February 2018 AOS Filers

[rain111 13]

On 7/29/2019 at 9:32 PM, Tilly87 said:

I read that too, but our interview letter arrived today and it's for Seattle! Aug 28th (so about a month out from when it was scheduled). We are happy that we won't need to travel farther than that, it's already an hour and a half drive down to there. Also, it'll feel a little less scary to go somewhere we've been before, as that is where I had my biometrics done. 🙂

I applied for my renewal EAD/AP back at the end of April, and only received the receipts recently (about a week ago), so I'd recommend renewing as soon as you're at the 180-day mark. I don't think it hurts anything if you get approved for the GC first. Better to have that in the works just in case your interview takes longer to schedule still. The renewal receipt letter gives you an automatic 180 day extension to your EAD (not AP). Good thing I did mine early, my current EAD expires 08/09/2019 so I would have had to leave my job then if I hadn't filed early enough. Phew! 

Good luck in getting your letter soon too! Fingers crossed for you.

I am glad you got your interview letter safely. Good luck on your interview! You are getting there 🙂

 

And thank you for your wish. I just prepared my renewal documents today, will send them soon.

[Tilly87 14]

We had our interview today at the Seattle field office! Here's a breakdown of our experience.

 

Preparation:

Our lawyer had thankfully advised us to get a new I-693 (civil surgeon exam) completed beforehand, which was excellent advice as ours indeed turned out to be expired. If we hadn't had it on hand, we would've received a RFE. (I'd suggest to anyone applying to adjust status, check out the updated USCIS rules regarding the civil surgeon exam. I believe it is, if your I-693  was completed 60 or more days before you submitted your package to USCIS, then the I-693 is only good for 1 year; if the I-693 was completed 60 or less days before submission of package, it's good for 2 years. Unfortunately we had mine done in November 2017 and submitted February 2018, so it was outside the window & we needed to redo. But I'm glad we did!

We made the mistake of working the day before our exam, so we ended up staying up until 4 am copying documents and assembling them all into sets. We made 3 packets, each packet was a labelled manila envelope:

-Main (containing originals of all items requested on the interview letter)

-Updated information (containing originals of all items that had updated since we submitted the original package, such as finances, 2018 tax return, etc)

-Supporting information (containing originals of proof of cohabitation, proof of mail received at same address, and photos)

 

We then made copies of all this information, separating sets of documents with paperclips. Some documents felt related, e.g. we were using them to prove we lived together, or received mail at the same address; we called this a "tab" in our coversheets. I made a coversheet for each of the 3 packets, following this format for each item (in case it's helpful to anyone else--I copied our lawyer's format from the original package, and also saw a very helpful post on this forum about how they approached the coverletter, and combined the two) :

 

Tab 1.     Evidence of Cohabitation

 1. Lease agreement for (address) signed by both (my name) (Spouse Beneficiary) and (husband's name) (Petitioner) on (date)

2.  Lease agreement for (address 2) signed by both (my name) (Spouse Beneficiary) and (husband's name) (Petitioner) on (date)

 

Tab. 2  Evidence of Joint Accounts
1. Joint bank account statements (bank account name) for both (my name) (Spouse Beneficiary) and (husband's name) (Petitioner) for as far back as (earliest statement date)

2. Joint loan statements (bank account name) for both (my name) (Spouse Beneficiary) and (husband's name) (Petitioner) for as far back as (earliest statement date)
 

(Etc. for as many tabs as needed)

 

Then, we made a copy of each packet, and stored these separately from the originals.

 

We also reviewed our entire application twice, once a few days before, and then again on the drive up to the field office. I think this was helpful later!

 

The Interview: (sounds like a movie title!)
Everyone was very nice to us (the person who checked us in for the interview even made a joke asking why I would want to leave Canada, the land of free health insurance 😆). We had just gotten upstairs to our waiting area when our number was called, which was amazing since we had heard Seattle can often run a bit behind schedule. Our officer was really nice too, we felt comfortable answering questions and making a little small talk. Here's the "timeline":

First part - swearing in
Second part - reviewing the submitted information, asking us the questions on the form & verifying our responses, then going over the portion of the I-485 that asks if the beneficiary has been involved in illegal activities (just reading the questions and asking for a yes-or-no response); also he asked us the same information at different points (ex: asking my husband when my birthday was [he fudged up at first and said the wrong day at first, we all laughed at him], asking me where husband was born, etc). That's where I felt reviewing our packet first was helpful; of course we knew all the information in it, but it helped to know what to expect.

