vanhiscers87

Hiring an immigration attorney for filing I-485 is highly recommended: an attorney help you file everything correctly as well as prepare additional documents preemptively if they find anything in your case/situation that can be scrutinized by USCIS, especially under the current administration. If your case is straight-forward, neither party involved has legal troubles, and you’re the kinda person that pays attention to details and can learn how to prepare immigration documents from your attorney, then maybe you can navigate through Removal of Condition and Naturalization without legal assistance later on.

Here’s another interesting story: Man, 31, in U.S. legally for 12 years ripped from family, detained by ICE https://ktla.com/news/man-31-in-u-s-legally-for-12-years-ripped-from-family-detained-by-ice/amp/ I have so many questions: first of which is that how many people actually start their immigration process without even thinking about legal counsel? It’s because I’m certain this guy didn’t. Let’s even forget about the part that once the deadline of I-751 is missed, one starts accruing unlawful presence, so again the title’s wrong. I do feel bad for this guy, because this is all caused by mishandling of immigration paperwork; I know they mentioned there was a death in the family, but how did he continue to forget about it for years when his Green Card has already expired, and everybody else’s is good for 10 years?! Has he not hold any job since that required an I-9 verification? His N-400 was obviously submitted without properly addressing I-751, so that means no attorney was involved, why?!

My understanding is that as much as refugee and asylum statuses have identical pathway to permanent residency and citizenship within the U.S. once granted, they’re different processes: refugee process originates outside of the U.S., while asylee within, which means a person granted the refugee status always enters the U.S. legally. Since asylum applicants are already inside the U.S., their urgency is less than that of refugee applicants outside of the country.

Since your current legal name is supposed to be your step father’s last name, which was on your Green Card and U.S. passport, who’s demanding the name change proof now? On a side note, if you already have your U.S. passport, isn’t filing N-600 redundant? I thought the Certificate of Citizenship (as opposed to “Naturalization”) was meant for people who want a proof of citizenship other than a passport.

I’ve worked with 3 DACA recipient colleagues in banking, and 2 of them are Trump supporters. The reason why they as Latinos support Trump is because they believe criminals do get into the country unvetted with lenient border policies, and I trust their judgement because they know how people operates in their community than I do, just like how my colleagues relied on me to spot a fake Chinese passport from fraudsters. I also object to the idea that all Trump supporters are morons; some of them are, but there are a LOT of minorities in banking who are Trump supporters, and almost all of them are smart, productive, and reasonable professionals. Thinking all Trump supporters are morons is how the Democrats lost, while they could have established more reasonable policies to swing those coworkers. In fact, two moronic co-workers I can think of right now are liberals, and one of them got fired for sexual harassment… DACA has always been a program created by executive action, so its unreliability under Trump is given, but I think the sentiment with DACA Trump supporters is that they know so many people that could have done so much with DACA with 8 years of Obama, and 4 years of Biden, but they chose to do nothing. While I understand the legality of migrants crossing the Southern Border and apply for asylum, I do believe asylum applications were never meant to be taken in that kind of volumes. There was a reason why for the longest time asylum applications were free of charge. Asylum has always been infamous for its backlog, so taking in new application like Biden did is just insane, I’ve no better word for it. And yes, it’s not fair for legal immigrants from other continents who can only fly to the U.S., prepped papers before hand, learned English for consular interviews, and once we’re here, funded USCIS so the could process asylum application for free until recent years. Let’s be honest, asylum system was abused as it was before Biden. I’ve recently seen a documentary created by media outlets from Asia about recent Chinese migrants who crossed the southern border. They said in L.A., there are local Chinese news paper that migrants can pay to help them publish articles they “wrote” that criticize the Chinese government, and use that as grounds for asylum. That’s abusive, because they weren’t activists before arriving in the U.S.

Thank you for your insights. What you’ve provided is what I look for in a news story like that: I believe news are public services, so they need to be neutral and/or informational, but in reality, they’re hardly either of that, liberal or conservative. Assuming she is 42 and qualify for DACA otherwise, DACA would have also given her authorized stay, correct? I also agree with you on people sleepwalking through life, that’s what I’ve observed after 7+ years in banking customer services, which I’ve mentioned that here before, and immigrants, legal or illegal, who grew up here tend to be less vigilant on their status.

