Veronikac

Biometrics can take a while. I just received my letter yesterday after 7.5 months of waiting (FO is Baltimore, MD). The timeline mainly depends on your local office. You can try to find people from your area and estimate when will be your turn. In most cases, there is no change in your online status when biometrics are scheduled, you will just find mail in your mailbox. Status will be updated after biometrics will be taken. You can sign up for USPS informed delivery which will help you to track your letter. 

Biometrics can take a while. I just received my letter yesterday after 7.5 months of waiting (FO is Baltimore, MD). The timeline mainly depends on your local office. You can try to find people from your area and estimate when will be your turn. In most cases, there is no change in your online status when biometrics are scheduled, you will just find mail in your mailbox. Status will be updated after biometrics will be taken. You can sign up for USPS informed delivery which will help you to track your letter. 

I can finally also report some updates. I received today my biometrics notice for July 19. I am excited that my case is finally moving after7.5 months of waiting. My PD is November 16, 2020 and my field office is Baltimore.

I can finally also report some updates. I received today my biometrics notice for July 19. I am excited that my case is finally moving after7.5 months of waiting. My PD is November 16, 2020 and my field office is Baltimore.

Received biometrics appointment (Code 3) for my mom's cases yesterday in the mail - scheduled for 6/28, RD of 11/25/2020 so 7+ months!  I did raise an expedite request for I-765 on 5/25, not sure if it had anything to do with it but a couple of folks had also posted that it did help kick off their biometric appointments so its definitely worth a try!  Happy to finally see some progress!  Good luck everyone!

I had my interview today. The IO was a nice lady. She asked my wife her name and DOB and my parents name. After that she asked me my wife's parents name. She asked us how we met. Then, she asked those Yes/No questions and that was it.  I gave her some new documents ( joint lease, car insurance , utilities bill etc.) She said everything looked good and verbally approved it. Later I saw the status for I-485 was changed to " New card is being produced"

Thank you. Lets see how soon I will get the biometric appointment. Good luck to you too!

Good to finally see some progress on here!  Maybe April will be month when all our cases start seeing some meaningful progress... we will all soon be eligible to open an SR some time during April as technically we will be outside of the normal processing times for AP!

I have an update for my case. I received today the I-693 deficiency notice. I am still waiting for my biometric appointment.
 
11/12/2020: Package (I-130/I-485/I-765/I-131) mailed via FedEx
11/16/2020: Package received at Chicago Lockbox
12/14/2020: My lawyer and me received all receipt notices by mail
03/29/2021: Received I-693 Deficiency notice

I have an update for my case. I received today the I-693 deficiency notice. I am still waiting for my biometric appointment.
 
11/12/2020: Package (I-130/I-485/I-765/I-131) mailed via FedEx
11/16/2020: Package received at Chicago Lockbox
12/14/2020: My lawyer and me received all receipt notices by mail
03/29/2021: Received I-693 Deficiency notice

There is no reason to wait for 90 days. Also make sure that your J1 is not coming with two years home residency requirement.

Hi,
I have almost the same exact timeline with you regarding the J1 visa, marriage and AOS application. You are definitely a resident alien for tax purposes (you were suppose to be filling as a resident alien since you passed the Substantial Presence test). This mean that Yes, you will be filling jointly as an resident alien. However, I am not sure regarding the different address for you and your wife. You can always choose married filling separately option. 
I am also very hesitate to trust regular tax experts regarding "immigration taxes" and my situation before was also complicated with claiming tax treaty between my country and US. I find this company pretty helpful (I never paid them to do my taxes but I communicate with them and they were very helpful) https://www.taxtake.com/. 

Yes, there is a question about the foreign bank account on the form 1040. You will just answer Yes, I have a foreign bank account and No, you are not required to fill the FBAR. I am in similar situation, I am always reporting my $2 interest from my foreign bank on 1040 form (just in case) 🙂 

That is great that you were approved for expedited processing. Congratulation! DOS told me that they will finish my application way before my J1 will expire and for that reason there is no need for expedited processing (my J1 expires on April 2021). Can I just ask you when your J1 expires? 
 
Regarding the email which you received, there is a possibility that they messed up something and gave you the wrong information and all your documents were receiver but I would rather sent them all what they requested to make the whole process faster for you. Maybe add in the email screenshot of your timeline from the DOS website and ask them what is going on with your application.
 
Good luck!

I am experiencing the same with my case today. If I am not mistaken, somewhere in this long discussion chain I saw that last year some people had the same problem and it was system issue which was resolved very soon and it did not have any negative effect on the case. I thing that the same is happening now and we will have soon our information back.

Hi,
Are you in your 5th year of your J1 visa? If not I will first recommend to extend your J1 visa as much as possible before going for waiver. After you will apply for a J1 waiver, you are not able to do J1 visa extension. 
I do not think that job offer is needed for J1 visa waiver.
You should start with your application as soon as possible because the waiver takes a lot of time. It took to DOS 1.5 month from the time when I sent the application to the point when they updated my case to the stage of "received documents". Then it depends if you have a government funding. If yes this can make your time processing even longer because your sponsor will be asked for sponsor views. The DOS official website is now saying that the processing time can take up to 4 months since they will receive all the documents. After DOS will approve your case you still need to wait for the final USCIS decision which can take also some time.
 
Veronika

Hi,
I just got this response today after more than one month.
 
"We are aware of the issue and are trying to fix it.  In the meantime you can leave that section blank and fill it out before mailing your application in.  Its also helpful to include a copy of your most recent I94 number included in your packet."
 
Hope that this will help!
I mailed in the application with blank I-94 part in the DS3035 form and included extra explanation of the problem with my I-94 number in the package before they responded to me. I am still waiting for the update in the system that DOS received the application (it was received by them based on the tracking on February 4th).

Dear all, 
I would like to just post information for a new waiver applicants. Since last year, there was a change in I-94 number format. The format was changed from 11 digits to 10 digits and 1 letter. However, this format was not supported in the online DS-3035 and was giving error message. When I was filling the DS-3035 earlier this year, I was desperately looking for somebody who is posting or discussing this issue and how to overcome it but I did not find anything. For that reason, I would like to just give a quick update for people which are right now in the same situation I was. The DOS responded to my email after more that one month and said following about the issue:
 
"We are aware of the issue and are trying to fix it.  In the meantime you can leave that section blank and fill it out before mailing your application in.  Its also helpful to include a copy of your most recent I94 number included in your packet."
 
Hope that this can help to somebody!