lisa71

JenT, WOW, what a great thread you have started. Firstly, I am so sorry to hear that your fairy tale has ended. I think most of us that were regulars (or semi-regulars like me) 3 and 4 years ago now realise this journey is no walk in the park and is not for the faint hearted.

I can honestly say that I related to almost everything you said. I think my husband would too. Your story or journey sounds way too familiar in so many ways. We too struggled with so many of the adjustments we all had to make. And, at times, it just felt like it was way too hard and not worth the effort. Like some others have posted, we went to marriage counselling and threw the threat of divorce at each other.

I am very pleased to say that 3 years later we have sorted through so many of the issues and are, most days, a happily married couple with kids (step-kids).

Thank you for sharing your story. It has made me realise that we are not alone in what has, sometimes, been a very difficult and painful journey. For us, I think it has been worth it. We have both worked hard on our marriage and are very committed. I hope that you find this in your future!

Still nothing. My driver's license expires in 3 days as does my Green Card. Have made Infopass appointment, but can't get in until next week. How bizarre that they'd send the kids approval letters, whose approval is dependant upon my approval, supposedly.

Do you think it may have been lost in the mail? This has happened to me before with USCIS NOA's.

Well, both my kids got their letters today extending them for 1 year. I haven't received mine. I am *cautiously* assuming that means mine will arrive in the mail tomorrow.

Thanks everyone. I sent ours in to the CSC around the same time as SnowXTC. I can see that they have cashed the check. We should get our NOA some time this week if all goes well.

How long did your NOA take? We filed about a week ago and my card expires in two weeks!

My son is returning to Australia to attend a boarding school back there. He will leave in a month or so. We have just filed for removal of conditions. What will this do to his status and residency in the US? Does anyone know?

liam4lisa,

do you have a timeline on filing to have your conditions removed? How long after you sent your packet in did you receive your receipt and notice of extension?

My Permanent Resident Card says it expires on 09/18/08. When should we apply to have the conditions to be removed? My card states resident since 09/18/06, but we've (the kids and I) been here longer than that. My husband and I married within a month of my arrival, that was in November 2005. We had problems in our process and everything was delayed by months due to USCIS mess ups.

So, I am confused. Am I past the date I should have filed? Or, should I go from the date on our Permanent Resident Cards? I have a great job, wonderful husband, my kids are settled... what is next?

Thanks for any info you can share.

Lisa

I am very sorry to read of teasers loss. I sincerely hope that you can sort your situation out. This thread is rather timely for me. My husband of almost 14 months came very close to dying late November and early December last year. Thankfully, he pulled through and seems to be recovering from the condition he was diagnosed with. I didn't think about it at the time, but after reading this thread I wonder what would have happened to me and my children. We have our temporary permanent resident cards. Would we have had to leave the US and return to Australia had he passed away?

welshcookie, no, his actions didn't incite any fighting in the crowd. In fact, the fighting stopped immediately. The school principal was on duty and told him that he had garbage duty, and if he ever did anything like that again he'd be in big trouble - ie. suspended.

A few hours later I received a call from my son that he was in the principal's office and was being suspended.

I'm not sure where to post this, so am starting here. My son, who is as new to the whole gang thing as I am, was suspended from his school today because he alerted other kids, his friends, to the fact that a fight had broken out between two gang members. The principal's reasoning was that he, basically, 'incited a riot', because he alerted other kids to the fight and turned a crowd of 15 into a crowd of around 100+.

I don't know the US school system well enough... but think this is really unfair. Any thoughts?

What if your CPA and Atty. had NOT given you such advice?

I wondered this too. I also wondered if there may have been another option. My (now) husband and I discussed a pre-nup BEFORE I moved over with my two children. We didn't end up with one as a) he owned the house/property/assets BEFORE our marriage, and B) he already had all his assets set up in a trust that I cannot touch if we divorce.

So, despite the fact that I couldn't and wouldn't ever take any of his assets in the (sad) event of divorce, he was protected without a pre-nup. I had very few assets and didn't really have anything to protect. But, again, any assets I do have were acquired BEFORE our marriage. Additionally, I trust that if we were to ever divorce, he would never take anything away from my children - no matter how he may feel about me.

We live in CA and my very basic understanding of the divorce laws here are that if we were to divorce, we'd each walk away with our individual assets and 50% of what we acquired when together.

I wonder if the OP had looked into the kind of trust my husband had set up if the marriage may still be on?

Paul, my kids and I moved to the US around 12 months ago. We were covered for the first three months under travel insurance. During this time I applied to Kaiser Permanente, the same insurer my self employed husband has been with forever. We had no problems at all getting covered. Which, in hindsight, is a very good thing. My daughter broke her arm and developed a traumatic spigelian hernia after falling off her bike. She needed a lengthy operation to fix the hernia. Then, I became pregnant (unplanned) which turned out to be an ectopic pregnancy that I am still undergoing very expensive treatment for. My advice, get medical coverage and FAST! I hate to think what the last 3 months could have cost us without decent medical coverage. You just never know what unexpected things are around the corner.