This news clip popped up on my YouTube feed today, and even though it was just more than 2 minutes long, it was packed with obvious misinformations and inaccuracies. First of all the title is wrong, the "mother" wasn't even a Green Card holder yet, so it was not a citizenship interview for sure. When they interviewed the daughter, the daughter said USCIS told them the case was approved before the interview, which is just unheard of. We did get a glimpse of the interview notice (as attached), which was for a I-130 petition, NOT for I-485, so it wasn't even a Green Card interview. They also didn't quite explain why there was such a delay as the petition was filed in 2021, which is way longer than normal for a U.S. citizen's spouse. If the husband just became a U.S. citizen and re-petitioned, why was the "received date" still in 2021? I'm assuming it was because she was an illegal entrant, and they mentioned something about her missing a court appearance at the age of two. Therefore, another piece of info that's missing was if she would have qualified for DACA depending on her age, and if she did, why isn't she on DACA, or tried to use DACA's Advanced Parole to become a legal entrant, which two of people I know have successfully done so during Obama and Biden, and was able to adjust status afterwards. Last but not least, why would the attorney let the daughter go on TV claiming her mother was tricked to attend the interview because the case was approved...

I think what the OP meant was that the journalist could have written: “a country she has no memory of.” It could simply be a lack of proofreading, OR intention to make readers more sympathetic. I’ve also read immigration related stories before where you could tell the journalist has no coherent understanding of immigration process, which, to readers who know the the process, discredits the whole article, because at that point, all the readers can think about is OK, what else is the journalist wrong about or fails to mention. I do agree, however, that the adopted parents were to blame, like DACA parents that put their children at a social disadvantage from the get go. I’ve been working in banking for more than 7 years, but I navigated through most of my immigration journey before that. I used to be very liberal, but working in banking turned me into a hard centrist, because I’ve realized a lot of the people the left want me to have sympathy for put themselves into that situation due to their own ignorance or bad life choices. one thing I’ve discovered in banking is that immigrants who didn’t have their upbringing in the U.S. are way more vigilant about their immigration status than those who did. I’ve met DACA eligible college student who didn’t know what DACA is; I’ve met U.S. citizens who don’t know how to answer the question “are you a citizen or a Permanent Resident” or wonder if they need currency exchange to visit Puerto Rico; I’ve met people who presented a version of the Green Card with no expiration date you see in history books, insisting that it was still valid, and they didn’t have to apply for the current version, etc.

I've been interested in Khalil's case from the beginning because I know no matter how his case will turn out, it will be an important legal precedence set for all legal immigrants. On a personal level, what I don't understand is that if he truly didn't believe in western civilization, why did he choose to study in the U.S. and then marry a U.S. citizen to stay here? I was taught a lot of propaganda about the West from a young age in China too, but I chose not to believe it, and decided to come to America and see for myself. I believe at least half of the people on this forum started their immigration journey with a nonimmigrant visa like student visa or work visa, so we know on the visa application form, they ask if we're part of the Communist Party, or if we ever persecuted someone because of their gender, race, or nationality, etc., so we know what those questions implies: the U.S. government only wants people who believe in their values to come in. If no one can prove what you really think, and you tell them what they want to hear to get the visa, there's not too much wrong about it, but I used to believe that means you will at least give American values a fair try. The fact that so many pro-Palestinian protesters on campus were international students was shocking to me, because back when I was in college as an international student, I've never heard international students put themselves out there like that. I have a friend from Syria, and when we used to work together, I often teased her about her lack of common knowledge, and she would tell me they taught her nothing in school in Syria but to hate Israel. We went on a trip to Tokyo together last year, and we were just chatting in our hotel lobby. She was still trying to convince me that women's life in Saudi Arabia isn't as bad, and she'd happily move there if she could marry someone there, and I was just flabbergasted, so I asked her: "If you prefer to live in the Middle East, then why did you come the U.S. and become a citizen? We planned this trip over dinner spontaneously, and bam, here we are in Japan, what country enabled us to do something like this both finance-wise and document-wise?" Then, she was speechless. The U.S. can certainly learn a lot of things from China, and we all miss something from our home countries, but I think we all have to be honest about why most of us are here: we're here because as many flaws as the U.S. has, we can still build a better life here than we can in our home countries, and in the case of the Middle East, till this day, we have yet to have a muslim country that can give their citizens a life as good AND free as the U.S. can give theirs, so maybe western civilization is doing something right.

I've heard about what the Trump administration is doing with the temporary statuses, and there's not too much I can say about that since I don't know much about that process, but in this particular person's case, it seemed to me that since she's already an LPR, she must have received this letter as a clerical mistake due her previous status: I'm assuming apart from the name and address, the letter is completely generic. Clerical mistakes with USCIS is not new either: my N-400 status reverted back to the status of "waiting to schedule the oath ceremony," after my oath ceremony has taken place, but of course, it turned out to be not a big deal. I think VisaJourney is a great platform where we immigrants can discuss real life scenarios where we know all the details, so we can get a better picture of what's going on with immigration policy trend instead of just panicking or passing on the panic for no good reason. With all the news stories, there was no way for us to learn the concerned immigrants' backstory, while life taught us everybody thinks they themself is a good person, and that's all we get when they talk to the media.

