Crossed the finish line.

[CaseyBorne88 26]

I just wanted to make a thank you post for all the years that this forum has been a resource for my wife and I. Yesterday my wife was sworn in. It's huge blessing to have this finally behind us now. Thank you every who has helped us personally and thank you to everyone who makes themselves available to help others here. 🙂

 

Is it safe now to discard our USCIS paperwork from over the years now that she is a citizen? We kept everything... 

[JeanneAdil 6,784]

i have kept mine as we have made petition for his brother which will take over 15 years 

i would never remember all the dates on husband's petition to answer queries for this new one

 

don't forget to see SS to change status to USC

 

Congratulations 

[OldUser 8,512]

Congratulations on becoming a US citizen!

 

1 hour ago, CaseyBorne88 said:

Is it safe now to discard our USCIS paperwork from over the years now that she is a citizen? We kept everything... 

 

It depends on nature of paperwork.

My personal opinion is that you have to have at least some copies of important documentation in case there's ever need to reprove citizenship was granted correctly. Here's my strategy...

 

1) I had few thousands of pages of joint bank statements, utility bills and other stuff like that. I never went paperless while I was in immigration process, because I didn't want to spend money printing proof for USCIS. Good news is, I also downloaded PDF versions of all of these documents. So I successfully shredded all of these as I can easily print them out it future if needed.

2) I scanned all I-797 forms into digital files. Approvals, invitations to interview, biometrics. You name it. 

I also kept them in a small folders, there's not many of them (10-15 sheets?). They're printed on watermarked paper, so I think it's good to keep just in case. Maybe even my children / descendants will have to prove how I became a US citizen. So there would be paper trail.

3) I scanned my passports, birth certificates, naturalization certificate to have a digital copy just in case.

4) I kept digital copies of all forms filed (N-400, I-751, I-485, I-130 etc) but didn't keep paper versions.

5) All other misc stuff such as boarding passes, trips I already have digital copies of. So all of this was shredded.

 

 

My advice is: don't shoot yourself in the leg. Before destroying evidence, make copies. Digital storage is cheap or free nowadays. I have copies of docs on my laptop, on external hard drive and in cloud. So there's very little chance I wouldn't be able to prove how I became a citizen if I asked to do it even in 20-30 years from now.

Edited Friday at 05:30 PM by OldUser