuck - yep, she'd been POE shopping and had been told by a CBP officer to go through consular processing. Furthermore, she been advised by her legal counsel to listen to CBP and not attempt to go to Mexico. She didn't listen...play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Go and enjoy Japan! It's an amazing country! Tokyo's Shibuya crossing was straight out of Lost in Translation. We also explored in Kyoto and I dragged my travel partners to the primary Ippodo Tea house. We definitely plan to go back and explore further

There's only one facility in Kentucky that is printing greencards. Remember, it's not just new greencards that require printing - all the renewals (2yr ROC's and 10yr renewals) plus whatever lost cards, in error cards, etc come from that facility.

The biometrics appointments take about 5 minutes, if your fingerprints cooperate. They retake fingerprints and take your photo. That's it. Mine took about 10 minutes when I did it because I had 2 fingers that didn't want to reveal their identity and scan nicely.

As @Crazy Cat said, get prepared. Make sure you take your spouse with you to the interview. I suggest the US Citizenship Test 2025 app to cover off the N-400 knowledge requirement.

In addition to the marriage certificate, has your wife updated her information with the SSA to reflect her new last name?

You can always try Ask Emma too. If you do call, you may have to escalate from a Tier 1 agent to a Tier 2 agent. Good Luck!

I submitted through my myUSCIS account. I sent an inquiry, creating an auditable communication chain there. They essentially have until midnight to still say it was the 27th, so just keep that in mind. And they do sometimes wait until the 11th hour to move on something, so don't be shocked.

Saw this and thought you may want to consider adding it to the ever so lucrative POTS ventures... Kid2 was grossed out by the accidental purchase of Dr. Pepper Zero. Yeah, hard pass he says. Don't blame him. I can't stand Coke Zero myself, so I pretty much attribute all of the "Zero" beverages to be a hard pass. I was chuckling at the cotton ball comment 😄

I'm with you on that. It's about as clear as light reflections on vanta black paint. 🤷‍♀️

The petitions aren't linked. The only time they are linked is when a child is a derivative on a fiancé or family preference case. Now that both mom and daughter have CR-1 and CR-2 greencards, respectively, the cases are managed individually. The wife's naturalization case is hers and hers alone. It's confusing because the child automatically obtains derivative citizenship, irrespective of a case being filed. Filing the N-600 isn't actually a request to obtain citizenship; it's a request for a certificate of proof of citizenship. The daughter is a citizen as soon as mom naturalizes, as long as the daughter is younger than 18 years old at the time of mom's naturalization. Again, it's one of these weird and wonderfully confusing nuances of USCIS. Based on the following, I'd wager a guess that once mom naturalizes, daughter can get her US passport and her N-600 and not waste the money on ROC, especially considering how expensive the N-600 is. https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-12-part-h-chapter-4 If curiosity prevails, chuck it at Hacking's show and see what he has to say.

I'm not an ice in beverages fan. My kids are. Ice is good for pina coladas and margaritas...I don't like it in regular beverages or water. I have a smashed front tooth from playing lacrosse years ago so it's sensitive to cold. Ice is such a North American thing! You can probably guess the brand of junk refrigerator we have. Korean brand. Absolute favorite of @Ontarkie (yes, insert dripping sarcasm! 🤭). We use a high volume of filtered water because Texas...kids, pets, lots of filtered water. I used to have a water cooler in Canada that took the big 5gal bottles, which was great, but everything eventually wears out and it took up space. We're going to go out later and take a peruse at what's available. Very likely to be the well regarded Bosch 800 series since it's a dual compressor model that is $500 off for Memorial Day sales. I'm just annoyed because I recently purchased a new, overhead garage door as a "big ticket home improvement" item, not anticipating having to consider whether I want to be continually inconvenienced or just replace the misbehaving refrigerator. Definite first world problems, I know. BTW, your kitten is beautiful! 😍

Nah, it's a piece of #######. I vacuum the coils on a regular basis (3 cats, a dog and 2 kids...they are all gross) and from reading on the forums, it's a known issue that will just continue to worsen over time. We're looking at replacing it with a dual compressor unit. The plan is to renovate the kitchen in the next couple of years, which means we'll move the location of the refrigerator as well. We would have purchased a counter depth unit then, so it may just come sooner than later. Depends what we find because I'm not paying 5 figures for a fridge! And, well, we can potentially get a Memorial Day "sale". The only annoyance is I have yet to find a fridge that does filtered water ONLY. I would rather buy a countertop ice maker because that's the first thing that always goes on the refrigerators. I'd do an under counter filter for water, but that will come when we renovate, not now. Sigh.

Exhausted today. Last night was Kid1's graduation. 630 (sorry, @TBoneTX, I can't p math that one 🤣) or so kids in the graduating class. We were exhausted by the rudeness of some of the parents/families there. If your kids are too young to sit still for the time it takes, hire a babysitter. Seriously - we had a family sitting beside us and they got up 5 separate times to go do whatever and get whatever food and drinks, which required us to stand to let them pass. On the 6th, they left for good. But it was right after their graduate's name was called and they didn't wait until the end, despite there being more graduates being applauded. Meanwhile, in front of them were the two most well behaved kiddos who were polite and quiet and cheered when their graduate walked across the stage. I get it - it takes a long time, but come on! Show some respect. Kid1 graduated cum laude so was WAY early on, but we still stayed until the end because everyone should have their moment to cross the stage, diploma in hand. The poor behavior made it feel more like a sporting event than a graduation. Got home and the refrigerator was acting up. It's taken to icing these days. I miss the days of refrigerators lasting 40 years. This one is 11 years old and is just annoying the ####### out of us. We had to pull all of the food out, unscrew the back, inside panel, use the hair dryer to melt the ice, dry it, close it up, reload the food. NOT my idea of fun after such a long day. Kid2 has today as a final full day of school and then half days with finals for the rest of the week. So close to the end of the school year... Very much looking forward to this upcoming long weekend.

You may want to check out this thread for Montreal EB-2's waiting on interviews.

Yup. I was diagnosed with cervical precancer during my first prenatal exam with Kid2.

Sounds like you're making some decent headway with the house, @TBoneTX. It's hard work now, but in retrospect, you'll be glad you did it. The Marie Kondo approach can be very freeing! We had Kid1's senior awards last night. Oh my word...that was 2 hours I will NEVER get back...BORING. The actual graduation ceremony is Monday. The weather will apparently be excessively warm and windy. As long as the wind isn't TOO excessive, it may not be such a bad thing since the ceremony is at an outdoor pavilion. Doors open at 6pm with the ceremony commencing at 7:30pm. We plan to be there as the doors open so we can grab good seats for photo ops and to ensure we're under the shade sails where the Big ### Fans are churning.

Wonderful to hear things are progressing along! If you're a driver at home, I'd head into the local agency and get yourself a copy of your driving record to bring to the US. Not sure what the reciprocity agreements look like in NH in regards to license exchange, but your insurance rates are likely to be much less if your insurer has proof that you're not a new driver and in fact, have a driving history in Norway.