US Immigration from Ukraine

We have been waiting over a year for Nataly's 10 year green card. It arrived in the mail today in a USPS priority mail envelope. No interview, no notification from USCIS. Is this normal? It's great timing considering that we have filed the N-400 and we have our interview next Thursday, April 27. I just thought we might get a NOA from USCIS for the approval. but we'll take it. She's all ready for the citizenship test next week and hopefully she will be sworn in very soon! Best of luck to all!

My wife just completed her interview.

Our experience is as follows and may not be the same for everyone:

In addition to what is listed for you to bring to the interview, we brought a whole slew of documents just in case. The officer only asked for what was required.

Our I-751 was still pending prior to the interview and we were given a combo interview for both the I-751 and the N-400. Despite so many on here telling people that they should include a request for a combo interview within their N-400 application we did not do so. It's 2023 so unless we're still living in the past I correctly assumed they would, by default, not only know that our I-751 was still pending but they would also have access to the case file as well. So yeah, in my opinion, no need to submit a request for a combo interview with your N-400 application.

The field office was pretty quiet that day so there weren't a lot of people. My wife was called to do her biometrics literally within a minute of walking in. We were then called to the back by an officer 5 minutes later. The officer this time around compared to the officer who did our I-485 interview was more personable and social. When we sat down in his office he informed us immediately that we would do the I-751 interview first as it was still pending and had to be completed before moving onto the N-400. He then asked us both to stand, raise our right hands and give our oath. He had our case file in front of him and said something to the effect of "your case has been looked at in detail twice already so there's no reason to believe it's not all good". He then asked a couple of generic questions like where we met, what was the date of our marriage, my wife's birthdate and social security.....basic stuff for the most part. Took like 5 minutes. Once done he stated that he approved it but my wife would not be getting a new greencard as she would be receiving her approval for citizenship today. Good start already, I was liking it and the fact that he assumed approval on the citizenship was also a good sign. He then said we were done and he would now move onto the N-400 and indicated that I could not participate. I simply just sat there and kept my mouth shut the entire time. This part took slightly longer but was maybe about 10-15 minutes long. He started off by asking my wife general questions like date of birth, date of marriage, social, a lot of the same questions from the I-751. He then went over a couple of things such as where we have traveled to internationally over the last 2 years. Once he was done with that he went on to the civics test. My wife passed with flying colors. You need to get 6 out of 10 right and my wife apparently answered a straight 6 right because he did not ask 10 questions and stopped at 6. He then moved on to a table that was sitting on the table. He asked my wife to read the phrase that was shown and she did so. It was a pretty basic phrase, nothing complicated. He then asked her to write out a sentence he would give her to write on the tablet. Again, simple sentence, nothing major. He then went down a list of those silly questions like have you been involved in terrorism, have you ever committed marriage fraud, yada yada. From there he approved and let us know that the oath ceremony would be scheduled some time soon and to be on the lookout for a letter designating the oath ceremony date. We are about to leave the country on a trip in two weeks so I asked him what are our options if the ceremony happens to get scheduled during our trip. He said to just shoot them an email and request a reschedule and they can easily do so.

With that, we were good to go. He asked a couple of personal questions and we had some friendly banter and he congratulated us and walked us back to the front desk. All in all it took about 30 minutes.

I want to note that the only documents he actually asked for were for both of our State Issued ID's, my wife's green card, and her passport. Nothing else.

We are finally glad to be almost 100% free of having to deal with all this stuff now.....

Obviously everyone's experiences with this process are going to be different from one another but in general try not to sweat it or overthink it. As long as you follow the instructions given using the USCIS guidelines when filling out applications, you'll be fine. In my time over the years on VisaJourney I have noticed lots of people like to overthink it and rather than simply recommend others do something, they state it like it's a given with no leeway. That's not always the case. Lots of fear mongering that leads people to jump through all sorts of hoops to obtain things they really don't need. Of course, as in any situation, it doesn't hurt to have more than what's required but within reason. That's part of the reason why once we submitted the I-751 and N-400 we already knew it would take time and patience so we weren't constantly scouring VisaJourney on a daily basis.

Anyways that's just my two cents.

Bottom line is we are glad to be done with it all and wanted to share our experience. Feel free to ask any questions and we'll certainly try to help in any way!

Do I need to mail it to her in Ukraine? We have two weeks or so before her return.

Hello here. They applied for political asylum with their ex-wife, did not pass the interview. Were in court. Divorced. The hearing was closed. Now I'm on TPS. Won DV2023. I would be glad to get advise on a lawyer for a logical conclusion.