US Immigration from Australia

At one point during my interview the CO brought up a copy of my I-129F (printed in black and white) and pointed out a photo where I was kissing my fiance at my friend's wedding and said seriously 'This photo looks like wedding, you didn't get married right?'

In the photo, I was holding bridesmaid flowers and my fianc was wearing a suit. I was wearing a light blue bridesmaid dress and so were the rest of the bridesmaids in the background on the chapel seats, but because it was printed in black and white, the dress looked white so I could totally see where the CO was coming from.

Of course I said 'no I was a bridesmaid at my friend's wedding and said I had the original I-129F in colour'. But the CO didn't want to see it and moved on to other questions. ( I had front loaded and sideloaded and brought everything I could possibly think of being relevant to the interview. I didn't get to show any of it lol but I'm still glad I came prepared)

It went well and I got approved verbally after the interview, but wanted to let people know how certain photos might look in black and white ><

I'll be filing an i485 today and have some questions.

1) Should I put anything in the MEMO field of the personal check for the i485 check or the i765 check?

2) Is it a major disadvantage to not file the i693 now? I know they can ask for it later, but how much will that delay the whole process?

3) If I do an examination today to file the i693 with the rest, do the results of that evaluation expire? Someone told me they expire in 3 months and if my packet is still processing in 3 months (as I suspect it will be) I'd rather not have to pay for an entirely new examination.

4) Does it matter what order my pages are in? Right now my packet looks like:

- Form i-485 with a check for $1440 paper clipped to the front.

- Paper clipped to the back of the i485 I have: US spouse's birth certificate, immigrant spouse's foreign birth certificate, 2x2 passport style photos of both spouses, copy of immigrant's passport, copy of stamps page of immigrant's passport, most recent I-94

- Form G-1145

- Form I-765 with a check for $260 paper clipped to the front.

- Form I-864

- Paper clipped to the back of I-864 I have: 2023 Federal tax return

I'm Aussie born and have dual citizenship, became a US citizen 3 years ago (started off as a K1, married in the US). My Australian passport expired a long time ago and when I started making plans to get a new one, the pandemic happened and I had a child.
I am looking to travel back to Australia late next year but will need to enter and exit Australia on an Australian passport (as per their rules). Being married in the US, it's a whole complicated (and expensive) process to get a new Australian passport in my married name and much simpler to just get an Australian passport in my maiden name.

My ideal situation would be to just go ahead and get my Aus passport in my maiden name and travel into Australia with that.
I'm wondering if there are any implications I need to be aware of if I travel out of the US on a foreign passport in my maiden name (since tickets will need to be done in my maiden name), even though I am a US citizen.
I still need to get my daughter a US passport, so the plan would be to just go ahead and get mine as well, so I would be able to have that on hand as proof of US citizenship. The US passport would be in my married name. My googling tells me I'd need to carry a marriage certificate and both passports to show the name change, but I'm trying to be extra sure of any problems that could come up when I go to re-enter the US (given that all my citizenship stuff was done in my married name) or things that I need to be extra aware of/would need to carry with me to make this work.

And just to clarify, obviously whilst that's ideal, I'm aware it may not necessarily work so I'm still willing to work through the process of getting an Aus passport in my maiden name. It would just cut down on the added stress of travelling such a long distance for the first time in many years, with a toddler in tow.

Hello Community!

I have a scheduled interview. If my VISA is approved then I will opt to apply for a Re-entry permit for which I would have a limited window, in which I will take leaves from my employer and proceed as follows

1. Make my first entry to the USA
2. File I-131
3. Wait in the USA for my biometrics
4. Return immediately after biometrics to my home country

Now I have the following queries regarding the duration of the Reentry Application:

1. Query 01: What is the Minimum and Maximum duration from filing to Biometrics?
2. Query 02: I have heard the SSN is required for filing the i-131, which will take around 7 to 10 days. To optimize the leave duration can I follow the below technique?
   1. Make First entry and return to my country back making my green card valid for 1 year.
   2. My SSN will have arrived at my residential address in the USA.
   3. Make a Second entry and file i-131 wait for biometrics and return to my home country.
3. Query 03: What is the best time of the year to visit the USA, I believe that in December and January, most of the office staff would be on vacation or holidays may take longer for the application process.
4. Query 04: I can either go to California or Illinois which state is best to apply and get a swift processing.

On Wednesday 4th September I got the alert that I've been waiting for - something's changed on both my cases - N-400 and removal of conditions, so I logged on and saw that both cases were updated to interview has been scheduled.

Fast forward to a week later, no letter in the mail and no notice in the online portal, so I still don't know the date.

Is it normal for a notice to have not been produced after a week? I'm assuming it's going to be the Atlanta office.

Thanks