I-751 biometrics on vacation

[hsa12390 30]

Hi Everyone

My husband's GC expires 9/30/2016, so the earliest I can apply for I-751 is 7/2/2016. Since it's a holiday weekend, I was planning to send it out 7/5/2016. Here's my problem:

My husband's parents will be visiting us 8/5-9/5. We live in Boston but are planning a 10-day trip to California 8/11-8/21 with them and my parents. We have not bought tickets or reserved hotels yet. I've read that the biometrics appointment is usually about 4-6 weeks after you send in your application. So my question(s) is:

A) How hard is it to reschedule if you can't make the appointment and will it delay your application?

B) I've heard you can do a walk-in before your appointment as long as you have your NOA2 and a legit reason. Has anyone had any success/failure at the Boston office?

C) Should i wait until right before our vacation (early August) to send in the I-751 and that way not have to risk rescheduling/walk in? It would mean we'd have to wait another month to apply which most likely means another month to get the 10 year GC, but is it better to be prudent in this situation?

D) Worst case if we are in California, could he do his biometrics there? We're not residents so I'm guessing no

Thanks!

[yvy23 11]

Hi Everyone

My husband's GC expires 9/30/2016, so the earliest I can apply for I-751 is 7/2/2016. Since it's a holiday weekend, I was planning to send it out 7/5/2016. Here's my problem:

My husband's parents will be visiting us 8/5-9/5. We live in Boston but are planning a 10-day trip to California 8/11-8/21 with them and my parents. We have not bought tickets or reserved hotels yet. I've read that the biometrics appointment is usually about 4-6 weeks after you send in your application. So my question(s) is:

A) How hard is it to reschedule if you can't make the appointment and will it delay your application?

B) I've heard you can do a walk-in before your appointment as long as you have your NOA2 and a legit reason. Has anyone had any success/failure at the Boston office?

C) Should i wait until right before our vacation (early August) to send in the I-751 and that way not have to risk rescheduling/walk in? It would mean we'd have to wait another month to apply which most likely means another month to get the 10 year GC, but is it better to be prudent in this situation?

D) Worst case if we are in California, could he do his biometrics there? We're not residents so I'm guessing no

Thanks!

Rescheduling the appointment shouldn't be an issue. I had to do it for biometrics for AOS because we were out of town the day I was originally scheduled. Depending on how far they move your appointment, it will delay the application by a week or so, but it shouldn't put you back months. And depending on how fast or slow they're doing the appointments, you might not have to reschedule at all.

I can't help with walk-in at the Boston office - sorry!

I wouldn't wait a month to send in the I-751. Rescheduling biometrics, if you have to do it, shouldn't add that much time so you'd be delaying by a month instead of maybe a week or two (or not at all depending on their current timescale).

I wouldn't have thought you can do biometrics in CA, but I don't know for sure.

[hsa12390 30]

Thanks! In that case I will file is ASAP and keep my fingers crossed that we'll be in town on that day! If we aren't we'll try walk in and worst case reschedule

Also - I see that for the I-751 they want documents proving good faith marriage for the duration of the entire marriage. for the I-130 we filed about 3 years ago we already sent in a ton of proof. We were living in France at the time (my husband is French) and got married there, and sent in all of our proof at that time. Now we've been living in the US for the past year and 9 months. We have a lot of proof of that here, do we need to resend all the proof from France from the beginning of the marriage (lease agreement, utility/electricity bills, affidavit from French friends)?

Thanks

[hsa12390 30]

OK great advice thanks! Not sure what to do now, guess I will collect all the evidence for right now and make a decision about when to send it later.

Here's what I'll be including in my packet:

- I-751 form with cover letter explaining purpose of packet and table of contents

- 4 affidavits (1 from a friend of ours who lives in Boston, 1 from his wife who is a Russian citizen but living here legally, 1 from my brother, and 1 from my father just confirming that we have been living with them since we arrived). I want to give one from my Dad saying that since we have no lease agreement to show as proof (we've been living with my parents in order to save money and buy a house later). I will get these NOTARIZED, and include either a copy of each writer's passport or drivers license as proof of identity. For my Dad's affidavit - is there something that he should include in his letter in particular?

- copy of 2 year GC

- copy of French marriage certificate

- copy of his SS card (I don't actually have 1 but i know my number - do I need one?)

- copy of both driver's licenses showing the same address

- copy of friend's wedding invitation envelope showing both our names with same address (can probably include some junk mail as well)

- 30-40 photos (with various friends and family) with dates and names written on the back

- copies of health insurance, life insurance, dental insurance, and 401K showing him as beneficiary from my work and his as well (we get med and dental from my work but both get life and 401K from both mine and his)

- voided check with both of our names on it

- medical and dental insurance cards issued to both of us

- tax returns showing joint filing and W2s from 2014 and 2015 (we haven't filed yet for 2015 but hopefully will have that all done by July). Neither of us worked 2014 since we arrived in October but found jobs in 2015 so we have W2s for 2015

- copies of credit cards showing same cc #

- bank statements showing that him and I have a joint account (will i need to get ones that span the whole 2 years or can i just get 1 that says we share the same account and when it was created?)

- car insurance statement showing that we are both listed on it (the car is in my name since I got it when I was living here while we were waiting for the GC and he was in France but now we're both on the insurance)

- Verizon cell phone bill (my dad pays it but we're on a family plan with my parents, my brother and his wife, and me and my husband)

- plane tickets from our trips to France, Texas, Miami, and North Carolina

Is there anything else you think we should include or not include?

Also, how far in advance can these evidence be obtained? In other words, can I start collecting it now even if the date is sometime in early June (I know it's a weird question but I want to make sure they don't ask me for something more recent) or should it be collected right before we send it (i.e if the affidavit is dated sometime in early June is that OK)?

Thanks for all your help, sorry for the long post!

[Mollie09 1,543]

I tried to walk in in Boston when my original appointment was in Lawrence and they turned me away even though they weren't busy at all. Told me to come back the day of and they would see what they could do. I ended up going a day early to Lawrence and got it done.

[hsa12390 30]

I tried to walk in in Boston when my original appointment was in Lawrence and they turned me away even though they weren't busy at all. Told me to come back the day of and they would see what they could do. I ended up going a day early to Lawrence and got it done.

Maybe because you went to a different office. We live about 15 minutes outside of Boston so I would assume our biometrics would be there instead of Lawrence (which is around 1 hour from us). Am I correct in assuming this?

We wound up buying our tickets to California. Leaving August 11th, coming back August 22nd. Since I was going to send in a copy of the plane tickets as evidence (travelling with my husband, my parents, and his parents) do you think they would see the dates and know not to schedule the biometrics during those dates? I was going to write a small note just saying "We'll be in California from August 11-22nd as you can see, PLEASE SCHEDULE BIOMETRICS BEFORE OR AFTER"

Not sure if that would make any difference but is it worth a try? Otherwise if the biometrics falls in those dates we'll try the walk in