Scandi

Who is asking this question? I have never been asked this question, by anyone. But the answer for me would be "to be done with USCIS", because it is GLORIOUS to not have to deal with immigration stuff anymore. 😂

For us it was easier getting married in the US so we could get a US marriage certificate. In my home country the marriage "certificate" you receive at your wedding isn't legally binding and therefore doesn't mean anything, people just keep it as a memory type thing of their wedding day. We also don't have birth certificates. The legal documents are ordered from the Swedish "population register" (you choose the Long English version when you place an order) and is only an extract from their register with all your info on it. This has proven to be a bit of a headache for some people as USCIS doesn't understand that this is the only form of "birth certificate" and "marriage certificate" we have, there has been countless of RFEs because of this. I luckily never had an issue with the "birth certificate" part, but I'm glad I had a US marriage certificate so there was one less thing they could get hung up on.

Exactly, so don't let anything get in the way of getting that citizenship and passport, even if it means staying put in the US until the ordeal is over. Don't reschedule due to travel or anything else that isn't important at this moment.

Agree, there seems to be many ways of doing it. I too didn't have a judicial oath ceremony, didn't see a judge at any point and had a normal oath at USCIS with all others. I had my oath 4 business days after my interview and got the name change document in hand at my oath, so the judge must've signed it quickly. Lucky us. Others wait for months because their field office requires a judicial ceremony and it's up to the court what day there's time for it. I imagine they try to gather as many applicants as possible and have a big oath for all of them at the same time.

Whether you get a same-day Oath Ceremony or not depends on your particular field office and it can even be a "day by day" thing too. Some field offices do same-day Oaths all the time, others (like mine in Los Angeles) did not do it when I had my oath during the pandemic. However, L.A. had oath ceremonies every Tuesday, so if you had your interview early enough on a Tuesday, there was time for them to get your certificate ready and you could attend your oath ceremony that same Tuesday, later in the day. So again, it differs a lot, even within the same field office. If you have a name change, some field offices require you to take your oath in front of a judge, which can take months as courts don't have time doing this all the time. My field office in L.A. did not have a judge present and we did our oath outside the USCIS building. So not all field offices require a "judicial ceremony" when you change your name. You just get your name change document (signed by a judge) in hand together with your certificate at the end, when you hand in your greencard. You are a greencard holder until you take the oath. That means you are still a greencard holder even after you pass the interview, so you can keep traveling with your greencard even after the interview, until you take the oath. If you cannot get a US passport in time for your travel, you can let the IO know at the interview which date you will be back in the US and they won't schedule your oath until then. Many have been successful with this, however, it's still USCIS and anything can happen. Personally I would not let anything get in the way of me becoming a citizen and get my US passport, especially not something as unimportant as "travel". Once the citizenship and passport part is done, you're DONE with USCIS and can do whatever you like, including travel without restrictions.

Probably because they are considered to have strong ties to the US, since in the US they have a kid and grandchild, they may want to stay. Maybe they weren't able to provide enough evidence of their ties to Colombia that would also help showing non-immigrant intent to the US.

In the end, when you choose the K-1 visa instead of the CR-1 visa, the wedding ceremony is not important. It really isn't. You can't put yourself in a potentially devastating situation with the immigrations just because you want to get married on a certain date or just because its' "inconvenient" to travel within the country to be with family. Those are very, very minor issues in the grand scheme of things.

There are very, very few situations where a K-1 is the better choice. I came to the US on a K-1 but would choose CR-1 every day of the week if I had to do it all over again.

You had immigration intent when you entered the US in July, since you filed a i-129f in March. In today's political climate, I wouldn't take the chance. It's up to you to decide what you want to do, it's not entirely black and white. It's still not illegal to enter without intent and then change your mind and stay. But in your case you did have immigration intent since you had already filed long before you entered the US. USCIS are likely stricter now than last year, so while intent can be determined by CBP, USCIS may very well be able to re-examine it when they notice your i-129f petition.

No, not an issue. My greencards also only had First name, middle initial and last name on the front. On the back they had first name, surname, one full middle name and only half of my second middle name. Never an issue. In Sweden it's normal to have two middle names (often counted as first names, so I guess technically you have three first names and one last name), and the US isn't made for that many characters, lol. So every US document I had (from SSA, DMV etc), my second middle name was always only half, instead of "Therese" it was "The". 😆 So the first thing I did when filling out my N-400 form was to remove one of my middle names in the "do you want to change your name" field, so I would only have one middle name. It has made things sooooo much easier!

Yeah I don't think I have ever gotten a water marked invitation letter from USCIS at any point in my immigration journey (ie interviews, oaths, biometrics etc). Only certain approval notices (possibly?) and extension type letters used to prove my status.

They don't need one to get a passport, they just use their naturalized parent's naturalization certificate. That said, it is highly recommended to get your kid a certificate of their own so they have proof of when they became a citizen. When they grow up and you're no longer around, they may not even find your certificate, it may have been lost, their passport may have expired etc, meaning they have no proof of their citizenship. Having the certificate of citizenship is for an immigrant pretty much the same as having a birth certificate for someone born in the US.

What did the embassy say when you reached out to them to ask for an extension on the i-129f approval? Not all embassies do this automatically, you need to ask to have it done.

I don't see an issue either. I would, however, plan on getting married ASAP after him entering the US so he can send in his AOS to USCIS immediately after receiving the marriage certificate. No reason to drag it out, get him his NOA1 for authorized stay even if there's still a lot of time left on his i-94. Even back in the day when I went through this process I had my AOS 90% filled out and ready with almost all supporting documents before we even got married, I like to plan ahead and less stress this way too.

You switch out your greencard for the naturalization certificate. That happens at the oath ceremony, not the interview.