elyjack

Thanks to all who replied. We've been waiting since February for the follow up letter about the interview so maybe it is time to give them a call. Our AOS sat in limbo like this for about two years so it sounds like par for the course.

A couple of weeks ago we received a request for information form asking for a tax transcript and proof of termination of previous marriages. The letter explicitly said that we were NOT to mail these items in but bring them to the interview. Nothing was said about an interview date however. Checking the online system today it says the case is waiting on information and can't proceed without it. So, as usual when dealing with USCIS, we are very confused.

Has this happened to anybody else?

Hi,

This is a long shot, but I hope you guys are still active here at VJ. Can you tell me what happened to your cancelled interviews? I'm in the same boat as you were. Just received an email of interview cancellation today.

thanks,

babycakes

Ours was rescheduled about one year later.

My goodness, that's a long wait.

Yes, It was quite maddening. Our application took over two years altogether. Hope you don't have to wait as long.

Did you just wait for the reschedule or did you do some follow-ups on it? Pardon me for asking too much questions but you are the only one I meet here that has the same case as mine, which is still active in VJ. I really appreciate it.

We made an Infopass appointment to see if we could get some answers as to why it was taking so long but they didn't tell us anything, just to wait. I also wrote my congressman (Mike Bilirakis) to no avail. All we could do was wait.

Hi,

This is a long shot, but I hope you guys are still active here at VJ. Can you tell me what happened to your cancelled interviews? I'm in the same boat as you were. Just received an email of interview cancellation today.

thanks,

babycakes

Ours was rescheduled about one year later.

My goodness, that's a long wait.

Yes, It was quite maddening. Our application took over two years altogether. Hope you don't have to wait as long.

Hi,

This is a long shot, but I hope you guys are still active here at VJ. Can you tell me what happened to your cancelled interviews? I'm in the same boat as you were. Just received an email of interview cancellation today.

thanks,

babycakes

Ours was rescheduled about one year later.

The only thing we were asked for was the prior year's income tax form. That was because it had been almost two years and they didn't have the latest. And this was after spending the better part of a weekend getting all kinds of the usual stuff together.

I heard photos were pretty useless and they rarely look at them. If somebody was committing fraud would it be that hard to fake some photos? I think more important are official/legal looking documents showing joint ownership, etcetera. If I was doing it again I'd just take a few things along like that and be done with it.

Personally, I thought the whole thing was friggin' silly and mostly about a job for a government employee whose salary is paid from our taxes. They get to sit there like good bureaucrats and look at your papers knowing they hold your life in the balance. Makes 'em feel important. It's the Department of Homeland Security, don't you know? (And it was quite a fortress where we went with armed guards and metal detectors and conveyor belts just like at the airport).

Another reason why checks are best, IMHO. Only send money orders unless you don't have the ability to write a check. With checks you can see when they are cashed and you can even use them to glean such tasty information as case numbers (which are often printed on the back of the cashed check, or at least a number close to the case number is).

I second that. Some people are under the mistaken impression that it will slow things down if you send a personal check because they will have to wait until the check clears to begin processing. There are two things wrong with that idea 1.) money orders are also checks and have to clear a bank and 2.) They don't wait until the check clears. Nobody that processes any volume of checks does that.

Ours was sent back because we dated the check wrong so I wouldn't be surprised if they return it to you.

We got about 9 of these emails saying exactly the same thing last year. They came on two different days and the times on them were only a few seconds apart.

We made an Infopass appointment to ask what gives. The person we talked to had no clue, but thought it was probably related to the fact that our interview was in the queue and might be coming up soon. That turned out to be true though it was still a few months away.

In answer to #1 I think it depends on what state you are doing this in. When we bought our home in Florida it was required that my wife be on the deed to the property because it's a community property state, meaning we mutually own everything 50-50 if it should ever come to divorce. I think other states have different requirements.

However, my wife's name was not put on the mortgage. That's the way the lender insisted on it.

So at closing my wife signed half the papers - all the official government documents having to do with ownership of the property but none of the ones having to do with the mortgage.

I'm sure your lender will be glad to tell you how it will work in your case.

We might as well all get used to this kind of thing. The REAL ID act of 2005 passed by congress requires all states to adhere to national standards in issuing driver's licenses by the year 2008 (now extended to 2009) and this includes some form of biometric identification. The agency tasked with determining what form of biometric identification that will be is none other than our dear friends in the Department of Homeland Security. So if you think it is only greencard applicants who will be required to report to the government for periodic fingerprinting, think again. Soon it will be all of us.

that's kinda scary. i mean i have heard that when interview letters are sent out, usually no touches appear online, so how would one know if the interview letter was sent out and there was a mixup in the mail???

Exactly. We did NOT get touched when the interview was scheduled and they DID send the interview letter to the wrong address (even after assuring us in person that they had the correct address on file). Fortunately, I filed for both my wife and stepson so we got two letters. One of them did show up at the right address.

btw, i still have not received my interview letter yet, even though people that filed after me with offices that have similar processing times as mine already received theirs and some already had their interview.

but in all honestly, it makes it a lot easier on me that i received my EAD or else i would have gone crazy

Not only did we see people getting interviews who filed long after us but the processing dates they publish on the website were long after us.

If all goes well, we'll be at 26 months.

At least you'll get a 10-year greencard then. By falling one month short we now have to do the other fiasco of lifting conditions next year. I'm really looking forward to that.

I spent a whole weekend putting together all the "proof of relationship" stuff I could think of, including a nice photo album, joint mortgage statement, bank account statement, etcetera.

All they asked for was our income tax return for the current year. The rest was a waste of time.

