Went for interview today however still waiting : (

[Gia2577 12]

Hi everyone,

We had our interview today and are a bit disappointed that we didn't get approved today as we had hoped. Our AOS journey is a it different to others as we first filed a i130/i129f back in feb 2013 whilst we were still living in Dubai. We thought we would have everything done and dusted by mid year, however we were so wrong about that. My husband moved back home to US in July and I came here on a visa waiver to hang out with him hoping that any day now we would hear about me attending an interview in sydney. In that time we went to australia to visit my family and came back here and I went to Dubai for a job as Im a freelance stylist and then entered here to see my husband at the end of august again to hang out spend time with him and help him settle in, in the hopes of hearing about an interview in sydney during the visa waiver period of 3 months. Well November came and we still hadn't heard and decided to request an info pass appt to find out why it was taking so long. We were just told there was delays etc etc, it was then that we learned about the AOS process and we were even told thats what we should have done all along. Anyway deciding that that might be better for us (as well as get loads of advise from VJer's about it) as we can stay together and i can apply to work as i really needed to work we filed for it a week after my visa waiver expired. It was processed and we finally had the interview today.

Our case is a bit different as it was a bit confusing for the NVC and USCIS as, just as our AOS was accepted they approved the i130/i129f and even though we rang them to notify that we adjusted it still caused there to be two cases on the system, sydney even got in touch for an interview and it was frustrating trying to resolve that. Our i130 is still with nvc who have told us that when our adjudication is successful that USCIS will contact them to get the i130 petition back, however if the adjudication is denied then it will go to sydney. Confused yet?! I know its been confusing to us too.

Anyway we finally had the interview, we don't have much in our name together as our realtor wouldn't allow my name on the lease, so just a joint bank account, personal letters, invites and cards addressed to both of us and a couple bills. And then photos. The only photos we don't have are wedding photos as we purposely didn't want to celebrate that day as much as I'm old fashioned and still dream of a big wedding day and want to have that day and that be my memory of getting married and we are saving up for that hopefully in a year or so. We got married so that we could leave dubai and start our lives here together and establish ourselves before we settle down and have kids etc. Obviously the easiest way was to get married in order to do all this even though we couldn't afford a wedding yet. We explained this after she went through our photos and she seemed ok with it.

The interview was actually not so bad, we laughed through it with our IO, for some reason there was two of them which they didn't explain, i thought one might be in training but we can't be sure of that as the person that actually interviewed us told us after that that office was the other IO's office and not hers. The other IO did not speak just laughed a few times. Unless the one interviewing might have been in training not that you could tell at all.

She kept some pics, that she liked..( she was like 'ooh i like that one') that made us laugh but not sure why they kept them. Other than that my husband fumbled some answers as he gets really nervous when he is put on the spot and starts mumbling its annoying but thats how he naturally responds he also muddled up the years on a couple things even our wedding which was a year ago and he said it was 2012! (i think bc we are still adjusting to the fact its 2014), she was cool about it though and said, 'we understand this is stressful so just try and relax". I feel like when she asked him about when we moved over he might have mucked that up as he said we moved over in July. He technically moved over in July I just joined him on a visa waiver to help him settle in. I feel she might have been looking for intent to stay in the US and his answer has now worried me.

Anyway all in all it was a not so bad experience and she ended it with that since my petition is with NVC and that whole confusing way of applying which i think even she found confusing that they need to request it back to continue with the process and approve and that that may take some time. Once they have that then they can continue and we should hear in the mail. She gave us a form that ticked the box that it was in review and she said if they need anything else they will ask us to mail it. I have to say I felt really disappointed with this ending, as obviously we hoped for an approval. I can understand that they need to request our i130 petition from NVC before they approve, but if she had said it like that I would feel more relaxed such as "this all looks good and will probably be approved however we need to get your petition back before we do that'. I don't know maybe I am making it more stressful and difficult then it needs to be but we are just so sick of waiting. yes I have the EAD already but it would be nice to have health insurance and a SSN and proper residency. its been 13 months since we filed our first form and we just feel a bit depressed that we still have to wait. Anyway sorry for the massively long post I just wanted to maybe share our story and how our interview went today and see if others can reflect their opinion on it or perhaps share their story.

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

Sounds like a successful interview. They'll have to sort out the I-130 stuff and I would expect an approval. Congrats!

And, you can get a SSN with an EAD.

[Gia2577 12]

Sounds like a successful interview. They'll have to sort out the I-130 stuff and I would expect an approval. Congrats!

And, you can get a SSN with an EAD.

Aww thanks Harpa thats really reassuring to hear. Thank you to all your help with helping me to file it all to begin with, I feel like you are as knowledgeable as an immigration lawyer! I had no idea that I could get a SSN with the EAD, as there were instructions on how it should be used, I'm definitely going to go apply for it now. Thanks for the reply!

[aussie_jason 195]

You can also get health insurance even without an EAD once the I485 is filed, our insurance is through my company (I'm currently on an EAD, interview on April 7th) and my USC wife is a dependent on my policy so I'd get on that within the next 4 days.