DK999

A couple contributors in the previous thread seemed to believe otherwise. So that raises the question: why are so many ghetto IR-1 people given 2-year green cards? Is this just human error on USCIS' part?

Spouse and I arrived in the land o' free today and thanks to some of you nice folks we came prepared for the ghetto IR-1 hurdle. Long story short, first officer says he can't endorse her CR-1 visa as IR-1. I ask for the supervisor. He says the same thing. I don't accept defeat and he says well you can take it "to the back," aka scary secondary down the long red line. So I agree. We waited almost an hour until an officer, who curiously wasn't wearing the same "cop" outfit as all the others handling people in secondary called our name, asked for our marriage cert, said gimme one min to take care of this, and handed back her passport with "IR-1" written in the endorsement stamp. Hoorah. Now for a dumb question: even though her entry was through CBP, does USCIS automatically get notified and thus start the green card processing? Any recent estimates on how long that takes? Thanks.

Thanks for all the good advice. Hoping to catch our CBP officer in a good mood. More than two years to replace a green card...holy #######

My spouse has been issued a CR-1 visa (yay), and because our 2nd anniversary is soon, we're going to enter the US after that date to secure a 10-year green card. I've seen a couple stories of people getting the 2-year green card by mistake because they were classified incorrectly at customs, or something to that effect. So, my question is, do we have to do/say anything when entering, or is it just up to the powers-that-be to put 2+2 together and issue our green card correctly, and then file some more exciting paperwork in case there's a mistake? Thanks!

What is the max amount of cash (in USD) you can leave the country with? Seeing conflicting/old sources on other sites. Thanks.

Pretty sure Russians get an exemption from showing a covid vaccine because Sputnik isn't WHO-recognized, thus it's not required. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

From personal experience, using the Public Inquiry form to transfer my case didn't work. Public inquiry has never actually done anything useful in all the times I've contacted them. I contacted the embassy that I wanted to transfer to directly, attached all residency proof, and the case was transferred quickly. I would try the same if you can get through directly to the Algerian embassy by email. Some embassies have a visa-specific email, and some have none at all (just ustraveldocs). Good luck.

Good to know, thanks. It's surprising to hear, especially considering Russians get 90 days visa-free

Is this anecdotal or...? By "deported" you mean Russians are showing up at the Tel Aviv airport and routinely being denied entry?

I recall seeing several threads where people qualify with liquid assets, receive the message about income not enough, but they were still advised to add a joint sponsor—or at least have the joint sponsor paperwork signed and ready for the interview. If you were more than qualified with liquid assets and received that message, what would you advise?

I did qualify with liquid assets, which I included in my AOS. But the prevailing advice is add a joint sponsor just in case. I find this to be another head- scratching example of NVC giving plain and clear “requirements” which apparently might not matter based on the whims of a case officer.

Got it, thanks. Not bummed about it, just trying to understand how this whole system ticks. Do you know the answer to the question about entering "0" for income on the AOS?

Like many others on this forum, I entered "0" income on my AOS because my income isn't US-based nor will it continue upon repatriating (side note: where is it stated to do this? I've just kinda blindly followed this advice). Then, as expected, I get the "income doesn't meet blah blah blah..." message, and so as was suggested here, I added a joint sponsor in case it was brought up at the eventual interview. Then, I got a message saying I'd messed up by combining two docs into one pdf. So I fixed it. So my question is, did I inadvertently delay my own case by weeks by uploading something that I didn't even technically need to upload before the interview? Just trying to understand this whole process...slowly but surely.

Contacting the embassy directly via email and attaching the proof of residence in Serbia is your best bet. I tried the same thing with AskNVC and got nowhere. USTravelDocs also proved useless. This is the email address on their website: belgradeiv@state.gov I'd try that. Good luck.

Thanks. Fingers crossed.

