US Immigration from Australia

I have an upcoming interview for my CR1/IR1 visa at the Sydney Consulate in Australia.

My wife and I both live Australia, and therefore we are using assets on the affidavit of support submission. We definitely have sufficient assets, however, my wife has had her bank account in the USA since she was a kid and therefore her mum's name is also on the account (i.e. it's a joint account).

Do you think this would be an issue at the interview? Does anyone have any previous experience with this?

Hi There!

My husband and I just sent off and filed our 1-751 (Removal of Conditions) this past Tuesday and somehow managed to lose his physical green card over the weekend :)

In addition, we also previously booked tickets to Canada this coming up April and I am concerned about the legalities of this. Now the silver lining is that we should most likely receive his Notice of Action/extension before this trip. However, is it even possible to travel outside the US and successfully come back with ONLY his passport and Notice of Action receipt??? I believe he also has a 551 stamp on his passport to prove his residence... If anyone knows any type of guidance or has been through the same thing, I'd love to know!

(Disclaimer: Regardless of whether or not I file for a green card replacement it wouldn't arrive in time so that's out of the equation, plus that take 6-9months on average.)

Thank you!!!!

Hi all,

I'm looking for some reassurance for the evidence I plan on submitting. I was able to get the last 2 years worth of joint electricity bills and last 12 months of joint water bills that I plan to submit. Do I need to go further back than only last 12 months with the water bills?

I'm also submitting our sons birth certificate, titles of our house and car showing joint ownership of both, last 3 years of joint bank statements, joint tax transcripts since we got married. Amongst other things.

Am I being silly worrying about whether i have enough water and electricity bills included or do they need to span the whole three years since we got married? It's just a pain because they don't go that far back online for me to access the statements.

Your input is much appreciated.

Thank you.

Hey all,

I've been RFE'd two times now, the first for not handwriting a date on the I-864 (yeah, I know) and the second RFE due to not meeting the minimum income threshold, despite providing evidence in the form of tax returns and W-2s showing income above the income threshold.

For the first RFE, our lawyer suggested we just resubmitted a new document with a hand written date, just to appease the NVC. However for second RFE we don't know what else we can provide. I understand that the officials are just doing a checkbox exercise, but what are they looking for specifically if not Tax returns and W-2's. It should be noted that my partner and I have been living abroad for 4 years and she's only returned to American employment in the last few months. We sat on our DS-260 until she had surpassed the income threshold, then provided to the NVC 3 years of tax returns, 3 W-2 slips (showing income in excess of minimum requirements), we attached a contract of employment from a state employer and as double-insurance, we provided a print-out of publicly available State Employee incomes.

It's obvious to us and our immigration lawyers that we exceed the income threshold, but what else can we provide to the NVC as this is the second needless delay in an already slow ordeal.

Hi folks,

In a bit of confusion here. My partner got his medical done for the K-1 in December 2021. He had an interview first because of timing (Melbourne actually told him to take any medical slot he would get and if it was after, that was fine.) They did not give him anything, they said they'd send it to the consulate. He received an approval before February 2022, and a sealed packet later with instructions to give it to the CBP person at point of entry. Presumably this held the medical info inside of it. When we applied for AOS, we double-checked the form that stated as long as that overseas medical AOS application had been done a year before the AOS submission, it would count. When it was December 2022, I called USCIS and spoke to an agent saying, "hi, it says 1 year validity, but we're at the 1 year mark now and our case hasn't been seen, what do we do?" and the agent told us that they would be seen as valid for 2 years, so we didn't need to give them the I-693. We took them at their word for this.

Now we have the RFE request for the I-693. The problem is, we don't have one to give them. The envelope from the medical went straight to the embassy, he was not given anything outside of it (like the CD or apparently the photocopy of the vax record / the I-693). He was sent the sealed packet to supply at POE, but when he arrived in April 2022, the CBP person took the sealed envelope and kept it; he didn't get anything from inside it back. So we assumed that that meant they have all the data on file already. So we don't have a DS-3025 form, because the medical center in Melbourne didn't give him one, and he wasn't given back the sealed packet at POE which might have had it.

Do we need to do a full I-693 again? We have a copy of his Australian vaccination records, and we know they had done the medical and can approve him, so can we call the civil surgeon and get them to just fill out the vax paperwork? Per the I-693 instructions,

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Even if a new medical examination is not required, you still must show proof that you complied with the vaccination requirements. If the vaccination record was not properly completed and included as part of the original medical examination report, you will need to have the Part 10. Vaccination Record completed by a designated civil surgeon. In this case, you must submit Parts 1. - 5., 7., and 10. of Form I-693

And we're pretty sure he falls under that. OTOH, the RFE doesn't specify vaccination, it just says,

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Submit a completed Form I-693, Report of Medical Examination and Vaccination Record. A USCIS civil surgeon must complete and sign the form, and you must also sign the form. If the civil surgeon refers you to a specialist, the specialist must include his or her medical exam results and complete the proper sections of the Form I-693 before the civil surgeon may sign the form. Once everyone has signed, the civil surgeon will place the completed Form I-693 in a sealed envelope and give it to you. You must submit the sealed envelope containing the original Form I-693 that the civil surgeon signed and the medical exam results; we will NOT accept photocopied Form I-693 and medical exam results. Civil surgeons must use the current Edition of Form I-693. You can find the current edition of Form I-693 on USCIS s website at www.uscis.gov. In addition, the civil surgeon must ensure that all parts of Form I-693 were properly completed.

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So that makes it sound like they want a whole new one, which feels crazy to us because he had one 13 months ago. Is it better to be safe and get the whole new exam ? We considered calling Melbourne to see if they have a copy on hand of the old exam but then it would be on the wrong form. And why did they not provide a copy of the vaccine record and the CD?

Also, was it standard for the CBP officer at entry to take the whole packet and give us nothing back? If so, what happened to all the evidence in that packet, shouldn't it have gotten scanned in somewhere? Should it have been given back to us so we could use the medical from inside it?