US Immigration from Mexico

After 2 months of gathering documents and evidence, I've finally submitted the I-130s for my husband and our three stepdaughters! We submitted online, so I've already received NOA1s for all four applications. They are in Mexico (so CDJ consulate, aka very busy and backlogged), so I'm trying to do as much as I can now to speed up the NVC stage (have documents ready, etc.).

Can we start gathering documents now (like his police certificate and my employment letters/pay stubs/etc), or will they be considered out of date by the time we reach that stage?

Is there anything else I can be doing to be prepared for the next step?

Thanks so much - this forum has been a lifesaver!

I am US Citizen Petitioner for my Mexican Citizen Beneficiary. I am working on submitting my criminal history. I have one old charge for underaged drinking which i have gathered all the certified documents for. I only have one other arrest. This is where my problem is .

I was arrested in Mexico 2 years ago for drinking in public. I went to the place in Playa Del carmen where I was arrested to try to obtain the certified documents. The women working there said they do not keep records after 6 moths on arrests. Ok fine. I then asked if she could give me a letter stating that they have no record for my arrest, to which she refused and said they don t do that. What should I do now? Submit a letter explaining my situation? I really have no other way of obtains my record unless you guys have other suggestions.

I don t want to not say anything because i know that it will probably come up on a government background check. Should i just write a letter sating my situation and hope that is good enough? I don t want them to say i lied about my record.

it was a very small sketchy jail in a very corrupt town. They made me and my friends pay about $200US in cash each to get out. I do remember them writing all our info and taking finger prints and photos so it must be on record somewhere.

I just got off the phone with USCIS trying to request an expedite request. They say that since I have a non-US address on my I-130 application (I am living in Spain currently, though I am a US citizen), I will need to write postal mail to my service center to figure out how we can proceed and make an expedite request. This seems kind of silly to me that there is no way to contact the service center other than by postal mail, and not to submit a request but rather just to ask HOW I can submit a request. Has anyone had experience with this?

Hey Guys,

I had my AOS interview today and went well. I wanted to give some information for some questions that seem to be frequently asked. Each office is different so this is specific to Sacramento California:

1) The Sacramento office has their own interpreters. We came prepared with one( via phone) but they ended up using their own

2) Kids are allowed to accompany you to the interviews. We took our daughter and there were many others with kids.

3) Security only lets one group in the building at a time. There are two separate lines for AOS and Citizenship interviews and also ICE appointments and security alternates with letting people in. This means that you need to show up a bit more than 15 minutes earlier than your appointment. We showed up 30 minutes earlier and got in with 5 minutes to spare.

4) Previously, you would go to the specific room number listed on the form and check in at the window. Due to Covid, this is not the case anymore. Instead, there is a desk on the second floor where everyone checks in then they tell you which room you go to. Our interview notice told us we were in room 2-230 but we were instead sent to room 2-220. This is important because some people had gone to the room directly without checking in at the desk and found out the hard way after waiting an hour.

5) The interview questions will depend on the officer you get but ours were straight forward: How did you meet? , where did you propose?, how long did you know each other?, then they just went through the application. At the end, they asked for any additional evidence. Waiting for our name to be called took longer than the interview.

That is really the only advice I can give for now. Good luck to you all.

Hello! How are you?

I'm male 28 years old, I'm in the United States (B1/b2 visa) since 3 months ago and I'm getting married to my girlfriend in one month, she is 23 years old US Citizen. I have to go back to Mexico after the honeymoon and we will do consular processing.

I'm stressed to be honest. We want to start the process after getting married but we won't have enough proof for bona-fide marriage.

We only have a couple of PICTURES, proposal (ring purchase ticket) with her best friends on it, watching movies, going out to watch a hockey game.

Some of my siblings will be at the wedding, and her siblings, parents and friends will be there too, so we will have the opportunity to take pictures at the wedding with our relatives, and also we will have pictures of our honeymoon.

I have shared a lot of good moments with her and her family. However she doesn't like pictures, I completely understand, I love her, I don't like pictures either. But we don't have enough proof that we shared nice time with family.

We also have proof of a lot of texting and calling since one year ago.

I have passport stamps when she visited me in Mexico, but we only have one picture.

We don't have join bank account, or utilities bills because I'm temporarily in the USA I have to go back to Mexico.

I've researched about the USCIS requirements and we don't have all of that. I'm terrified. I love her so much but I never thought this process was so demanding.

I know what helps most to demonstrate bona-fide marriage is like shared finances or property, but since I don't work in the US and I'm just temporary visitor in the US I just think this requirement is hard to have it.

So in summary we will only have pictures, continue communication proof, passport stamps, some purchase receipts and marriage certificate.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.