Cornflake

To be honest, I really think everyone should add a request for a combo interview when uploading their N-400 documents online or when sending the package physically. It's just a one-page document that takes 10 minutes to write. This effort is minor compared to the entire process you've been going through from the beginning, including the numerous pages printed and the many documents gathered and presented. Sending this combo interview request makes it easier for the person reviewing your case to clearly see that you have an I-751 pending. Of course, there is a system where they can see it, but sometimes it gets overlooked. Why not help the reviewer by pointing it out?

I did upload a request for a combo interview and I had a combo interview.

When I had a combo interview for the I-751 and N-400 a few days ago, the officer said that it takes a few minutes for them to conduct a background check.

Thank you! Have you checked the status today? It should soon change to "Oath Scheduled." Good luck to you! Hopefully, we will be done with USCIS this spring.

Yes, I have both updates. Regarding I- 751 the status changed to: April 5, 2024 Case Was Approved April 5, 2024 We transferred your Form I-751, Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence, to another USCIS office that now has jurisdiction over your case. April 4, 2024 Your Form I-751, Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence, was transferred to another USCIS office. N-400 Oath Ceremony Notice Was Mailed April 4, 2024 We recommended that your Form N-400, Application for Naturalization, be approved. Your case was submitted for quality review. April 4, 2024 Your Form N-400, Application for Naturalization, was placed in line for oath ceremony scheduling. April 4, 2024 We scheduled an interview for your Form N-400, Application for Naturalization. February 14, 2024

Use Canva to upload all your photos, then create a document with dimensions of 1980x1980 px or a bit larger, like 2500x2500 px, or a letter size up to you. Arrange all the photos as a collage (you can add text if needed), making sure they are not too small, and save the file as a JPEG at 80% quality. Afterwards, you can use the ImageOptim app for Mac (if you have a Mac), but the Canva file should be enough. PS: 100 MB is unnecessarily large; they're not printing your photos as a billboard. They just need to check the legitimacy of your marriage.

So here is my experience with my N-400 and I-751 combo interview. I received both invitations a little over a month before the interview date. Location: Los Angeles Appointment time: 6:45 AM Arrived: 6:20 AM Was called in: 8:05 AM Finished: 8:30 AM The interviewer did not allow my husband (a US citizen) to enter the room with me; he had to wait in the waiting room. Interestingly, the interviewer didn't request any documents listed in the mail invitations for the combo interview, even though I had prepared about 500 pages of proof for the I-751. All I was asked to provide were my ID, my passport, and my green card. First questions: - What's your full name? - Your date of birth? The interviewer interspersed N-400 questions among the I-751 questions. Also he seemed a bit annoyed when, at the beginning, he asked for my husband's middle name, and I inquired whether he needed the shortened middle name (as it appears on my husband's ID and passport) or the full name. He kept saying, "Just say his middle name," and seemed annoyed by my question. In general it seemed like he didn’t wanna any conversation like talk, he wanted me just answer the questions straightforward and he didn’t wanna hear anything more or less. N-400 Questions: - What did Martin Luther King, Jr. do? - What are two rights in the Declaration of Independence? - Who vetoes bills? - There were 13 original states. Name three. - What is the name of the Vice President of the United States now? - During the Cold War, what was the main concern of the United States? I-751 Questions: - Full name of the US spouse - Date of birth of the US spouse - Middle name of the US spouse - Parents' names of the US spouse - When he became a US citizen? - Is he still a US citizen? - How he became a US citizen? - Where you were born? - Where your husband was born? - How many times have you been married? - How many times your husband has been married? - How many kids you have? - How many kids does your husband have? - When you got married? - How you met? -Were you separated at any point? - What was your marital status when you met? - What countries did you travel to together? - Where do you work? - Did you pay taxes each year since becoming a green card holder? Writing sentence was: "California has a lot of people." I don’t remember the reading sentence exactly, but it was not a basic one. Then, he proceeded to ask yes/no questions from the N-400 form. By the way, the interviewer spoke quite fast, and his pronunciation wasn’t very clear, which could make it difficult for someone not perfectly fluent in English to understand him completely. I’ve heard many people say that the N-400 interview was the easiest, but in my case, it was more tense. The interviewer was much stricter than the woman who conducted our first interview. At the end, he mentioned that he would inform me of the result in about 15 minutes as he needed to perform a background check first. When he called me back, he said, "I have bad news and good news. The bad news is that their system is down, and he can't complete the background check until the technician arrives to fix it today. That’s why he can’t give a final decision now. The good news is that he most likely recommends approving both cases, and I should check my USCIS account later in the evening.