Third part - asking us some questions about how we met, who was at our wedding, etc. All questions felt very reasonable and allowed us to kind of tell our story, felt like telling a coworker (or someone) about how you met your partner, with a few more little specific questions thrown in, as he was typing out notes. 

 Third part- allowing us to present our updated & supporting information. He took what he needed and left us with some of the copies. (He paused at one moment to ask my husband to identify some people in photos; not me though, which was a little surprising)

 

All in all, our interview was about 50 minutes long. Our lawyer advised us that a typical interview is 25-30 minutes, and if longer, it means trouble. However, we think we ended up making our interview go overtime by having so much supporting info--my husband was so excited to get rid of the box of copies we worked so hard on, he jokingly asked the officer to "please take it, we worked so hard on it" (he told the officer how late we stayed up copying it, so we all laughed) 😄 We agreed that around a half hour, the interview felt done, and the extra time was just us going over the additional information. I felt bad if we caused someone else's interview to run late (sorry if you were scheduled for 3 PM at Seattle and had to wait!) but I feel we firmly established our relationship with all the work.

 

At the end of the interview, the officer said he'd have to review everything and we could check the status online, so no decision was given then -- probably because of the updated information. Our lawyer said it should be within 3 weeks. That's it for now, I'll update again once I know more. Hope this write-up helps others, I wanted to make sure to contribute as I read a lot of helpful posts on this forum that I think helped us. 

 

Good luck to everyone still waiting for the interview letter!
 

[Tilly87 14]

My status updated this morning (on egov.uscis.gov) to:

 

"My Interview Was Completed And My Case Must Be Reviewed
Your interview for your Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status, Receipt Number _____________, was completed, and your case must be reviewed. We will mail you a notice if we make a decision or take further action. If you move, go to www.uscis.gov/addresschange to give us your new mailing address."

 

I googled this for a bit and it doesn't seem like anything to be alarmed about. We did give the officer some updated information - new I-693, 2018 taxes, new employment info, so I think it makes sense that it'll take a bit of time to go through. Still nerve wracking 😆 fingers crossed that everything goes okay. 

[cpthk 1]

On 8/29/2019 at 9:49 AM, Tilly87 said:

My status updated this morning (on egov.uscis.gov) to:

 

"My Interview Was Completed And My Case Must Be Reviewed
Your interview for your Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status, Receipt Number _____________, was completed, and your case must be reviewed. We will mail you a notice if we make a decision or take further action. If you move, go to www.uscis.gov/addresschange to give us your new mailing address."

 

I googled this for a bit and it doesn't seem like anything to be alarmed about. We did give the officer some updated information - new I-693, 2018 taxes, new employment info, so I think it makes sense that it'll take a bit of time to go through. Still nerve wracking 😆 fingers crossed that everything goes okay. 

I also just finished our interview in the Seattle office. I don't think we did well. Due to some family reasons, we haven't had our wedding after we got married. The IO seems surprised about it. We were honest about it. I am worried the IO may deny our application due to this reason.

My status is also "My Interview Was Completed And My Case Must Be Reviewed". Please keep us updated.

[Tilly87 14]

My status updated today (around 2:30 pm) to: "New Card Is Being Produced - On September 13, 2019, we ordered your new card for Receipt Number _____________, and will mail it to the address you gave us. If you move, go to www.uscis.gov/addresschange to give us your new mailing address." I couldn't believe it! Still can't, not quite yet...it's just so big. Husband and I are going to celebrate tomorrow. Our interview was August 28, 2:30 pm, so exactly 11 business days for the decision (September 2nd was Labor Day so it doesn't count). I'll update again when I receive the letter/card. 

[cpthk 1]

19 hours ago, Tilly87 said:

My status updated today (around 2:30 pm) to: "New Card Is Being Produced - On September 13, 2019, we ordered your new card for Receipt Number _____________, and will mail it to the address you gave us. If you move, go to www.uscis.gov/addresschange to give us your new mailing address." I couldn't believe it! Still can't, not quite yet...it's just so big. Husband and I are going to celebrate tomorrow. Our interview was August 28, 2:30 pm, so exactly 11 business days for the decision (September 2nd was Labor Day so it doesn't count). I'll update again when I receive the letter/card. 

