rndz

Your comment about an ATM in Thailand makes me a little uncertain if you'll be in the US or Thailand mostly, but we're faced with a similar situation and we're using TD Bank.  One of their account tiers (I forget the name) has free checking with a minimum required balance and allows one free international wire transfer per month.  It still requires you to visit a branch in person.  So, you could have the direct deposit into this account and then make the monthly transfers.

If you can't or don't want to do that, you could always use Wise to transfer the money to the Thai account.

We use both methods, and I've noticed there's little difference in the net cost.  Wise advertises good exchange rates, but you'll pay a fee for each checking-to-checking transfer.  The TD Bank wire transfers usually show up the next business day.  Sometimes the Wise transfers are instantaneous, and for some reason they've never been able to explain to me sometimes they are delayed for 2 or 3 days, so plan for this if the funds are needed in the destination account immediately.

Had our interview in June cancelled because of an interpreter no-show (we had contracted someone from a local agency to be available by phone).

Showed up at rescheduled 11/29 interview and a second interpreter we hired was standing by waiting for our call.  Instead, USCIS interviewer called another number somewhere within the organization and was connected to an interpreter almost immediately.  Wish we had been this lucky 5 months ago but we were approved and I guess all's well that ends well.

On 9/21/2022 at 8:05 AM, favored13 said:

 Does anyone have a trick to get live agent on phone? 

During the recorded answering spiel, say "Infopass" and you'll get into a queue to speak to an agent - at least that has worked for me as recently as last week.  We're in the same situation - didn't think there was a need to apply for AP, then my wife had a death in the family.

Good luck.

We're November filers and just had something strange happen.

• Had our interview in June - our interpreter didn't show.  The interviewer decided that a hastily-arranged substitute didn't meet his standards and the interview was canceled, with a follow-up NOA indicating that it would be rescheduled.
• Have heard nothing from the USCIS on the application or new interview date, but in the meantime a family situation almost requires us to travel back to Thailand (we didn't apply for AP with the AOS submission).
• Last week we submitted the AP application with the hopes that we could have it expedited after it is received.
• Today we received two separate NOA's for the I-485.  The first one notifies us of a rescheduled AOS interview mid-October.  The second one cancels the same interview.  The Notice Date on both is the same.

It seems that these NOA's arrived too quickly to be related to the AP filing - the Notice Date is about 4 business days after I mailed the I-131.  But I can't imagine a scenario where an interview would be scheduled and then canceled on the same day.

17 hours ago, Andrs01-2020 said:

 

but by "Phone interpreter" is someone that we should hire? or one USCIS will provide?

I have several paralegal friens that can be interpreter as per they translate documents, but want to make sure we are in the same page

 

 

Although the USCIS does claim to provide phone interpretation services, I would recommend hiring one.  I'd also think carefully about using a friend.  Here's a little more about our experience.

We are in a situation similar to yours - my wife reads and understands English well enough when spoken slowly but we didn't want to risk any confusion during a possibly stressful situation.  We contacted a business that provides both in-person and phone interpretation services and arranged for a phone interpreter about two weeks ahead of the interview.  One week prior to the interview we had an initial conversation with the interpreter to verify her skills in both languages and confirm that she had done this sort of thing before.

The arrangement with this particular company is that you don't have the direct contact information for the interpreter (worrisome, but I can think of a few good reasons for this) and that the interpreter calls you at the scheduled time.  We were still in the waiting area at the USCIS office at the scheduled time and there was no call from the interpreter.  I contacted the company and they were also unable to reach her.   We ended up having about 20 minutes between the scheduled time and when the interviewer was actually ready for us and used this time to contact one of my wife's friends to act as a substitute interpreter.

From the start, the interviewer seemed annoyed that my wife's friend (whose English is very good) was not a professional interpreter.  We had to fill out the G-1256 form on the fly in the office (name, address, driver's license info) and this put the interview behind schedule.  After the interview started, there were some problems with the flow of the interpretation - not interpreting quickly enough or starting too soon and talking over the interviewer.  I'm not faulting my wife's friend for this - I was in the room and it wasn't obvious to me either when the interviewer was expecting the interpreter to start speaking.

After a couple of these glitches the interviewer declared he was terminating the interview and we would have to reschedule.  I asked about the USCIS service, and he said that it could not be pre-arranged and there was no guarantee for our language that an interpreter would be available.  I think he was being a bit of a jerk at this point and said that he would try it now - he called a number from his desk and we waited for about 5 minutes on hold listening to music before bailing out.

20 hours ago, Andrs01-2020 said:

Good day friends,

 

so I have the interview schedule in 2 weeks from k1 to GC - all looks good and it moved super fast, 

now im reading on the stories and nothing much on the language or the officer asking only in english?

wife understands written english but talking is a whole different level - she speaks spanish - our office is in Miami

can I translate to her what he/she may ask or do I need to hire an interpreter?

