File too soon? 90 days met?

[Alaska2012 462]

Did she spend a lot of time abroad?

[Ryan144 0]

Well, there are some confusing parts here. You mentioned earlier that she is a resident since 1/1/2013 but you guys got married on 1/7/2013. How is that possible she gets the green card before you guys got married?

I think you answered the questions without looking at the green card dates. Take a look at bothe cards the unconditional residence since date and the 10 years card residence since date. Are they identical?

[NikLR 13,227]

Well, there are some confusing parts here. You mentioned earlier that she is a resident since 1/1/2013 but you guys got married on 1/7/2013. How is that possible she gets the green card before you guys got married?

I think you answered the questions without looking at the green card dates. Take a look at bothe cards the unconditional residence since date and the 10 years card residence since date. Are they identical?

Looking at the OP's timeline I'm going to guess they were married abroad in 2012 and he just wrote the wrong date. I say this considering the I-130 was filed in 2012. You need to be married for an I-130.

[newacct 688]

You mentioned that she arrived on 1/1/2013 then said she has been a resident on the same date?

It has to be that way because someone becomes a permanent resident the moment they enter the US on an immigrant visa.

the 10 years card

resident since 01/01/2015

You mean 01/01/2013?

[newacct 688]

Did she make sure to put 01/01/2013 for question 7 (date you became a permanent resident) on her N-400 form?

[NikLR 13,227]

OP, you should triple check the numbers that are written down on your form. You keep messing them up on here, and it's possible you did the same thing on the N-400. Have a friend or family member check them as well.

[Penguin_ie 5,993]

OP, you should triple check the numbers that are written down on your form. You keep messing them up on here, and it's possible you did the same thing on the N-400. Have a friend or family member check them as well.

This.

Also, make sure you have made it clear she is filing under the 3 year rule. It may be obvious to you that she is filing due to marriage to a USC, but you need to spell that out to USCIS and tick the relevant boxes.

[4izenough 3]

Thank you everybody for responding.

I check my form N-400 everything is correct. date, 3 years marriage etc..

Her GC resident date is 01/01/2013 ( same day she arrived in the US).

He Adjustment of status GC resident is also 01/01/2013 to 04/01/2025

Our US marriage certifcate is 01/07/2013.

I think USCIS read the date wrong or their date of resident does not match was GC issued.

Even though, we've met the 3 years requirement and 90 days rule.

I'm just gonna keep submitting it every month.

thanks

[aaron2020 11,651]

Thank you everybody for responding.

I check my form N-400 everything is correct. date, 3 years marriage etc..

Her GC resident date is 01/01/2013 ( same day she arrived in the US).

He Adjustment of status GC resident is also 01/01/2013 to 04/01/2025

Our US marriage certifcate is 01/07/2013.

I think USCIS read the date wrong or their date of resident does not match was GC issued.

Even though, we've met the 3 years requirement and 90 days rule.

I'm just gonna keep submitting it every month.

thanks

Hold your horses Nelly!

You have inconsistent dates.

You have a wife who had a conditional green card (now 10 years card) based on marriage to you. She got the conditional green card on 01/01/2013 the day she arrived in the US as your wife presumably on a CR-1 spousal visa. Why the heck do you have a US marriage certificate dated afterwards on 01/07/2013? That doesn't make sense. Is there a foreign marriage certificate? If yes, which marriage certificate did you file?

Edited January 11, 2016 by aaron2020

[JimmyHou 611]

the 10 years card

resident since 01/01/2015

expire 04/01/2025

US married 01/07/2013

thanks

I think you mean resident since 01/01/2013...

It sounds like you listed the date of a US marriage on your application... if there was a foreign marriage before that, then that's the one you should have used.

In any case, based on the information on your application, you filed too early.

She can apply 90 days before the 3rd anniversary of her green card, but she cannot apply before you have been married for 3 full years and you have been a citizen for 3 full years.

In other words, the 90 day early filing rule only applies to the Resident Since date and not to the 3 year marriage requirement or to how long you have been a citizen.

In other words, she became eligible to file on 01/07/2016 (assuming that you were a US citizen on 01/07/2013).

