Firstenburg

We had my wife's green card interview this morning, and it went over without a hitch! Thanks so much for all your support, this journey has been horrible, with one silver lining: All the great supportive VJers!

I've posted a few questions this morning and last night about documents I was in doubt about for the interview. NONE OF THEM WERE NECESSARY. Our immigration officer didn't look at any of our documents or evidence. He just thumbed through our files, asked a few questions, and approved my wife for a 10 YEAR GC. The whole thing lasted less than 20 minutes. We feel very blessed. He was a genuinely nice guy, I was so nervous about the kind of officer we'd get. This guy was cool.

Anyhoo, I guess my interaction with USCIS is now over and all the bad memories can fade away... In 3 years my wife will be able to apply for citizenship and then I'll be back here with more questions.

Take care all!!

The K3 flowchart says this: " If your interview (and specifically the approval) occurs within 2 years of your marriage you will be granted a conditional permanent residency (2 year validity). If this happens you will have to apply to lift conditions 90 days prior to your 2 year green card expiring. If you are 'adjusted' greater than 2 years after you were married you should receive a normal 10 year green card. "

We have our AOS interview tomorrow and we were married more than two years ago. I'm hoping we get a 10 year green card, but want to be able to point to immigration regs on this in our interview if it becomes an issue. Can anyone point me to USCIS regs that back this up?

Thanks!

As long as her visa medical was less than 1 year old when the AOS was received, you should not need another medical (unless they lose it). It was in the brown envelope. If she had all of her vaccines in Brazil, you should have gotten a copy of the DS3025, which you should have submitted with the AOS. This is the vaccine supplement. Take a copy of this to the interview as well.

Thanks for the info. Now I'm really nervous. I don't have any DS3025 document, never even heard of it. When we applied for AOS, we did a medical exam and received a sealed envelope, which we sent on with the AOS application. But I was never given any DS3025 document. All the medical stuff (exams, vaccines) that were done in Brazil for her embassy interview were sent with us in a sealed envelope when we entered the country, and I gave all that stuff to Immigration in Atlanta. They kept it. Ugh...

Am I doomed??

Hey all.. I'm back with questions. It's been a long wait for our interview, but it's tomorrow. FINALLY!

As I was looking over the "what to bring" section of the AOS interview request, I see this:

"A completed medical examination (Form I-693) and vaccination supplement in a sealed envelope (unless already submitted)."

Is this referring to addition medical/vaccination stuff than what we've already done? We did all her medical and vaccines in my wife's native country (Brazil), and we did the bio-metrics appointment here after she arrived. The results of those were sealed in a large envelope that we had to give to immigration when my wife entered the country. Is that the "submitted" part?

I'm going to die if we were supposed to do additional medical for this appointment!

Thanks in advance for your info and help!

Thanks all for the help. I hadn't considered that angle. I will talk to some of my friends and see what I can do.

I was recently laid off (within the last 4 weeks). We're in the process of preparing our AOS application for my wife and I have to provide employment and income information for the I-864 Affidavit of Support form. Should I wait until I find work again to send the application? Or will they overlook the fact that I'm currently unemployed, since I don't have a history of being unemployed?

I'm sorry if this question has been answered before, but I've been looking around and I haven't found it.

I am in the US under a K3 visa, and reading item 2 of the AOS form, it doesn't seem like any of those cases apply to me.

What have other K3 people answer to this item?

Thanks!

Hey Elbereth! I'm in the same place as you. I was told this: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=166118

I found the answer to my own question, in the instructions to form I-693. They state:

What if I am a K nonimmigrant visa holder and already had a medical exam overseas?

If you were admitted as a:

A. K-1 fiancé(e) or a K-2 child of a K-1 fiancé(e), or as a

B. K-3 spouse of a U.S. citizen or a K-4 child of a K-3

spouse of a U.S. citizen, and

C. You received a medical examination prior to

admission, then-

a. You are not required to have another medical

examination as long as your Form I-485,

Application to Register Permanent Residence or

Adjust Status, is filed within one year of your

overseas medical examination.

b. You will, however, be required to complete Part

1, Information about you, and submit the

vaccination section of Part 2 with your

adjustment of status application. A designated

civil surgeon must complete the vaccination

section and Part 5, the Civil Surgeon's

Certification.

The AOS application requests a medical examination report. However my wife never received a copy. When she appeared for her medical in Rio de Janeiro, the doctor sent all her paperwork directly to the consulate. Does anyone know how do I get a copy of this report?