I have a combo interview scheduled and have already received two interview notifications: one for the N-400 and another for the I-751. However, that's not my concern. My question was directed at Alexis22, asking if she noticed those changes in her status on the USCIS website. In her situation, the interviewer didn't have the proper documentation to approve her case, even though it had already been transferred. That was my question.

Did you see that status update on the USCIS website? I'm supposed to have a combo interview in a few days, but my I-751 status hasn't changed since February 2023. I'm wondering if this will affect my interview in any way. February 8, 2023: Case was updated to show fingerprints were taken. November 10, 2022: We received your Form I-751, Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence.

Did you receive a mail requesting the petitioner to appear for an initial interview on the same day as your naturalization interview? Or were you hoping it would be a combo interview?

Thank you! I just checked my USCIS account regarding the I-751, and it doesn't even indicate "interview scheduled" or anything of that nature, despite the fact that I received an interview schedule in the mail. The latest status is "February 8, 2023: Case Was Updated To Show Fingerprints Were Taken."

Hi everyone! Hope you're all doing well. It's been a while since there was any movement on my case, so I'm excited to share that it's finally starting to move. **N-400 Application for Naturalization** - Submitted on November 10, 2023. - Biometric appointment was scheduled on November 11, 2023. - Interview for naturalization was scheduled on February 14, 2024. - Received the mail on February 20, 2024. - Interview is scheduled for April 5, 2024. - Received a mail titled "Request for petitioner to appear for initial interview" for the petition to remove conditions on residence on February 23, with the notice dated February 17, 2023. The interview is scheduled for the same date/time as the Interview for naturalization. I'm currently in Los Angeles, CA. Good luck to everyone!!!

I had issues when entering Mexico, my friend was even denied boarding. It's all also depending on which country passport you have, do you need visa to go to Mexico or not?

I went on a cruise in March, 2023, Celebrity from Puerto Rico to different Carribean islands - no problem whatsoever.

Same here. Received the 48-month extension letter.

Actually, here is the information from the official mexican consulate website. It seems like they want to see a VALID and UNEXPIRED resident card, otherwise, you need to apply for mexican visa. General Information: (Effective May 18th 2016) All foreigners, regardless their nationality, are required to present a valid and not expired passport or travel document when entering Mexico (traveling by air, land or sea). If you are a Permanent Resident of the following countries: Canada, the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and any of the countries of the Schengen Area, you do not need a visa to enter Mexico for tourism, business or transit purposes. All individuals in this category are required to present their valid and unexpired Resident Card along with their passports. Both documents must be valid during your entire stay in Mexico. US travel document holders must present a US valid Permanent Resident when entering Mexico if they are nationals of the countries listed in the following link: http://www.inm.gob.mx/index.php/page/Paises_Visa If you have a valid and unexpired visa of the following countries: Canada, the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and any of the countries of the Schengen Area, you do not need a visa to enter Mexico for tourism, business or transit purposes. All individuals in this category are required to present their valid and unexpired visa along with their passports. Both documents must be valid during your entire stay in Mexico. If the permanent resident card or US visa stamped in your passport is expired but you have an official document or form proving your legal status in USA, you must apply for a Mexican visa at this Consulate. All EAD cards, I-797 A Forms, Advance Parole Forms, I-20 OR DS-2019 are not accepted to enter Mexico.

Thanks. I'm not too worried, I just decided to try to expedite the process. Didn't help though.)

My close friend had a different experience a year ago. She wasn't allowed to board the plane in Los Angeles with an extension letter. Also, there are multiple stories online about how people were denied. So maybe it's just bad luck for some people, but there are so many beautiful countries I'd travel to instead of Mexico because I don't wanna pay thousands of $ for my vacation and probably won't even be able to board the plane. I've been to Cancun, and Playa several times already. And to be honest, I prefer Dominican Republic, Aruba, or St. Martin.