 

thanks and good luck

 

As others have said, you cannot be the interpreter.  My additional comments after a recent bad experience with this:

• Get as much information as possible (but don't sign!) for the G-1256 form prior to the interview.  Most of this relates to the identification of the interpreter.
• Declare as soon as you meet the interviewer that you will be using a phone interpreter.  Every interviewer and office is probably different, but ours seemed to have an attitude about this and acted as if he had the power to not allow this.
• The USCIS does provide some level of interpretation services, and I imagine they might offer this for a common language like Spanish. Personally, I wouldn't depend on this - our interviewer went through the motions of calling to arrange this on the phone and we were subjected to the same wait music we've heard many times before when trying to contact the USCIS externally. 

Interviewed today and we've taken a step backwards.

• We had pre-arranged a phone interpreter (with a company that supposedly does this as a business) and neither we nor the company could find the person at the time of the interview.  Tried to continue with an acquaintance and the interviewer stopped the interview after a couple of glitches in the question and answer process flow.
• The interviewer rejected the translated versions of a couple of documents were submitted with both the I-129f and I-485 - don't understand why this wasn't covered in an RFE instead of waiting until the interview.

We also wanted a fully typeset document for our submission and ended up using PDFescape - of course, the disclaimer here is that their site will store a copy of your information.

The process is somewhat tedious, but first we saved a copy of the PDF with as much of the content filled out in Adobe as possible.  Then we uploaded it to the site and cut and pasted the Thai information (created in a word processing doc with the Thai character set) as appropriate.  I think the site just rasterizes the document, so it won't be just filling in the blanks - you'll have to spend a little time aligning the content with the form.

One advantage, besides appearance, is that after doing this you'll have an electronic image for printing copies later if needed.

In our NOA for the AOS interview the letter states that we may have an interpreter available by phone and we have someone who will do this for us (not a professional interpreter, but fluent in Thai and English).  When I was digging into this a little more, I see the USCIS apparently requires form G-1256 from both parties, signed in the presence of the interviewer.  

Asking anyone who has used a phone interpreter how they handled this -- thanks.

8 minutes ago, Clarevalley said:

Thanks, I'll try that.

I forgot to mention that another alternative is to use one of the online sites that will let you upload a PDF and add edits wherever you want.  Of course, with these you have to understand that you are losing control over your information.  I can't remember if it was the I-129F, but we had some trouble getting a lengthy Thai address in the Thai character set entered into the downloaded PDF and went this route.

2 hours ago, Clarevalley said:

I don't understand how Adobe plays into this. I did initiate the I-129F process of filling out the form directly from USCIS site. It's not a download per say. It's more of going to the USCIS site and going to the link to initiate the process of filling out the interactive form. So while I'm filling out the form it's still connected to the USCIS site.

 

If you opened the form from the link on the USCIS web page, your browser has opened the form in whatever application is used by your browser.  As per a previous reply here, download the form and open specifically with an Adobe app.

On 3/19/2022 at 4:26 PM, AJ2019 said:

We received ours in 6 days (during height of pandemic - June 2020). Not sure how it is recently. 

Thanks -  the letter arrived a couple of days later for us.  It was for a document that I'm pretty sure we submitted, but it's easy just to upload another copy.  

Tip for others -  when logging on to upload today I see that the details of the RFE were added 3 days after the original email notification to the information for our case.  I didn't think to check there again while waiting for the physical letter - had only checked immediately after receiving the email and saw nothing.

After more than 4 months since our AOS filing we received an email notifying us of an RFE.  The email notification doesn't give any details and I was expecting the followup letter to arrive within a couple of days, but haven't seen anything after a week.

For others who have received RFE's - how long does the letter with the specifics of the RFE take to arrive?

Thanks.

13 hours ago, sparks517 said:

When I try to copy and paste Thai into the PDF, the letters show up as dots. I suppose because it's Thai. I can't figure out how to display Thai in the form. Anyone have any ideas?

I've seen that before myself (with Thai) when opening the PDF with a web viewer - do you get this with the Adobe reader?

12 hours ago, New2Visas said:

Hello, My fiancé and i are finishing writing our application. However, we've received multiple answers as-to if we should leave Not Applicable items empty or write "N/A"? Not sure if this will affect how the application is read by the reviewer or automated form reviewer. 

Let me know as soon as you can! 

We filed last year and were probably over cautious, writing N/A every place that would accept it.  Approved with no problems. But, as Mike E. says, make sure that the entry can't be interpreted as a legitimate answer - off the top of my head names and addresses would be the only place to be careful.

On 2/2/2022 at 6:17 PM, Komomo said:

Hello everyone. My green card interview is coming up in a few weeks,and I’m just wondering if the USCIS Sacramento office have an interpreter service on the phone or we should prepare for that by ourselves if necessary?  
 