Be glad you were not filing during 2005 when it was taking 6 months + to get an interview and that was if you were lucky.... I waited 183 days and that was fast....

You got that right. I'm amazed at how fast people seem to be getting their interviews nowadays. We also filed in 2005 (January) and it was one month short of two YEARS before my wife had the greencard in hand.

Personally, I think you have a very good point about the K1 visa and subsequent AOS. I always wondered about it myself. Much of it seems completely redundant, doesn't it? Why would they look at the information you give them, tell you that you can come in on a K1 visa to get married, and then turn around and look at what is essentially the same information and tell you that you can't stay?

The issue of filing after the visa expires is being discussed in another thread nearby. The general consensus is that it isn't required to file the AOS before the visa expires and it's not that big a deal if you wait a while.

As far as deciding whether to get a sponsor or not, I'm wondering what your previous year's income looks like. I'm not sure how they factor that in to the poverty guidelines but since they ask for the information they must make some use of it. If you weren't meeting the poverty guidelines in the past and are just now getting a job that might not look so good.

I don't think you are required to file AOS before the 90 day visa expires.

I think you can wait until you find a job to submit the paperwork.

The answer to how long it will take is, it depends - mostly on the efficiency and backlog of the local office you have to go through. A lot of people seem to be getting it pretty fast nowadays but we got ours last year and the whole process took almost two years.

I wonder if how long it will take to process AOS until the Green card comes and the requirements to be submitted.

Can you share your AOS experiences, please?

When we did ours last year, the AR-11 didn't have anything to do with changing the address in the USCIS database. It was something different altogether. You had to call the USCIS to change it in their database. This may have changed since you said you did something through a website. That wasn't available last year, to my knowledge.

After making that call to change our address and even making another call to confirm it was changed they still sent notices to the old address so go figure.

Did you fill out form AR-11? http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/men...00045f3d6a1RCRD

I would wait till you are physically at the address or you can receive mail at the new address to change it. Good Luck

thank you for the information but to be sure....to notify the USCIS I just need to fill out form AR-11 and do not need to call anyone else, right?

Just need to notify USCIS thru the webpage, right?

I know, I am slow ....thank you for your patience :-)

Unfortunately there are reasons to wait to file. We married over a month ago, his K-1 has expired, but the County has not processed the wedding license. Until they do their job we can not file with no fault of our own. The secod we get the license the documents are in the mail, but until then all we can do is wait.

By all means do it ASAP but I wouldn't worry too much about the delay. I remember reading a post on another board by an immigration lawyer in answer to the same question and he said there is really no specified time limit for filing the AOS. I think another poster who said you are now in the country illegally is technically correct but I wouldn't worry about them coming to get you. If my understanding is correct you technically started racking up overstay days when your visa expired. The only time those are going to be held against you is if you apply for another visa. That's when you generally get punished for your overstay. Since you have no reason for ever doing that after getting your green card it becomes a moot point.

I do remember reading a post by an immigration lawyer warning somebody who had a lengthy overstay of leaving the country before they got their green card EVEN WITH Advanced Parole. Don't know if you had any intention of doing that or not but if so you might want to check into it first.

Well after waiting 9 months my interview was finally set for January 11th, then 2 days before Christmas I get an email saying my interview has been cancelled Do they normally send out a formal letter saying it has been cancelled or is the email all I get?

Also, has anyone else had any experience with Charleston, SC cancelling their acppointment and if so, how long did it take them to reschedule?

We experienced both bogus cancellations and a real one. We got an official letter for the real one. It actually arrived on the same day as the interview letter.

Several months before the interview was rescheduled (about a year later), we got a series of emails saying that the interview scheduled in this case had been cancelled. There were about eight of these in all arriving on two different occassions with dates only several seconds apart. We were clueless since we didn't know anything about a scheduled interview. We made an Infopass appointment and they were just as clueless.

I would do what I think somebody else here said - just show up for the interview and ignore the emails unless you get a confirmation letter. I think somebody else posted here that they did that and got the interview and green card.

It does seem that these days, the AOS is being approved very close to the EAD and AP, which makes filing the EAD and AP sometimes unnecessary. If you do not have to work immediately, and have no plans to travel immediately, the AOS is probably enough.

If I were doing it now, I doubt I would bother applying for EAD/AP.

Things must really be changing then. We didn't apply for any AP but decided to get an EAD for my stepson and wait for the AOS for my wife. As it turned out, I had to renew my stepson's EAD after it expired in one year and we regretted not getting one for my wife because we waited two years for the AOS.

I remember grumbling about having to do another G-325 for my stepson when filing the I-485. That was because one was also required when I filed the I-129. I didn't know it wasn't required for the I-130.

My philosophy was, when in doubt, send the form. I don't think they will penalize you for sending a form they didn't ask for but they definitely won't like it if you fail to send one that is required.

Hello again!

I just posted this last night under another topic, but wanted to change title to clarify...

Do I have to submit G325s for my 10 and 12 year old sons on the I-130 and I-485? It looks like the VJ Guide says only the spouse for the I-130 but no reference to "spouse" for the G-325 on the I-485.

Thanks... again!

Capt.Canuck

Just make sure you apply for the SSN BEFORE the K1 visa expires (still 90 days after date of entry?). If you wait until after it expires then you will have to wait until your AOS is complete. Somebody I know found this out the hard way.

My K-1 wife and I are wondering if she should have her Russian passport re-issued with a name change to her new married name. The concern is that in future travel, the existence of 2 different names on various documents, including airline tickets, may cause problems.

If you plan to travel you should do this. I don't know what the Russian procedures are but for my wife it was done through the Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C.