Gary_UK

Received my notice email last night.....as of 7/11/12, USCIS has ordered production of my greencard.

Awesome ! Congrats !

Lets hope the flood gates begin to open today on the Feb Filers !

Oh they are different ?

I will take a look when I get home and double check on it.

Thanks for the reply.

http://www.visajourney.com/faq/k1k2visa-removeconditions.html

check point 7.7

..Is there another interview required to lift my conditional status?

A..All though the vast majority of jointly filed I-751s do not have an interview, you may indeed be required to attend an interview.....

Not sure if im doing something wrong, but ive tried to check on my status on the uscis web site and entered the wac number and get an " invalid" response.

Odd thing is i tried checking just after my application check was cashed and it said i was being processed. Has anyone else seen this ?

Or am i going nuts ?

When I went to my bio appointment, the place was empty.

I live in north Indiana and my bio appointment location was Michigan city. The place is huge and yet both times I have

been there it is empty with 3 members of staff and one of those was the security dude.

Although they say to be prompt we forgot the timezone change so was actually 1.5 hours early when we got in there (wife tagged along too) there was one woman ahead of us, who had a couple of toddlers with her (about the age of your little one ) and the staff let her keep them with her while doing the photo, fingerprinting etc.

No issues. It is a 10 minute In and out..

Point to note I joked with the woman who was processing me and asked "does this place ever get busy"? and she said that because people are in and out so quickly it always appears to be empty. (to be honest I think she was happy to do something).

I don't think there would be a problem.

Biometric Appointment arrived today. March 14th for me

I won't try and update the doc as i made a pigs ear of it last time Thank you.

Thank you for clarifying that. I Assumed that the interview was a given as a couple of friends who went through the process a year or so before me had to attend one and had to take a couple of days off work due to distance they had to travel, so they stayed overnight at a local hotel. My company's HR department is trying to make me take vacation and it would be nice to combine something similar with my wife as a little vacation away, but I guess thats in the lap of the gods.

Hope you get your's taken care of soon.

i have been looking at the California office updates and see only a few now are missing a biometric appointment (including me.) is this something to be concerned about ?

Back when I was waiting for my 2yr green card I had biometrics taken then but never had an interview and the card dropped through the door about a week later.

I'm wondering if I will get another biometric appointment or if that will be skipped ? Has anyone known of a 10yr green card being issued without an interview ?

Because of where we live its unclear if we will have to goto Chicago or Indianapolis's uscis office for that interview. Sorry for the ramble. I just want to get this over and done with. )

lol you'll be back! as others have said you'll need our services in the future. Sorry you feel you are "done".

Fellow VJ'ers saved my wife and I nearly 10 grand in immigration lawyers and for that we will always be grateful. Not to mention calming worries at times of stress, and offering a needed laugh or two.

This is a fantastic community if I can offer help and advice from our experiences that can help just 1 couple's life a little easier on their "visa journey" then the community will continue to go from strength to strength.

Good luck.

Congratulations !

Spend that 4 hours enjoying a beer and those awesome chicago hot dogs. There are some decent vendors inside O'Hare.

My point of entry was Dublin. (Because I love Guinness).

tried to update it and made a mess

receipt date on the noa was 2/15/2012 waiting for biometric appointment.

thank you

Wife just emailed me a picture of my NOA this morning.

I guess I would have had it yesterday if it was'nt for "Presidents day" ( but i did get a day off so cant complain )

Just waiting for my appointment date.

In my experience of the American bureaucracy system, Including social security people (I will spare you the nightmare of 4 visits to the local "SS" office on a K-1 Visa to get my ssn). Keeping things as simple as possible has always worked well for us.

I'm sure the office has to handle thousands of these applications every month so keeping it as clear, simple and concise as possible will help avoid silly admin blunders.

Congrats ! Feels like you've won the lottery doesn't it

On to the next stage in the great adventure !

Hi.

Ive worked in IT for 20 years before I moved over here back in October of 2009. Playing Mr Mom till my green card drove me nuts !

IT work in the mid west is nigh on non existent !

I can only share my experience in finding work. As others have mentioned I Started with agencies doing day to day work. 1 day contracts and a few odds and sods to get my name out there. Yes sometimes the hours and the pay wasn't brilliant but after being cooped up in the house for 6 months I was chewing at the bit to get out there and make a good impression.

After that work fizzled out I actually resorted to even looking on Monster.com and Craigslist for work. I also broadened my look for pretty much any job I was capable of doing and landed a part time job at a local computer store (Craigslist), (Prior to moving here I never had any sales experience in my life)!