I’ve heard that some USCIS Offices have interpreter services and we don’t need to prepare for that.  
 

I don't think you can count on it - for example, see https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/fiance-marriage-visa-book/chapter13-12.htm

I think the USCIS provides interpreters for asylum cases (only).

On 1/26/2022 at 2:58 PM, Joyoussinger said:

It would be a good idea to take an updated I-864, and supporting evidence, to the interview with you. My income changed while our AOS was processing and that's what I did.  We were still above the guideline minimum, so it was not a problem at all. The IO didn't ask us about it, but I volunteered it and she looked at me like I was being silly and took our updated form. Enjoy your retirement! I'm enjoying mine! It's a whole new and wonderful life for us!

Thanks for sharing your experience and the idea about having an updated I-864 ready to go if asked.

I haven't seen this discussed anywhere and was wondering if anyone has any experience with this.

We have filed I-485 adjusting from a K-1 and the supporting I-864.  Like most people with similar timelines the process has taken much longer than we expected when we started, and if I can believe the various estimates we're probably looking at an approval in Q3/Q4 this year.

I'm considering retiring sometime this year and am wondering if this would somehow delay the process since obviously the I-864 info would no longer apply.  I can imagine being asked to confirm the information as part of the interview and having to admit to a change.  (Note:  retirement income would still be well above the guideline minimums).

Luckily the timing of the retirement decision would be up to me unless something unexpected happens.  Again, my only concern would be triggering  additional administrative delay with the AOS process.

15 hours ago, Margot999 said:

Thank you for the reply. How to check which office is ‘local office’ for me? There is no office near me… Is the nearest one gonna be my local office?

I don't know if the cases are moved around to balance workloads, but probably whatever shows up when you search at https://www.uscis.gov/about-us/find-a-uscis-office/field-offices  will be your office.

Our biometrics were done at an application support center - you can find those at https://egov.uscis.gov/office-locator/#/asc .

11 hours ago, Margot999 said:

Hello. Is anyone waiting for the biometrics appointment letter over 200days after applying AOS? I sent my AOS package on June 2021 and the status says ‘Fingerprint fee was received’. It doesn’t change from 200 days ago… USCIS processing time is about 10 to 24months, but it seems most of people who applied AOS these days gets biometrics letter really quick.(about 1-2months?) I keep asking the live agent of Emma but they always answer, just wait at least 24months. Is anything I can do now, just waiting? If anyone know something, please tell me. Thank you.

It may depend on the resources of your local office - have you tried  querying the timelines on this site with filters for your visa type and local office?  Enable advanced mode will let you see the filing date, NOA received, and Biometrics appointment info for other cases for comparison.

14 minutes ago, dmeister3 said:

Hi VJ!  Just a quick question here. How long after filing the AOS packet did USCIS cash your check? For the K1 packet I paid with a credit card, but it doesn't appear we can do that for AOS (if this is incorrect, let me know! We love getting our amex points.)

 

Thank you!

For us, NOA shows receipt of application on 11/2 and the check was cleared on 11/8.

On 12/14/2021 at 10:46 AM, tahm said:

...  Do I just fill out AOS and SSN with the new marriage name even if on the marriage license my name is the maiden's name? Is that legal? 

The advice you've received is good, and I'll add a related note.  When you and your spouse start visiting banks, etc. to change accounts to joint ownership bring a copy of your marriage certificate as well as the SSN card in your new name if you don't yet have US ID in your new name.

14 hours ago, kloisha said:

...

Ok, rant over.

I was ranting to myself about the Acrobat forms as well.  They were broken in different ways for all of the non-Windows PDF software I tried and I actually installed a Windows VM just to eliminate most of the problems.  Even in Oct 2021 the "K1 not allowed because it contains a number" problem existed on my form and I just used a lowercase "L"  to move on.  Glad it wasn't a different category of visa...

20 hours ago, LJVotolato said:

I am applying for the AOS (I-485) based on my K1 fiancé visa, and have read the instructions and looked at the sample form provided on this website. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find an answer to this question ...

 

For what it's worth, I read the requirement as needing all divorce certificates and we included them all in our submission.  Everyone has different tolerances for exposing personal data that may not be necessary, but we didn't want the potential delays of an RFE.

8 hours ago, mattUsUkr said:

Is the issue better if you get the SS# before getting married, then get a name change at marriage? Or would this still complicate the process?

I think the complications will just move to different places in the process no matter what you choose to do.  We chose to get the SSN card right after marriage in the new name.  This required presenting a certified copy of the marriage and divorce certificates at the SS office because the passport and other (foreign) ID was in the original name.  But even though SSN cards aren't supposed to be used as documentation, banks later asked for it when changing to joint accounts in the new name, seeming to want to see something printed with the new name.  We filed the AOS with the married name and will be going in for biometrics later this week - we'll see if problems come up there with the new name that doesn't match any of the ID's.