Hi all, finally my kids have received their permanent resident card. Do I apply for the SSN now? Does it matter when I do it?

Also, I want to change my name to married name. I put it off until the AOS was complete as I didn't want to confuse our case. As we've been approved and I have my PR card, should I do it now or wait until the two years are up?

Wow! This is incredible. Why did you not think to bring up the pre-nup BEFORE she uprooted her and her daughter and moved to another country FOR YOU? I don't know the legal answer to your question. The right thing to do would be a) try to work it out, or B) return her life to where it was before she moved for you.

As a side note, you and your selfish actions really disgust me. My heart breaks for this poor woman and her daughter.

Yodrak, I know that the cut off age is 14. That's why I was so surprised when they did the full set of prints on my 13 year old. And, no, they did not make me pay for it. Now that you bring the fee up, I am worried that the fact they didn't make me pay will mean yet another stuff up in our case and that they won't process his biometrics. *argh*. This whole process is a total nightmare. I am so used to them making mistakes that I worry about all the little things that can go wrong - mostly because we have had so many little things go wrong due to their stuff ups.

Hi there,

I was approved before my kids were fingerprinted. At our interview the officer approved us pending the kids getting their biometrics done. When I went to have it done, they did the full set of fingerprints on my 13 year old son (he only just turned 13 too). they only took one fingerprint for my 11 year old.

We had this done about 3 weeks ago and I haven't heard anything from them, nor have I received the kids cards. I guess this may be normal processing time or it could be yet another of the USCIS many screw ups with our case.

Good luck and I hope that it all works out for you.

Hi there,

I had a similar experience; in that my case was considered abandoned because I failed to turn up for my interview. The fact of the matter with us is, USCIS NEVER, EVER sent the letter. When we, finally, had our interview last week, the SF office had no evidence of that letter being sent to us.

Anyway, I digress. Here's what we did after we received that scary letter telling me I had to leave the country immediately because they considered our application abandoned.

1. We made an infopass appointment and took the first one we could get.

2. I phoned the mis-information line daily about our case. I gathered as much info as I could about our case.

3. We went to our infopass appointment and told our story. Mr Waldo Church of the San Francisco office is as helpful as tits on bulls. We asked him to write on our denial papers his findings.

4. His findings were that we never received notification of our interview and that we had to file a motion to re-open.

5. We enquired as to why we had to pay $385 (or close to that) for the USCIS f**king up. He advised us to file and pay up. Nothing else could be done.

6. We researched this and made many enquiries. In the end, we filed the MTR and paid up.

Long story short... that is the quickest option that *I* think is available to you. My AOS was approved about 10 days ago. A couple of months after I received the denial letter.

Good luck!!

We all wore nice casual clothes. I don't think the immigration officer even noticed what we had on! :-)

Good luck at your interview!

Thanks for the responses everyone. I guess the USCIS stuffed up on our case yet again. I was only sent the one appointment letter for Biometrics and when I phoned the mis-information line to question if the kids should attend they told me NO.

Anyway, I was told by the immigration officer that I didn't need an appointment to have their biometrics done and that I should just turn up. I will do that later this week.

It feels so nice to be approved, FINALLY! YAY!

Hi all,

Finally, after many hiccups, my AOS was approved in SF yesterday. The interview was pretty smooth and all went well until the officer tried to approve myself and my two kids in the computer. My approval went smooth. However, he couldn't approve the kids on the computer as he said they needed to have their biometrics done. When I received my biometrics appointment, earlier this year, I was told that they didn't need to have their biometrics done because of their ages - 10 and 12. Now, I have been told they do need to have it done.

Anyone got any experience with kids and biometrics? Do they need it to be done or not?

Thanks

Lisa

I agree. A board that dealt with divorce, cancelling visas/petitions/AOS etc would be very helpful to some members. I'd also like to see a board for scams... I find them morbidly interesting.

I have an appt to go to the Sacramento Ofiice on Mon 28th.

Is this an infopass appointment or an appointment for your interview?

TroyB63, apparently they only mail the one notice and they don't follow it up at all. So, if you don't receive that very first one, basically, you're screwed. Unfortunately, you will have to pay the $385.00 to have your case re-opened. Once we did that our case was opened again pretty quickly. To update our situation, we finally received notification of our interview in SF last week. Hopefully, 18 September will be the last time we have to deal with the San Francisco office for a while.

Good luck TroyB63. Let us know what happens.

Today I signed up with Monster.com, Sperion.com and Manpower. Does anyone have any hints for online job searching? I have only been at it for a couple of days and already feel very pressured and worried that I am not going to be able to find work.