duster

Hey Just Bob, great posting, thanks.

On reflection I must agree with you; a $100 fine is nothing compared to the cost of replacement and the hassle factor so eloquently spelled out in your posting.

Guess its going back to the bank in the morning then!

Slightly off topic I know, but an earlier poster mentioned keeping his/her GC with the passport and the gun in a safe!

Surely the gun should be kept handy; not many home invasions are perpetrated by people who will allow you a couple of minutes to crack open the safe and get your firearm!

This is an interesting thread and I have followed it to the point of actually going to the bank this morning and removing my GC from my safe deposit box and it is now residing in my wallet.

I too thought that the risks of losing it far outweighed the costs of not carrying it; I have been asked for it twice, once when applying for my concealed weapons permit and then again when I purchased a gun. Apart from that it has lived in the safe deposit box.

Notwithstanding the likelihood or not of a formal or legal request to produce it on the spot, I will carry mine from now on!

Thank you for your responses; all much as I thought but its nice to get a fresh perspective on it.

The person in question actually commenced divorce proceedings against her USC husband within a month or so of receiving her 10 year GC (she waited until the two year marriage anniversary before applying for AOS this avoiding the 2 year conditional card) !

I think her (now ex) USC husband would love to have her GC rescinded and for her to be deported double quick time because of all the deceit involved but it seems that there is very little that can be done now.

The responses to my original posting will give him some guidance though so thank you all again.

I wonder if anyone could help me with this (?)

I know that as a LPR married to a USC, I can apply for naturalization after three years as a GC holder.

What would the situation be for someone (not me) who has a 10 year GC and who was married at the time but divorced virtually as soon as they received the GC? Do they now have to wait for the 5 years instead of three ?

And suppose that someone married again (to a USC), how long would they have to wait then to apply?

This someone also has a USC Son and she seems to think that he could "petition" for her to become a USC - I think this is wrong but would appreciate some pointers.

Thanks in advance.

Ooops, my mistake, sorry!

We didn't bother with the I-131 and I thought it was cost but on reflection it was because there was no need for me to travel while the AOS was going on. I was lead to believe that filing through approval was reasonably quick; and indeed it was at 109 days total!

Of course everyone's mileage may vary so apologies for my somewhat misleading posting

Unless you have an over riding need or desire to travel out of the US before AOS, I would suggest that you do not waste additional funds on a I-131 application; the speed that USCIS is processing AOS applications at the moment is amazing so if you can wait three months then do so and save some green!

Just my two euro's worth

As no one has answered I am going to throw my tuppence in and say that as long as you advise USCIS of your new address, wherever the case is transferred to (if indeed it is transferred) it will be seamless to you and the AOS interview will be held at your (new) local Office. I shouldn't worry too much about this, just ensure that you do advise them of your new address as soon as possible.

That is ridiculous! We're going to be in the same boat, my husband has been living at the same place for over four years and is currently going from month-to-month. We don't want to alter the lease in any way since we're looking to buy a place, all it's doing is to create more paperwork!

This all seems ridiculous - when I had my AOS interview last month they didn't even ask for a copy of our lease because if they had, we would have told them that we do not have one!

Despite living here for the best part of two years, we have an informal agreement with our friend ("Landlord"); also the utilities are all in his name and we just pay them direct!

When submitting my AOS package in the first place, we enclosed a copy of a letter signed by our "Landlord" explaining all of the above. I guess that's why it never came up at the interview.

My point is that to be living here you must either own, rent or borrow and whichever it is should have been documented with the initial evidence sent in and if it wasn't then it can't be much of a problem if you made it to Interview - if they had a major concern about this, they would have issued an RFE before you ever got your Interview letter.

My best guess is that you will be approved quite quickly.

Good luck!

Had a look at our case after months with a green card, just to see the new look. You've got to remember the categories fit many petitions and applications. If you mouse over the circles it tells what they are. My short interpretation:

Initial review-they're working on your case. (General review or just Review might be a better term)

Request for evidence- They sent you an RFE and are waiting on your response. Will go back to initial review when case resumes.