Edited January 11, 2016 by JimmyHou

[newacct 688]

In other words, she became eligible to file on 01/07/2016 (assuming that you were a US citizen on 01/07/2013).

Based on a date of marriage which is not true.

She was almost certainly eligible to file, if she had the correct information. (She got CR-1/IR-1 which required her to have been married to the USC before petitioning, and it takes way more than 3 months to go through the process of petitioning and consular processing; more like 1 year, so the marriage must have been at least that much longer than her permanent residence.

[JimmyHou 611]

Based on a date of marriage which is not true.

She was almost certainly eligible to file, if she had the correct information. (She got CR-1/IR-1 which required her to have been married to the USC before petitioning, and it takes way more than 3 months to go through the process of petitioning and consular processing; more like 1 year, so the marriage must have been at least that much longer than her permanent residence.

I think you're saying that the date of the marriage listed on the application was not correct... am I understanding you correctly? If that's what you're saying, then you're absolutely right!

To clarify for others regarding the 90 day early filing when applying under the 3 year rule:

Let me try to explain my understanding and back it up with USCIS text and other VJ experiences.

For the 3 year rule the applicant can apply 90 days before the "resident since" date on the green card provided that these two other conditions are met on the day the applications is filed:

The applicant has to have been married to a US citizen for 3 full years

The applicant's spouse has to have been a US citizen for 3 full years.

Once again, to be clear, applying 90 days early applies only to the resident since date... you cannot apply before you have been married for 3 years.

Here is the wording from the USCIS policy manual. A spouse applying under the 3 year rule must meet the following:

"Living in marital union with the citizen spouse for at least three years ​preceding ​the time of filing the naturalization application​ (the citizen spouse must have been a U.S. citizen for those three years)​.​"

"Continuous residence​ in the United States as an LPR for at least three years immediately preceding the date of filing the application and up to the time of naturalization​.​"

Note that there are 3 requirements:

3 years as an LPR

3 years of marriage

3 years of the spouse being a USC

Now a little further down, there's an exception:

"The spouse of a U.S. citizen filing for naturalization on the basis of his or her marriage may file the ​naturalization application ​up to 90 days before ​t​he ​date he ​or she ​would first ​me​e​t the ​required three-year period ​of continuous residence."

The exception is very clearly only to the continuous residency requirement and not to the marriage or USC spouse requirements. Note that the 3 years have to be "immediately preceding the date of filing the application and up to the time of naturalization". So the continuous residency requirement is coutned all the way until naturalization. But there is no similar rule for the marriage anniversary. It just says "Living in marital union with the citizen spouse for at least three years ​preceding ​the time of filing the naturalization application".

The full text can be found here:

http://www.uscis.gov/policymanual/HTML/PolicyManual-Volume12-PartG-Chapter3.html

That's pretty clear to me, but here's a case of someone who actually experienced this issue and was denied:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/322175-n400-denied-based-on-eligibility/

Here is further discussion of the issue.

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/496815-married-3-years-or-3-years-90-days-to-file-n400/#entry7017398

I've come across several other similar cases where applications were denied for the same reason, but to for completeness, I did also come across a case of an applicant last year who's application was not rejected even though she applied early; so it appears that the rule (while clear to me) isn't always applied consistently.

Edited January 11, 2016 by JimmyHou

[newacct 688]

I think you're saying that the date of the marriage listed on the application was not correct... am I understanding you correctly? If that's what you're saying, then you're absolutely right!

To clarify for others regarding the 90 day early filing when applying under the 3 year rule:

Let me try to explain my understanding and back it up with USCIS text and other VJ experiences.

For the 3 year rule the applicant can apply 90 days before the "resident since" date on the green card provided that these two other conditions are met on the day the applications is filed:

The applicant has to have been married to a US citizen for 3 full years

The applicant's spouse has to have been a US citizen for 3 full years.

Once again, to be clear, applying 90 days early applies only to the resident since date... you cannot apply before you have been married for 3 years.

