Do-It-Yourself Greencard photos ; and Beards

[ducky06 0]

Hi all,

My Guatemalan-German husband is applying for AOS from a student visa and I have a really nitpicky question. We're getting ready to hand in our I-130 / I-485 and need the consequent 9 passport-style photos of ourselves. We took some pics at home that pretty strictly meet the composition requirements on the web. I gather that at least for passports it sometimes comes down to the whim of the official looking at your application, but there are few stories out there about green-card photos, and not much about how all this (relatively new) biometrics stuff might affect them.

Does anyone have any recent stories about having DIY photos rejected? Are they less or more stringent when it's for a green card? Since in theory the government already has about 10 pictures of my husband that meet their biometric requirements and will get at least a couple more at the biometrics appointment.

Finally (this is a fun one), he's bearded right now in the pics we took, and we're debating whether we should take a shaven pic for printing. He is top category all kinds of shady-looking (tall, dark, rarely carries checked luggage) so he usually shaves before flying. We're wondering if having the beard in the photo might give us trouble. Any beard anecdotes?

We know that it would be safer to have him shave and to get the photos done by a pro. We also know that it could be fine. Just curious to hear any other DIY experiences that went well or poorly recently! Thanks

Steph

Edited May 9, 2012 by ducky06

[Anh map 2,098]

Hi all,

My Guatemalan-German husband is applying for AOS from a student visa and I have a really nitpicky question. We're getting ready to hand in our I-130 / I-485 and need the consequent 9 passport-style photos of ourselves. We took some pics at home that pretty strictly meet the composition requirements on the web. I gather that at least for passports it sometimes comes down to the whim of the official looking at your application, but there are few stories out there about green-card photos, and not much about how all this (relatively new) biometrics stuff might affect them.

Does anyone have any recent stories about having DIY photos rejected? Are they less or more stringent when it's for a green card? Since in theory the government already has about 10 pictures of my husband that meet their biometric requirements and will get at least a couple more at the biometrics appointment.

Finally (this is a fun one), he's bearded right now in the pics we took, and we're debating whether we should take a shaven pic for printing. He is top category all kinds of shady-looking (tall, dark, rarely carries checked luggage) so he usually shaves before flying. We're wondering if having the beard in the photo might give us trouble. Any beard anecdotes?

We know that it would be safer to have him shave and to get the photos done by a pro. We also know that it could be fine. Just curious to hear any other DIY experiences that went well or poorly recently! Thanks

Steph

The photo taken at the biometrics appointment is the photo that will be on the GC.

[ducky06 0]

Thanks Anh map. I gather that the GC photo is the biometrics one and the AP document has the ones you send in, but there must be more reason they ask for passport-style photos, though, right? Anyone heard of an I-130/I-485 application getting an RFE for bad photos?

[Moomin 292]

Nahh.. They keep the pictures you send in, with your file. Usually, the reason for keeping within their standards would be facial recognition on the computer. All mine were DIY pictures. Beard is not a hat or something you'd otherwise just take off. It doesn't matter as long as the ears and eyes are exposed, and the teeth aren't. The main thing is that the pictures meet the requirements and that they're less than 30 days old at the time of filing(if I remember correctly).

Edit: Most likely, if you receive an RFE for the pictures, it won't say that they're bad. It'll just say submit passport style pictures of applicant - as if they weren't already submitted so it's hard to determine whether or not anybody received an RFE for bad pictures or that USCIS simply lost the pictures.

Edited May 9, 2012 by moomin