But the good news is that I kept looking and kept applying and just didn't give up in looking for work that was more suitable to my skill set. Finally last June I was lucky to land a network engineer / analyst role at a local credit union (Monster.com).

Don't give up hope. work is out there. you just have to face the fact that there is a very strong chance that you may have to take a very large detour in your career to get to where you want to be.

Good luck !

Finally managed to get all of our paperwork together and send off on Monday (13th) Feb.

We originally wanted to do it just within the 90 days i.e. before Christmas... which turned into after Christmas... then new years... URGH.

My Green Card expires March 16th and just checked USPS.com and our package has reached Anaheim California !

Waiting for the confirmation email from the signature.

At least I'm super busy at work which helps with the wait.

Please add us to the list ! Thank you !

I used no software. The requirements state to write the information on the BACK of the photo. That is what I did for both the individual prints and the sheets with multiples.

While altering the photo may seem great, I just can't see what is wrong with following the directions. My Bic pen teamed up with my right hand seemed to work just fine.

Totally Agree.

I am sure that someone would perceive that you are altering a photo from its original format... which in some circles could be deemed the magic word "Forgery".

not ideal when dealing with the USCIS.

Good luck.

What part of the UK is your fiance from that people can't understand him?

lol i found a good MMO helped pass the time while waiting for my gc.

I'm a brummie living in north indiana. lve had 2 years of messing around with drive through's where ill use my birmingham accent and after the 3rd "huh"

i put on some dodgey american accent and they understand me clearly.... bloody hell !

I wanted to offer my input on this thread too.

I came to the US back in Oct of 2009 and was issued a green card March 2010. The area I live in is still hit very hard due to the economic downturn but was hell bent on getting any kind of job to a) get me out of the house to keep my sanity and b) become a productive member of the family to take some pressure off my new wife.

I have worked in IT for 20 years dating back to the old days of mainframe computers, moved into desktop support and data comms so have a wide range of experience to offer. But have always been a little light in current certifications.. i had expired CCNA and MCSE from years ago but never bothered to renew them....

As soon as that green card dropped through the door I signed up for a number of agencies and was lucky to get some part time IT work but nothing worth of note. BUT it did give me some valuable experience on the whole social networking aspect of the way the US does things. One of my contracts involved migrating hardware during the BOA / Meryl Lynch take over. but nothing beyond day contracts.

After that things went pretty quiet so spent a few months going for anything and everything including retail sales. (something i have never done before in my life) i landed a sales job part time for a local pc company (I took advantage of my english accent to attract people) and became full time very quickly afterward.8 weeks later i was promoted o sales manager. While earning i kept an eye open for something closer to my true skill set.

Back in june 2011 i landed a network engineer / analyst role for a sizable credit union. workload is high but my day to day involves, server maintenance, network, voip support, desktop, wan & lag config & maintenance and a ton of others. I love it and look forward to going to work every day.

I guess what i am saying is, don't put blinkers on, keep trying and don't give up. jobs for people are out there you just need to sell yourself, and highlight your positives to the best of your ability.

hard work does pay off. )

Thanks for the welcome!

Hey guys.

My wife and I are putting our paperwork together this week. My GC expires on the 16th of March next year so (if my math is right). we should be just within the 90 day window after this coming friday (Dec 16th). so want to get into the december filers... but part of me wonders if it would be more prudent to wait till after Christmas to avoid additional postage traffic ? not long after, maybe 27th.

Any ideas ?

Thanks in advance.

p.s. Christ has two years blasted by !

Hey VJ'ers I received a very nice surprise this morning in the post.

My Green Card (aka Permanent Resident Card ) in all it's gold backed goodness

We Filed for AOS back at the start of Jan and had my biometric Appointment back in Feb but not

having an interview before getting the GC I thought was unheard of.

I keep looking at it to see if it's real.

I do have a couple of questions. Do I now need to go back to the social security office to have

something done with my SSN or is that after lifting conditions of my 2yr Green Card?

I also filed for advance parole in case I had to leave the country for family medial emergencies.

Would it be prudent to carry a copy of my advance parole paperwork with me as well as this GC to

present to immigration on any return to the USA ? Or would I just be muddying the waters by doing so.?

Thanks in advance

G

Hi. Not as yet but I am slowly opening doors. Sadly the local library has an ascendancy of volunteers. I DID have a call from an agency on Thursday asking for more information. I called the person and got a voice mail so left a message and backed it up with an email answering the questions he was after. I then had a reply asking for a resume... and then it went quiet. ( sigh )

I think I'm developing a "Salesman attitude" where I'm just not going to take it personally that doors keep being slammed in my face. Perhaps its for the best.

you guys have opened my eyes that's for sure.

