OldUser

How long is your wife going to be away? If it's not too long, then why not apply after returning to the US? It will make things easier. Nobody can say for sure how long it will take for sure. Biometrics may or may not be reused. If not reused, she can be called for an appointment any time from a month after submitting or much much later in the process. Look at the processing times for N-400 in your local field office here - https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/ Also monitor the forum, sometimes people post their timelines for specific office which may give you a clue, but it's never guaranteed.

Awesome, I'm glad you see it as a possible option 😊 Absolutely. When you marry somebody officially anywhere in the world, this marriage is legal in the US too. You don't have to marry in the US. You'd have to get the official marriage certificate from that country though to go through US immigration. And yes, you can file I-130 as soon as you marry. Then, when it's approved, your future wife would file DS-260 to get actual immigrant visa in her passport. This is not true. You don't have to be married for 2 years to file for CR-1. If she enters the US on CR-1 before your 2 year anniversary, she would get a conditional green card and would have to file I-751 in 1 year 9 months. But all this time she would have permanent resident privileges to work, travel. This time as conditional resident would also contribute to her eligibility to apply for US citizenship in the figure, whereas time spent adjusting status on K-1 would not be counted. Of course, you guys can decide what's right for both of you, I just think K-1 is pretty expensive and restrictive in grand scheme of things.

When you do a K-1 you gotta be ready for marriage. It's not a store where you can buy something and return if you don't like it. You'd only have 90 days to get married when she enters. To me, it doesn't make much sense to keep the fiancé in a volatile state of uncertain future. Plus she won't be able to work for a while or travel outside during AOS which can put pressure on a new marriage. Either way, F-1 is not going to pose any issues with K-1. If I had a magic wand, I'd vote for CR-1 route so your wife would have GC (and thus ability to work and travel) as soon as she enters the US.

I don't think this would be the case. But why do you want to use inferior visa? CR-1 is so much better, cheaper and takes faster in end to receive the GC. If you're a US citizen, you don't have to wait if she doesn't need to leave the US. You can marry, apply for AOS and she won't need to go for consular processing.

What was the downside of including all? I see none, other than $10-20 to print them?

Well, if they only have consulates in a few large cities, what else can they offer for in person application? I know Russians suffered a lot few years back when only one consulate was left open in the US and they had to renew their passports in person. So few options is not bad at all.

The point of withdrawing is having clean immigration history. Two I-130s can confuse USCIS. There's no expedite for petitioners' mistakes.

It's normal. I had I-751 and the cases around mine were delayed for 2 months compared to other cases submitted on other weeks.

You cannot guess for USCIS / DHS why they're asking this or that question. The question doesn't ask about unlawful status or anything like this. I vote for answering "yes" too. Otherwise this may bite her as misrepresentation in the future.

Without information in profile, original message or other threads it's hard to guess where you're from. With exception for Canada / EU, most visitors require visa so I made an assumption. Overstay is an overstay, as @SalishSea says. Overstay AND lack of ties is pretty hard to overcome but you can try. 4 months in between visits is way too short also, even if overstay and lack of ties wasn't a factor. I give it 95% chance of denial if you try coming now.

Is your visa still active or was it cancelled? I would imagine overstay triggers visa cancellation? The chance of denial is high in my opinion. You also need to be careful about answering questions about purpose of your visit. You cannot lie as it can become a misrepresentation later in your immigration history.

The OP last visited Visa Journey on November 10, 2021

That is a mistake which can haunt you in the future. Always make copies of everything you ever submitted to USCIS. An immigrant may be asked questions 3 / 5 years later at N-400 stage or at some other stage about AOS forms and what answers were given. It's to immigrant's benefit to know what was sent in the past to avoid any issues. Sure, some of this information may be obtained later by filing FOIA. But it takes time (months) and it's sometimes incomplete.

Your lawyer is doing exactly what you paid for in the interest of beneficiary. What's going to be the proof of fullfiling the residency requirement? Also, the yes / no question regarding 2 year residency requirement should be answered truthfully. If fiance doesn't remember whether they were subject to this rule or not, they cannot answer truthfully.

I always take approach of "what all can I submit to support my case" VS "what's the required minimum I can submit to get approval". This ensures you're above and beyond the required minimum and thus lessens the chance of RFE

Including affidavits does not hurt at all. I threw a couple of them in my I-751 packet. Not sure what role they played in approval, but sometimes it's this little affidavit that moves the needle if IO has a doubt!

Must have been me 😅 The instructions for I-751 call for as much evidence as possible. The quality evidence does not become less useful when there's a lot of it. People don't receive RFEs for providing too much relevant evidence, but do get it for missing evidence. Quarterly appears to be acceptable and many people got approved with it, however when I did mine I sent monthly. Never got any issue for that. Approved without the interview.

Your mom has a green card. It's advisable she's back to the US. She doesn't need the permit if she's back within less than a year of absense. Even if she's out of the US for more than a year, she should come back to be with you and maintain her US residence.

There's no such thing as too much evidence. However, people get RFEs for not enough evidence.

You should give the truthful answer, it's not a choice. It would unlikely cause any issues.

I believe it's local field office based on their schedule. My understanding is, when interview is scheduled, an applicant gets the letter. There's not much time in between "requested" and "scheduled". They occur at the same time to my knowledge. I wouldn't trust live person on the phone (tier 1), they usually make things up. No interview letter = nothing is requested yet in my understanding.

I'd expect divorce waiver case to take much longer than 14 months, in the range of 24-30 months. The official processing times now is 19 months for LIN - https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/

You probably want to naturalize in the US before you go back to your home country if your goal is to keep the option to live in the US without losing status. After that just make sure to pay worldwide taxes to the US and renew US passport on time to avoid delays in future trips. Nothing happens after you become a US citizen, whether you live in the US or elsewhere in the world.

Because otherwise interview may go without this question ever be asked. The best thing is to prepare an errata sheet and notify the IO about it before the interview starts.

Usually you'll receive the letter in 2-6 weeks