Part 2 of the AOS form I-485 asks for the application type. My wife is here on a K3 visa, and both her I-129F (k3) and her I-130 were approved on the same day. There are two answers that look correct, does anyone know which I should use?

A: An immigrant petition giving me an immediately available immigrant visa number has been

approved. (Attach a copy of the approval notice, or a relative, special immigrant juvenile, or

special immigrant military visa petition filed with this application that will give you an

immediately available visa number, if approved.)

OR

C: I entered as a K-1 fiancé(e) of a U.S. citizen whom I married within 90 days of entry, or I am

the K-2 child of such a fiancé(e). (Attach a copy of the fiancé(e) petition approval notice and

the marriage certificate).

??????

see if this link helps its from examples on this site

http://www.visajourney.com/gallery/display...um=19&pos=1

Thank you very much! That's exactly what I was looking for.

I'm filling out form I485 for my wife's AOS and it asks for her visa number. My wife's visa has two numbers that could be it, one in the upper right that says "control number", and the other is printed along the bottom after her passport number. Anyone know which one is her visa number?

As I was reading through part 2 of the form, I saw this:

I am already a permanent resident and am applying to have the date I was granted permanent

residence adjusted to the date I originally arrived in the United States as a nonimmigrant or

parolee, or as of May 2, 1964, whichever date is later, and:

Could the answer be "nonimmigrant"?

The AOS application asks for our current USCIS status on form I-485, but the form instructions don't explain what status they are asking for. Both our I-130 and our I-129F (K3) have been approved and my wife entered the country in June '08 on a K3 visa.

Is our USCIS status "Approved"? "K3 approved"? etc?? Any help is appreciated, I don't want to make any mistakes on the application.

Thanks!

The I-94 card is the white card she filled out on the flight, It should be stapled in her passport.

*W-H-E-W*

Thank you very much. When I realized which document it was, I didn't remember keeping it. So I checked her passport, and as you predicted, it is stapled there across from her visa. Interestingly, Wikipedia has this to say about I-94:

"Contrary to a popular misconception, it is not the U.S. visa stamp, but rather the stamped form I-94, that authorizes the alien's stay in the United States in a particular non-immigrant status and for a particular period of time."

... which made me even more nervous until I found it.

My wife's I-130 and K3 were both approved in June, and she entered the US on the K3 visa. She has been in the US for almost 6 months now. We're applying for her AOS, and on the list of documents to include is an "I94". Also an I94 # is required on the I-485 form. But to my knowledge we never received any I-94. I've kept and filed every scrap of paper the gubahmint has sent us. And no I94 in our collection.

What is it and who should I contact if we haven't received it by mistake?

My wife's K3 visa AND I-130 were both approved in June on the same day (we waited 1 year for approval). After receiving approval, we chose to continue with the K3 visa because we were told it would be a few weeks faster than continuing with the I-130 application. At that time I was not aware that filing an adjustment of status, which is a requirement only if you come here on a K3 visa, would cost $1100!

Since the K3 is SUPPOSED to be FASTER than the I-130, and it wasn't, I want to appeal to immigration to waive the AOS fee. However the only fee waiver process I'm aware of for immigration requires you to prove you are unable to pay the fee. I *can* pay the fee if I have to, but feel it is not fair to charge me the fee since the K3 delayed a year and was approved on the same day as my I-130.

Has anyone made a similar appeal? And was it successful? Any info would be appreciated!

Good luck to all of you who are still waiting. For what it's worth, I can tell you that after your spouse arrives, this pain will all become a distant memory. I know that probably doesn't help.

My lovely wife and I have been together for a month now. This whole month I haven't wanted ANYTHING to do with immigration - so tired of dealing with the whole process. But tonight I figured I better start preparing for AOS, and I went to the GUIDES section and read up on the process...

IT LOOKS JUST LIKE K3!!

Have I missed something here? Am I reading correctly? Do I really need to pay $1010 just to file???? Our I-130 was approved at the same time as the I-129 and is currently sitting at NVC. What would be the cost/process if I proceeded with the I-130 now instead of the I-129?

Hope someone has better news for me than I have to fill out all the same forms and get all the same translations, etc, AGAIN!!! AND PAY $1010!!

My wife's interview was the 13th, and her visa was cleared. I went down to Rio last week to surprise her, a week earlier than she was expecting. We spent 2 days there and came home. It's worthwhile to tell you what happened with the consulate, and at the POE (port of entry) in Atlanta, because for us, everything we thought would be easy was hard, and what we thought would be hard was easy.