I’m so intrigued by this, and want to know how it happened. Once you’re approved for asylum, you’ll need to wait for a year to apply for Adjustment of Status, and if you do it too early, they should have rejected your application. They’d reject application when a signature’s missing, or if you file one day too early, so I can’t imagine they’d miss something like that. Also, when an Asylum Green Card is issued, the “resident since” date is turned back exactly one year prior to the approval of the Adjustment of Status, so does your Green Card has a “resident since” date earlier than the approval of your asylum?

Since ESTA is administrated by CBP, I would try to figure it out with them first, but if things get to too complicated to navigate, then I’ll try to get your state’s senior U.S. senator’s office to intervene.

I'm a big fan of the show Border Security, as much as all the border news stories are concerning, thinking back on the TV show as well as my own immigration knowledge, I know for a fact that these things happen on a daily basis across all major U.S. airports under all administrations. We all know that a valid U.S. is no guarantee of entry. You can literally visit the U.S. on a British passport visa-free, and CBP can still turn you away because they think you're poor and can't support yourself for 3 weeks. The only person I know who was turned away at a U.S. border was one of my college friends. She was born and raised in Dubai, but because both her parents are Indian, she's an Indian citizen. She left the U.S. for India after college, and tried to come back on a tourist visa. At the time, she was single, but was in a long-distance relationship with a U.S. citizen. She booked a one way flight with no return flight, and she expected the CBP officer to give her a 6-month stay. Being single and visiting the U.S. on a tourist visa without a return flight was a red flag itself. She didn't discuss any of her plans with me beforehand. I was freaking out about losing contact with her for 2 days until she messaged me that she was deported, had her visa revoked, and barred from entry for 10 years. It turned out the CBP officer not only discovered that she had no return flight booked, but also the fact she planned to "volunteer" at a local bookstore. That happened during the Obama administration by the way. Quite a few of the news stories coming out these past few weeks were all from the Boston airport, so yes, maybe the CBP team there went overboard, OR someone is leaking the stories there.

My mom recently visited me here in the U.S. on a tourist visa last month. She's visited the U.S. many times (during all of Obama, Trump-1st and Biden), and her experience this time was no different than the previous times if not "a little bit simpler" in her own words. The only thing different was that she finally met a CBP officer that speaks Mandarin, and she was asked about whether she has brought excessive amount of cigarettes or meat/fruit... That's it. I'm a U.S. citizen now, but I haven't traveled during Trump's 2nd term yet. During his first term, however, I went to Canada once, and at Vancouver Airport, you go through U.S. passport control before boarding the plane. That time, I was asked how I became a U.S. citizen, and I told him via marriage. Then he let me go. I didn't know why he asked the question though, because he should have access to that info if he wish to obtain, so maybe he was just curious as he was Asian too? I've traveled outside of the U.S. both as a LPR and a citizen more than a handful of times, and that was the only time I was asked an immigration-related question. Oh, I went back to China right before the Pandemic in January 2020, which was during Trump's first term. By the time I was coming back, only U.S. citizens and LPRs were allowed in. My flight was switched 3 times understandably, and passengers from China had to go through a quick health screening, but again, re-entering the U.S. was no issue.

I'm from China myself. From the standpoint of China, there's nothing she needs to do. Having your passport invalidated doesn't mean you automatically lose the citizenship. If she hasn't canceled her household registration (Hukou) in China, and she has no intention of living in the U.S. long term, she can technically go back to China on her US passport, both her Hukou and her Chinese ID card will continue to function. Yes, China doesn't recognize dual citizenship, but Chinese laws are not clear about enforcing it either. The ultimate symbol of Chinese citizenship is Hukou, not Chinese passport, so if her Hukou was never canceled, her Chinese citizenship is still intact. If you're asking if she can revert back to Lawful Permanent Resident from U.S. citizen, then the answer is no.

Hello everyone, I haven't posted here for a while since I became a U.S. citizen in 2017, but given all the recent stories in the media, I'm curious to find out here about everybody's real life experiences. For example, I just saw an immigration attorney's video (Jim Hacking) on YouTube that says there have been an increasing number of naturalization applicants that have got their applications denied, and then have their Green Card called into question, sometimes based on minor discrepancies in previous immigration paperwork... It's certainly concerning with all the high profile immigrants-related news stories coming out these past 2 weeks, but I also remembered that some of the stories I heard during his first term were either exaggerated or reported with missing details by liberal media outlets. I was also naturalized during Trump's first term: there was delay in the process experienced by all applicants, but my general experiences dealing with USCIS didn't differ from that during the Obama administration. Nevertheless, the messaging on USCIS' official instagram page certainly changed dramatically right after his 2nd term began. That page has always focused on sharing filing tips and procedure changes as well as photos taken at naturalization ceremonies, throughout both his first term and Biden, but now it shares a lot of, for lack of a more proper word, propaganda-ish content. Therefore, I want to see if everybody's real life experiences with USCIS are also truly different from before.