Thanks for the update. Mine is still the same.

[Tilly87 14]

My I-485 case on egov.uscis.gov updated today to: "My Case Was Approved - On September 16, 2019, we approved your Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status, Receipt Number ____________. We will mail your approval notice. Please follow the instructions in the notice. If you move, go to www.uscis.gov/addresschange to give us your new mailing address." The I-130 also updated. Still nothing in the mail, but I would be surprised if it was that fast.

 

On 9/14/2019 at 3:05 PM, cpthk said:

Thanks for the update. Mine is still the same.

I'm sure if you had supporting documentation, you'll be fine. We had a proper wedding in Iowa, where my husband is from, his parents helped us. My family couldn't come, neither parents nor extended family. The latter was expected since my family & extended are not close, but I thought my parents couldn't come because of money. I later learned my dad was just starting his fight with cancer at that time and couldn't travel (he hadn't told me). He passed away in January. I told the IO this, and I was worried about it afterward because I knew it seemed very odd that my family wasn't there, only my husband's relatives. But I think because we had lots of documentation showing we are a real couple, it was okay in the end. I think there is some allowance for "real life" circumstances; they just want to make sure us applicants are genuine. I hope your decision comes soon (and is good)! 🤞

[Tilly87 14]

I received my permanent resident card today! So happy. It's the 8th anniversary of me entering the US (I came here to start school on 09/20/2011). The card also has 09/13/2019 printed as the day I became a PR--too perfect (Friday the 13th, love it). It's a 10 year card, as me and my husband have been married for 3 years now. 

 

Now for the juicy details: the card arrived by USPS Priority Mail. I checked my status daily, on September 17th it updated to Card Was Mailed, and on September 18th it updated with a USPS tracking number. I was able to track it and receive text/email alerts about it. It arrived in my mailbox today, no signature required. It was a plain priority mail envelope, it did not have USCIS's name visible through the window, just the address & then my address, so it's not super obvious that it's a green card (if any of you waiting are worried that it will get stolen en route). It came with a little paper protector envelope and a "Welcome to the United States" brochure. I also received two I-197's for the I-485 & I-130 being approved, both on heavyweight certificate paper. In total, it took 572 days from the receipt day of our AoS package to the day I received my greencard, 17 days from the date of the interview (08/28/2019) to when I received decision (09/13/2019),  and 24 days from the date of the interview (08/28/2019) to when I received greencard (09/20/2019). 

Hope some of my documentation of my experience has been helpful! Please let me know if anyone still waiting has questions about my experience, I'm happy to share. I'll go update my timeline now

[rain111 13]

On 9/20/2019 at 9:52 PM, Tilly87 said:

I received my permanent resident card today! So happy. It's the 8th anniversary of me entering the US (I came here to start school on 09/20/2011). The card also has 09/13/2019 printed as the day I became a PR--too perfect (Friday the 13th, love it). It's a 10 year card, as me and my husband have been married for 3 years now. 

 

Now for the juicy details: the card arrived by USPS Priority Mail. I checked my status daily, on September 17th it updated to Card Was Mailed, and on September 18th it updated with a USPS tracking number. I was able to track it and receive text/email alerts about it. It arrived in my mailbox today, no signature required. It was a plain priority mail envelope, it did not have USCIS's name visible through the window, just the address & then my address, so it's not super obvious that it's a green card (if any of you waiting are worried that it will get stolen en route). It came with a little paper protector envelope and a "Welcome to the United States" brochure. I also received two I-197's for the I-485 & I-130 being approved, both on heavyweight certificate paper. In total, it took 572 days from the receipt day of our AoS package to the day I received my greencard, 17 days from the date of the interview (08/28/2019) to when I received decision (09/13/2019),  and 24 days from the date of the interview (08/28/2019) to when I received greencard (09/20/2019). 

Hope some of my documentation of my experience has been helpful! Please let me know if anyone still waiting has questions about my experience, I'm happy to share. I'll go update my timeline now

Congratulations on your GC and thank you for the update! It is great to hear that you have gotten 10 years card. It somehow motivates me to wait LOL

[USC4SPOUSE 506]

 

 

Edited June 25, 2021 by USC4SPOUSE

[Skyman 321]

8 hours ago, USC4SPOUSE said:

 

 

Any reason you resed up this old thread?