May be Overseas when I 751 approved

[Sara B 0]

Hi Everyone,

My husband and I are going to be filing our I-751 at the beginning of July and have planned a long trip in the fall to Europe and beyond. I am assuming that the application will (hopefully!) be approved while we are gone.

From what I read, it appears that my husband will have to go to our local USCIS office to be fingerprinted/processed etc if our application is approved.

I know that we will be getting the NOA and we will be able to travel with that document for up to a year (We will be traveling for about 6 months). We will pray that an interview will not be necessary (though we will budget a flight home if it is).

So, here is my question:

If we get a notice from the government that he has been approved for his 10 year green card and to make an appointment with the USCIS office for processing, can we make that appointment for 3-5 months away, after we get home? Will the government frown on this? From what I can tell, the NOA will be valid for the whole year that it is dated for. I imagine this sounds weird, usually people want to be processed asap! We just don't want to fly back to the US in the middle of our trip just for a 10 minute appointment (though we will budget it in if necessary). I know it will mean waiting a few more months for the physical GC to arrive, but he will have the stamp in the passport once he is processed. And who knows, the process could take over 9 months and we could be home already! Process times are so unpredictable.

We really appreciate this website - what a fantastic resource! This has given us so much great advice and answered many questions on this journey.

Sara and Julius