Here is the wording from the USCIS policy manual. A spouse applying under the 3 year rule must meet the following:

"Living in marital union with the citizen spouse for at least three years ​preceding ​the time of filing the naturalization application​ (the citizen spouse must have been a U.S. citizen for those three years)​.​"

"Continuous residence​ in the United States as an LPR for at least three years immediately preceding the date of filing the application and up to the time of naturalization​.​"

Note that there are 3 requirements:

3 years as an LPR

3 years of marriage

3 years of the spouse being a USC

Now a little further down, there's an exception:

"The spouse of a U.S. citizen filing for naturalization on the basis of his or her marriage may file the ​naturalization application ​up to 90 days before ​t​he ​date he ​or she ​would first ​me​e​t the ​required three-year period ​of continuous residence."

The exception is very clearly only to the continuous residency requirement and not to the marriage or USC spouse requirements. Note that the 3 years have to be "immediately preceding the date of filing the application and up to the time of naturalization". So the continuous residency requirement is coutned all the way until naturalization. But there is no similar rule for the marriage anniversary. It just says "Living in marital union with the citizen spouse for at least three years ​preceding ​the time of filing the naturalization application".

The full text can be found here:

http://www.uscis.gov/policymanual/HTML/PolicyManual-Volume12-PartG-Chapter3.html

That's pretty clear to me, but here's a case of someone who actually experienced this issue and was denied:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/322175-n400-denied-based-on-eligibility/

Here is further discussion of the issue.

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/496815-married-3-years-or-3-years-90-days-to-file-n400/#entry7017398

I've come across several other similar cases where applications were denied for the same reason, but to for completeness, I did also come across a case of an applicant last year who's application was not rejected even though she applied early; so it appears that the rule (while clear to me) isn't always applied consistently.

You completely misunderstood what I was saying. I did not say that they did not have to be married for 3 years. What I said was that, if she had been a permanent resident for 2 years 9 months, then based on the fact that she came on IR-1/CR-1, it is mathematically impossible for her to have been married to the USC for less than 3 years, due to the fact of the sheer length of the process, which takes about a year from filing of petition to getting immigrant visa, which is far longer than 3 months. So the problem could not possibly be that the marriage is not long enough. It may have been filling out the wrong date on the form.

[JimmyHou 611]

You completely misunderstood what I was saying. I did not say that they did not have to be married for 3 years. What I said was that, if she had been a permanent resident for 2 years 9 months, then based on the fact that she came on IR-1/CR-1, it is mathematically impossible for her to have been married to the USC for less than 3 years, due to the fact of the sheer length of the process, which takes about a year from filing of petition to getting immigrant visa, which is far longer than 3 months. So the problem could not possibly be that the marriage is not long enough. It may have been filling out the wrong date on the form.

No... that's exactly what I thought you were saying... and as I said I think you are correct. I didn't think you were saying they didn't have to be married for 3 years.

The problem is that the applicant wrote down a marriage date on the application that was LESS than 3 years before the application date. The application was filed in October 2015 and the date of the marriage on the application was January 2013. The OP has confirmed this several times. I don't know why that was done, but it was.. You're right of course that that can't be right, but USCIS will go by the dates on the application; they will not correct the information based on their previous case records.

I suspect that the applicant had more than one wedding and wrote down the date of the second wedding on the application.

As I said above, the rest of the response was for others who may not be aware of all the details of the 3 year rule.

Edited January 12, 2016 by JimmyHou

[4izenough 3]

Hold your horses Nelly!

You have inconsistent dates.

You have a wife who had a conditional green card (now 10 years card) based on marriage to you. She got the conditional green card on 01/01/2013 the day she arrived in the US as your wife presumably on a CR-1 spousal visa. Why the heck do you have a US marriage certificate dated afterwards on 01/07/2013? That doesn't make sense. Is there a foreign marriage certificate? If yes, which marriage certificate did you file?

Yes the dates are correct. Marriage is 1/7/2013 Filed with this (N-400)

Her 2 yrs GC was issued with a resident date of 1/1/2013

We were married in her country, ceremony in 2011. she came her on a cr-1 visa

thanks for responding.