JR_CG

Through her USCIS account we received Notice of Receipt of the N-400 application and part of that notice says that the notice itself automatically extends the I-551 24 months past its expiration date, so hopefully that also works for the temporary I-551 in the passport. Following your link to the state dept, they have a lot of helpful information that I haven’t seen before, including a statement that the N-400 can be submitted using the passport temporary I-551, and they recommend using the Washington DC office as they are used to processing expeditious N-400s and are next to a passport facility. I had selected the San Antonio USCIS facility because I think it is likely that we are stationed at Fort Cavazos, Texas next. Not sure if the selection can be changed now, but we will see. I will call the Riyadh Embassy RSO tomorrow for fingerprints, or we can possibly drive to Doha’s USCIS office and do the biometrics digitally and maybe be able to give them the documents for the visa packet at the same time.

Her N-400 has just been submitted! Will let you all know how it plays out 🤞🏻

I do have copies of everything we submitted to the embassy, the I-130, 864, 485 just aren’t stamped at the top. I also recall that they may have been stamping the copies of the birth certificate and such as verified and giving us back the originals. That is a good idea to send it to my congresswoman. I would also hate for 20 Jan to roll around and then timelines move even more slowly as the agencies adjust to whatever comes.

You sound pretty confident about the N-400 so I will go that route as, if successful, it would solve multiple problems at once. I don’t have family in the states where she can go to ride this out so we will cross our fingers with the N-400 and hope that we aren’t throwing the application fees down the drain. I appreciate everybody replying. It boggles my mind that the consulate here can’t just spend ten minutes on the phone with me to talk through the situation. My boss has weekly meetings with ambassador so I will bring this situation to him tomorrow (Sunday is the first day of the work week in Saudi) and maybe that will help me get a phone call with the consulate. I hate that it would have to come to that though.

It seems like filing for an I-90 might be the right answer if we are able to get the automatic 36 month extension they started offering in Sep 2024. That could at least get us into the U.S. in June 2025 if the embassy can’t help us. I just worry that USCIS will say that she doesn’t have an LPR to replace/renew because their system says it is pending receipt of visa packet to be created. It’s like she is stuck in limbo with having but not having residency status and she is stuck in limbo between USCIS saying to go to the Embassy in Riyadh and the Embassy saying to go to USCIS in the states. There is a USCIS office in Doha, Qatar that we can drive seven hours to get to, and get her a visa to enter Qatar, but they haven’t responded yet if they are able to help in this situation. I have also called the USCIS military helpline which can get you to a rep, but they are not able to do anything other than file a ticket for someone to call within 30 days and they only generate an email saying to recreate the packet. I have called my congresswoman for assistance in being able to talk to the embassy but her office only says someone will get back to me. I have looked at filing a FOIA but it wouldn’t get anything back to us in time and looks to be an unknown few hundred dollars at least. Ironically, I am here as military but technically work for the Ambassador, however, consulates are cordoned off from being influenced by ambassadors so he has no authority to intervene.

It makes sense that it would be somewhere electronically, but I would think that they would still have a he physical hard copy of the I-130, I-485, etc that they stamped at our appointment, or that they could restamp a new one that we bring in. my main concern is that because it took USCIS five months to tell us the visa packet wasn’t received and it is taking months to get additional responses from the embassy and USCIS, her I-551 will expire and then my tour in Saudi Arabia ends before we figure out what exactly to do. I have been told that she needs an actual permanent I-551 before she can file for her N-400. I am not sure even how to convey the info from the temporary I-551 into the format they ask for on the form as if it were coming from a permanent I-551. When she gets her perm I-551 would the creation date be the 26 March 2024 date that she entered the U.S.? It seems like the N-400 will be rejected because the system shows her LPR is pending receipt of a visa packet. I can’t afford to pay the N-400 and it be denied. While we are in Riyadh we have a U.S. APO, AE address and it counts as her being in the United States because she is on military orders. If we don’t figure this out by June, I will have to fly her at our expense back to Ecuador where the country has been shutting off the electricity for 14 hours per day for months now and the crime and homicide rates have exploded over the last couple years. She has a very real chance of being kidnapped and held for ransom because she is married to a U.S. citizen. All of her family has been robbed at gunpoint, some have also been beaten, some extorted, some murdered.

Local File is what the embassy has been calling it here, probably means Direct Consular File We entered together on 26 March 2024, her passport was stamped by CBP/Immigration at the Phoenix Intl Airport. We are back together in Riyadh where we live until my tour of duty here ends in June 2025. The embassy did not give her a visa packet, only a paper in Arabic/English for the airlines explaining that her visa packet is digital and referenced nvc.state.gov/ceac which results in 404 page not found. When I do find CEAC and enter her case number it says her visa is complete. When we login to her USCIS account it says her green card fees are paid and pending. USCIS sent us an email saying that her packet needs to be mailed to Lexington, TX or that she needs to recreate the packet. We can’t afford to send her to the U.S. again right now and it looks doubtful we would be able to get an appointment before her temporary I-551 expires on 26 March 2025 anyways. When I called USCIS on 27 Nov, the agent said she needed to recreate her visa packet at the Embassy in Riyadh. I asked him if he could provide an email stating that and he said he couldn’t provide one and that I just need to convince the embassy that they are supposed to recreate the packet that they lost or didn’t upload or that they uploaded and it fell out of the system. The Immigrant Visa consulate section of the embassy doesn’t seem to understand or care.

If my wife has the temporary I-551 but her green card was never created because her IV packet was lost, I’m assuming that we can’t file her N-400 yet. Seems like in the system she doesn’t have an I-551 yet even though she has the temp I-551 in her passport. If the N-400 fee wasn’t so high I would try it. Right now we can’t figure out how to recreate her visa packet as we live overseas (military) and I don’t know how to extend her temp I-551 that expires in March 2025.

My wife local filed and received her CR-1 visa in March 2024 at the Riyadh embassy. In August we finally were told that her green card hasn’t arrived because her Visa Packet was never received and it needs to be recreated. We still live in Riyadh until June 2025 with the military but the Riyadh Embassy will not help us recreate her visa packet. They say that she has to do that in the states but she can’t get to the states before her temporary I-551 expires. I called USCIS and they said to recreate the packet at the embassy but the embassy refuses and are rude. I have called my congresswoman each week for three weeks to ask them to intervene but they also just keep saying that they will get back to me. Now I am worried that her temp green card is going to expire before this problem gets resolved and I don’t know how to renew it since she technically doesn’t have an I-551. As overseas military we could have filed her N-400 by now.

I think you mean to be added to DEERS as a dependent so then you can be added to PCS orders. You do not need an SSN or tax number. I just added my non US spouse who is living in South America to my DEERS with a photocopy of her passport, National ID and an original apostilled marriage certificate. Next I will need to have her do a medical exam (using the form for those who cannot acces or get to a US medical facility/doctor) and submit that to EFMP. Once we both get to the foreign country I will start the I-130 and visa process as we will be overseas together for 24 months. I am hoping to use the DCF process and go through the Department of State instead of USCIS