Testing and interview For naturalization applicants, I believe you take the test and interview sometimes the same day. An AOS applicant would get this status if an interview had been scheduled.

Decision-They've approved you probably and are generating the approval emails and letters.

Post decision activity-Whatever happens after a decision...like in a denial and they are working on deportation and you are filing a waiver. For approvals they are just doing paperwork and updating databases.

Document prodution/oath ceremony-They ordered your card. I would guess these last three happen pretty fast. Actually our EAD says post decision activity, so maybe after the card is issued, the status reverts back to the "post-decision" phase? Ah, something new to talk about. "After you got your card, what circle are you on?"

I don't think you will have to go through all the steps. You could get transfered to CSC and go from Initial Review to Decision is my guess. Interestingly, we never got an update for the approval of AOS...no email, no welcome letter, no card production ordered, but a green card arrived in the mail. So looking at our case online (new version), it says Initial Review. Out of curiosity I called and asked if they knew my husband had a green card. The lady said that sometimes the adjudicator just doesn't enter things in the system like they are supposed to for the updates. So it may not be the system, but the individual not doing their job.

Thanks so much for all the updates. Its amazing how much you "sleep better" when you have a bit of reassurance from others.

Cheers! Amara & Steve

For what its worth, I spoke with the (No)Helpline the day before my GC arrived as I too was a bit concerned that the new and updated site seemed to have added stuff that did not seem pertinent to my case - specifically I had letters from USCIS that indicated that the process was far more advanced than the web site indicated.

The advice I received was that I should forget what the website says and only go by what I actually received in the mail; that the website should only be looked at as indicative. In fact this was the correct advice as the GC arrived the following day and the website has still not changed.

Hope that helps!

I used the number from my NOA... it starts with a MSCXXXXXXXXXx and that number should stay with you until your AOS is complete.

Hope that helps.

Cheers...

Thank you for the info.

appreciate alot

I just checked mine and the MSC number also appears on your Green card as does your A# (alien number) so it seems safe to say that these numbers will stay with you.

Card arrived yesterday, September 24th, so that was 9 days total.

Again, great service from USCIS!

I will kick my heels for a few days then

And as if by magic....I just got an e-mail from USCIS telling me that my card has been ordered!

6 days (including a weekend)! Now that's what I call service!

No offense, but if you were expecting to hear/see something happen in the 2 days your response was delivered, you've probably got some (too) high expectations. I'd give it a week/10-days to hear something.

Yep, you are probably right! I think I feel such an idiot in not having that one piece of paper that I just want to forget the whole thing as quickly as possible.

I will kick my heels for a few days then

Hi,

I wondered if someone could put my mind at rest (?)

I recently had my AOS interview in Tampa; the interview went very well except it transpired that I had forgotten a copy of my divorce absolute certificate from way back in the early 1990's!

The Officer said that this was not a major issue and that all I had to do was to send it to him at the Tampa Field office; we would not need to attend another AOS interview and he gave me an I-72 (not an I-797C) Request for Further Evidence with an 87 day limit to it.

Apart from feeling bloody stupid for not having it as soon as we got back in the car to return home, I immediately started making phone calls back to the UK and a very good and extremely patient friend of mine managed to track it down and had it sent to me within a couple of days. I sent it together with the I-72 and a cover letter back to Tampa for the attention of the Officer (as requested in the letter) via UPS and it was delivered at 10.30am last Wednesday, September 9th.

Does anyone have any experience of something similar? I sort of thought that upon delivery, the wheels would turn pretty fast and the website would be updated and hopefully an e-mail from the CRIS system would have been received by now!

On speaking to the help desk late yesterday, the person there told me that it was up to the individual Officer whether he/she wanted to use the website/e-mail route or just snail mail me in which case the website would not show any updates at all! I found this strange as I can not see why the infrastructure in place would be not used but I have heard of people who have had their Green cards for some time and yet the website still says that the application is pending so maybe there is some truth to that!

Not withstanding that, any idea how long this is likely to take ?

Many thanks for reading this.

Dusty