First, receiving our visa from the consulate was delayed. My wife's interview was on the 13th so we planned to travel a whole week afterward, since we had been told by the consulate to give them 5 days to print and deliver the passport/visa. We bought tickets to leave on Friday the 20th. If you read my other post about surprising my wife, you know that I paid extra to bump our date up a week after the consulate changed our interview date underneath us from the 20th to the 13th.

So I expected that getting our visa would be no problem. However on the morning we were supposed to leave, we had still not received our visa. We went to the consulate and were treated very rudely! We were told it was our own fault for buying tickets before we had the visa in hand. We were also told that the cause of the delay was a printer malfunction at the consulate. We began to fret! But we got the visa about 10 or so hours before our departure. All of our friends who have gone through this only waited 2-3 days to receive the visa.

Then we came to the US via Atlanta. Immigration and customs was a sinch! We spent no more than 15 minutes waiting in customs, to be cleared. I heard that process was longer, and they interview your immigrant spouse in a separate room for hours. That was not the case. I have heard that LA, Dallas, and Miami are bad. Atlanta was easy!

Anyhoo we're home now and life has begun!!! We are so happy!!

Camila's interview at the consulate in Rio de Janeiro was this morning. I got a call from her at 5:45am. I wasn't expecting a call till around noon, so I immediately assumed there was a problem. I was half asleep too, so when she yelled into the phone that her visa was approved, I thought I heard her say denied. It took a second to hit me! She was the first in line at the Consulate and the first interview of the day and done in about an hour and a half!

But, we now have an approved visa and are just waiting for the consulate courier to deliver it to her (about 3 days).

What my wife doesn't know yet (but my Mom predicted) is that I caved and paid the change fees to move my flight to Rio up a week. The consulate originally set her interview date for the 20th. Then after we had bought airline tickets, they moved the date to the 13th, leaving my wife twiddling her thumbs for a week and a half. The cost to move the tickets up a week was big, so we both decided that it was more practical to wait the week and save the money. But I'm impulsive and emotionally driven. So after I got off the phone with the reality of an approved visa staring me in the face, I called the airlines and changed the tickets.

I said my wife doesn't know yet, because I've decided to make this a surprise. I could hear it in her voice this morning that she would love to come here earlier, but didn't want to ask to spend the extra money. So I'm not going to tell her, just gonna show up in Rio and try to catch her expression on camera.

Anyhooooo, I'm so freaking excited I can barely type. I leave next Tuesday (17th) and will be home with Camila on saturday the 20th.

Woot!!

OMGOMGOMG I have an intervie for June 20th!

The lady said they sent me the packet on may 14th, and I haven't received it yet... weird

Whatever, I'm happy

Serious?? Wow that's such a coincidence. Ours was scheduled for the 20th too! Then they called my wife just now to tell her that they made a mistake, and it's actually on the 13th!!

Good luck! and Congrats!!

Firstenburg, how long did it take to RDJ to contact you since NVC informed you they had fowarded your petition?

NVC sent my petition 14 days ago and I still have no word from RDJ. I sent them 2 e-mails, but they haven't replied. I am going to try to call them today, but their phone line is really tough to get though

Had we not contacted RDJ, we still to this date would not have heard from them. And they have had our papers for over 2 weeks now. I called them, because NVC told me when they sent the papers and I had an idea when they would arrive. They got to RDJ 4 days after they left NVC. My advice is to call as early as you can. They only take calls from 1:30 to 3:30pm RDJ-time. So call right at 1:30 and your wait time will be under 10 minutes.

Just FYI, my wife called me JUST NOW while I was typing this to tell me that RDJ called her to tell her that they made a mistake with our interview date. It is exactly 1 week BEFORE the date they gave us. You would think that would be good news, but our airline tickets are purchased, and now we have LESS time to prepare. So be aware that RDJ is very disorganized.

Good luck!

Thanks all for the info, folks!

To pushbrk: For as many questions of mine as you have answered here on VJ, you should be an immigration attorney! Seriously thanks for all the help.

I'm confused. On the consular site for Rio de Janeiro, the list of documents needed for K1 (which is what they require for K3) includes a "citibank fee". However no mention is made of a fee on the list of documents for the normal immigrant visa. Does anyone know what consular fees are for K3 and why I have to pay a fee for K3 but not for an immigrant visa? I'm trying to get through to RDJ now, but it's been almost impossible. And they only accept phone inquiries from 1:30pm to 3:30pm.

Congrats on your interview and stay positive. I'll send positive mental energy your way. Ours is coming up soon too, in Rio de Janeiro.