My ROC process (a bit unique, so might be useful)

[bluebulb 3]

I was quite anxious during my ROC process since our situation is a bit unique compared to the average filer. I just got my letter of approval. So I wanted to share those parts in case someone else is in the same boat and is nervous about their filing.

Background: I met my wife at college while working on my MS. She is a USC, I was on my F1. After my school I joined a company here on my "Optional Practical Training" permit, which let me continue my stay in the US for one year after my F1 expired. My company filed for a H1 but I didn't get it in the lottery. This caused a lot of concern since this meant I had to go back to my home country. One obvious move here was to get married while here but her parents were opposed to a rushed marriage without my parents involved. So I packed my bags and left, not knowing when I would return.

Fiance Visa and GC: We went through the fiance visa process for me to come back to the US. Once I came here we got married and I applied for my GC. The conditional GC arrived as expected. During this period we stayed with her parents as she was still in school. After school we moved out to an apt as she started working.

ROC: The big problem we faced during ROC were as follows.

1. The first was that when I got my job eventually, it was in a different city. It was only 150 miles away, but still far enough to where we had to take different apartments and were living separately. We were meeting every weekend of course but still, this caused me to get concerned looking ahead at the ROC stage but nothing could be done about that.

2. To add to the problem, we decided not to file taxes jointly. This was to avoid making big payments on her college loans which we would have had to do if we filed jointly since that would show our income as being high. (Since we were paying two rents, driving each weekend etc we were getting slammed financially anyway).

3. The third problem was that I had moved many times without filing the change of address. From her parents house to an apt. Then to the other city for my job. Then once again in the same city. While I was loosely aware that I should have done this, I told myself that the hassle of filing this for each address change would be too much.

While filing for the ROC, we went all out. A friend of ours got an RFE and they were actually living together! So we showed our joint bank accounts, statements from our joint credit cards, bills showing the shared cell phone usage, (and cell phone usage showing frequent calls to each other) drivers license with the address (from when we were living together at her parents'), flight stubs to visit friends and family, affidavits from her parents and our close friends and tons of photographs (including photos with those who gave the affidavits). I don't know which was the strongest but ultimately this offset our handicaps as described above.

Another small twist in our story. I filed in May 2012 and my lease at my current apartment expired in Dec 2012. I was aware that if everything went well, I would be getting my approval in Jan 2013, or just as I moved into a new apartment. But I filed the address change (in addition to filling out the old address changes while filing the ROC) as soon as I moved in Dec. Around the first week of Jan I got a letter from the local office that they would be sending my address change info to the Vermont center. I thought this might delay things significantly but it didn't. I got my letter last night.

[DC85 113]

Congratulation,,,, the most important thing is you got your approval letter

[Darnell 8,478]

It's a big deal to pay attention to both sets of parents, so, good on you !