I just got back from my short vacation in Chile. I had a flight LA-Houston-Santiago, Chile, and another flight was Santiago, Chile-Mexico City-LA. Stupid me forgot that Mexico is not the country I should travel to or use as a transit country. I know that because a year ago my friend was going to spend a nice time in Cancun with her husband when they (don't remember which airline it was) didn't let her even do a check in because she has an expired green card and an extension letter, which they don't accept. A day before my flight back to Los Angeles I realized that I have 2 hours layover in Mexico city, which is not a good thing. I decided to apply online for Mexican electronic visa just in case of any issues with my extension letter. Even though I wasn't planning even go out of the airport in Mexico. Anyway, only citizens from Russia, Türkiye and Ukraine can get electronic "visa" online. I successfully received my Mexico Electronic Travel Authorization within 2 minutes. Check in at Santiago de Chile airport went smoothly, without any issues, they asked for my Green Card, and I gave them my extension letter as well. The problem was at the Mexico city airport. First of all, Mexico City doesn't have transit zones, like, for example, different cities in Europe have, which means you have to go through all the checkpoints as if you're leaving the airport. It's not a big deal, but in that case, you have to have a proper visa to enter Mexico (if you're from the country which requires you to have a visa). And once again they don't accept or don't like (I don't know) these extension letters paired with an expired green card. When I arrived in Mexico City a woman at the checkpoint didn't speak English at all, and I don't speak Spanish. She asked for a visa, I showed her the Electronic Travel Authorization I received a day ago. She check it, checked something on the computer, and started filling out my information on a piece of paper. That not went well. She told me to follow her, and apparently, I ended up in the room for the second screening. She pointed to that paper several times telling me to sign it, every time I replied to her that I'm not gonna sign anything written in Spanish because I don't understand what's in there. Someone who worked in that room barely could speak English and explained to me that the paper said there was some alert when she check my name in the system. I said I'm not gonna sign anything anyway until I get the same paper but in English. They took my phone, and separated me from my husband. Long story short. Then they brought me an English version of that paper, but this time it said that there are some issues with my visa, not an alert thing. A man who looked like a boss was running back and forth with my passport and some other papers back and forth, and after like 30 min of waiting he came to me and said all good, don't worry, here is your mexican stamp in your passport, you can go. Also, he said that woman who brought me to that second screening room did a mistake and she thought I have one thing ( I didn't understand which one), but I have this Electronic Travel Authorization, so I have no problem entering Mexico. So the bottom line is: do not recommend travel to Mexico with an expired green card, and an extension letter.

Because it's been a while since USCIS received all the documents and no information regarding biometrics has been updated I decided to contact USCIS a few weeks ago. I received a very strange email from them today, which surprised me a lot. So here is the email: "Dear *****: On 01/28/2023, you or the designated representative shown below, contacted us about your case. Some of the key information given to us at that time was the following: Caller indicated they are: -- Applicant or Petitioner Attorney Name: -- Information not available Case type: -- I751 Filing date: -- 11/10/2022 Receipt #: -- WAC-***** Referral ID: SR***** Beneficiary (if you filed for someone else): -- Information not available Your USCIS Account Number (A-number): -- Information not available Type of service requested: -- Non-Delivery of Other Notice The status of this service request is: You or your representative contacted USCIS concerning your case to notify us that you have not received your biometrics appointment notice. Below is a summary of what we found and how the issue has been or may be resolved. Our records do not indicate that you are authorized for access to information related to this case. Title 8 Code of Federal Regulations 103.2(a)(3) and the Privacy Act of 1974 prohibit release of information to persons other than the petitioner, applicant or legal representative identified on Form G-28. What You Can Do Please contact the petitioner or attorney of record for information regarding the petition. We hope this information is helpful to you. " Why they said that "Our records do not indicate that you are authorized for access to information related to this case." ? I'm very confused!

WAC received my package on Nov 21, 2022 and no news regarding biometrics since then.

I'm completely out of luck 😃. Based on the USPS informed delivery email I should have received the extension letter several days ago, but I still can't get it from the mailbox because "magically" I can't find the key. It seems to have disappeared into thin air. It never gets easier)

Happy update 😄 After 11 days of waiting for any news, I finally received a text message from USCIS. Receipt #WAC.... Packet received by USCIS (Phoenix): 11/10 Text received with application number: 11/21 Check cashed: 11/21

Don't worry, you will receive the message sooner or later! I was in the same boat. My package was delivered on 11/10 and I got a notification only 11 days later, no holidays or anything like that, and it took them that long!

Same here The package was delivered on 11/10 and no news since((