In our case it really is unobtainable, not just difficult to obtain. Was going to make a separate thread, but here’s the TL;DR: In order to get a Chinese police certificate from abroad, we need to submit a proof of name change (in our case, the marriage certificate) that has been authenticated by the Chinese embassy in the country where the certificate was issued. Our marriage certificate was issued in Georgia (the country). The Chinese embassy in Georgia will only authenticate marriage certificates if both citizens are Chinese or one is Chinese and one is Georgian. So, as they say in Chinese, 没办法. It’s impossible. Now, how would the case officer know any of this? What would you advise? Should I email the embassy where we will be eventually interviewing and explain this ahead of time? I don’t see the purpose of using the public inquiry form, because it’s become abundantly clear that they have no authority whatsoever. Any advice is appreciated

On second thought, “rubber stamp” is a poor choice of words. That’s what they’re doing now. But you get the point.

Sure, but the case officer can wave all your references away and demand the certificate, even if it is truly unobtainable. At least that's what some people have said on this forum. So my point is, if there are unique cases (and by the sounds of it, it's not even unique!) where these documents are truly unobtainable, then why doesn't this get rubber stamped before it reaches the case officer's desk? If you didn't read these forums you're going to be totally blindsided, and if you just wait until the interview to bring all this up, then you risk delaying your case by months. It just seems pretty ridiculous to me.

I've read numerous accounts of people uploading a note saying that a police certificate is unobtainable, getting DQ'd, and then at the interview the case officer says, "I need that police certificate. Sorry, no visa." Why does the NVC let it get to that point in the first place? We have had a doozy of a time gathering intelligence for getting a police certificate, but that's probably a topic for another thread.

My spouse is not Chinese. We DO have friends in ONE of the two cities that she lived in. Yes, you need a separate a background check for each city you lived in. Imagine having lived in five cities and doing this.... Who would have thought that China didn't have one centralized system and instead different cities have different requirements? Every person who's ever lived in China, that's who. No, you cannot apply for it at an overseas embassy. Either in person or you're sending all your documents to China. But wait, first all those documents have to be authenticated by the Chinese embassy. Wonder how much that's gonna cost? The cherry on top...it's not even guaranteed to work and the agents say so themselves. Rant over.

That's frustrating to say the least

My spouse and I used to live in China, which is why we've been asked for a police certificate, which is only obtainable through agents who are asking for $700-1000+ for a piece of paper that is either less than $50 or free. I just want to ask the community, for the sake of determining whether this is just pure price gouging, how much it costs to obtain a country's police certificate if you no longer live there. Who would like to share?

I emailed them using the immigration-specific email address listed on their website. Most embassies have an email address, you just have to do a little digging on each one's site. US Travel Docs is just a third party contractor and will not help you here. We were in the very same predicament as you. I emailed several embassies with "theoretical" questions about what would qualify us as residents in their eyes to be able to transfer. All of them, including Bangkok, sent back mostly boilerplate responses and so we just rolled the dice a bit hoping student visas would qualify as residency. Otherwise there have been people lately having success transferring to Jerusalem or Almaty just by asking, even if they don't live there. As for Georgia, you're right that you're just visa-exempt tourists, but there is a also an actual digital nomad visa that you can apply for. Most nomads don't because there's no reason to (except of course to follow the letter of the tax law and maybe some other benefits), but just google it and you'll find more info. Based on what I've read, it should qualify you as residents of Georgia, partially because you'd be signing up for healthcare with it. But if you're sick of khachapuri (impossible for me) then any country's nomad visa should in theory qualify you to transfer the interview.

You know Georgia has a digital nomad visa and the requirements are pretty lax. Any particular reason for the Bahamas or Croatia? We just heard back from the embassy in Bangkok and successfully transferred our case there from Warsaw after enrolling in a school here and obtaining student visas. If you want more advice on "digital nomad" stuff, there's a whole subreddit about it with plenty of info.

Thanks. Already started working on getting it.