SSN staff are notiriously poor and ever VJ'er should be prepaired to put up with staff who have no desire nor drive to provide any kind of quality of service.

I married two weeks after entering the USA and a week after returning from our honeymoon (4 weeks after poe) went to our local SSN office (Northern Indiana) and had to make 3 trips with my wife to resolve what should have been a simple process.

I even had to print off pages of their own instruction manual (thanks to VJ) to show the dullard we had to deal with that because I entered on a K1 that they HAD to give me a SSN right there and then.

luckily on our 3rd trip we managed to get a supervisor who was quietly fuming that we had been given the run around.

We were in and out in literally 15 mins and can only hope that the tart who wasnt doing her job got a footprint on her rump. ;o)

Guys. These are all fantastic suggestions. Thank you so much.

I think I'm going to start with a professional resume overhaul and see where that leads. The local library where I live has a sizeable pc and IT division. I think once I am over my headcold I will pop in and see if I could offer my services. The Children's school also have a sizeable IT division and I hear that they are under some financial strain. So I will see if my services a few hours a week might be of some use to them.

My eyes have been opened to a number of ideas I had not even considered before,

Again thank you very much.

This advice to me as been priceless.

Hey VJers.

Ive been looking through the forums on here for the last hour or so. And am fully aware that there are a lot of people new to the

states who are having problems finding work. I, sadly am also in the same boat but have not found anyone talking in the forums who has commented on similar situation to what I am in and hence this post.

I have worked in IT for over 20 years (I am currently 41 years old). That experience began with Mainframe computers and then back in 99 was lucky enough to move into networking. I have worked for a number of large blue chip international companies since then and have

a shed-ton of that magical word "Experience". I have worked on cisco, alcatel and HP hardware to name a few. Pretty much you name it and I have worked on it.

I have even worked for advanced service center's doing remote PC support and domain administration roles.

I have also gained years of experience planning, implementing and supporting a range of LAN and WAN's using any tech you can imagine.

My last role ( which i loved ) was for local government and was in charge of a number of field engineers. Management were very sorry indeed that I was leaving.

Sadly with all this experience comes little in the way of paper qualifications, I gained a CCNA back in 2000 but has now expired.

and when i left college i had a HND in computer science but that's it. The rest of what I have is real world 100% solid experience.

I received my employment authorization about 3 weeks ago and have applied for every job in my field as I can with little to no feedback what so ever. I am fully aware that the job market is suppressed. I can also understand that in my current situation I may well have to "aim lower" to bring some money into the house. I have applied for over 20 jobs within a commuteable area, but so far not even a civilised reply from any of the applications.

I have a real fear that if I do land a job stacking shelves or flipping burgers that it will have such a negative impact on my future career prospects that it would be tantamount to committing professional suicide. Am I right to think this ?

Being out of work since I arrived here back in Oct of 2009 and with a few personal issues which have occurred on the way has put our new marriage under a lot of strain. I agree with many others who have said in other threads that not enough is done to warn the people on their way here that after the headaches and paperwork that the real work begins.

I love my wife very much and she loves me too. Thank goodness that although her salary is not the greatest that her work is stable and without it we would be very much in the doo doo. But it is so frustrating to have all this to offer a prospective employer and all I currently see in my future is somewhat less than my technical ability.

Can any of you offer some suggestions as to what I should and should not include in my resume'? or how I can present myself better ?

Sorry if I appear to be ranting, in a way I guess I am. But frustration, disappointment & disillusionment are tough things to fight.

Any constructive input would be greatly appreciated.

G

you are a star !

thank you very much. we will go back tomorrow armed with a big smiley face and a rolled up copy to bat the ding out of the offending person.

I'm guessing you are a male and not changing your name, so ditch the wedding ring and don't say anything about being married. Try this at another office if you strike out again at the first office.

Actually we did one better...

We went back to the SS office today and the original woman was there but a very helpful and decent chap saw us. I had taken

with me every piece of paper I have, including the link to the manual as suggested, just incase of issues and good as gold he happily processed the request. He was very unhappy that we had to make a second visit to get this processed (he looked like a supervisor as the place was a lot busier than last time)

So... as he seemed so unhappy and had actually said "I'm really sorry you had to come back. There really should be no reason why this wasnt picked up when you last visited here" I showed him the "refusal " letter which had the agents signature on without saying a word. He narrowed his eyes as he read it and looked up at me with a smile. Handed me the paperwork to say that I should get my SSN in two weeks but may take up to 4.

I think I made someones day and un-made another's