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I would check your case online. You’re right to be suspicious. They much prefer to do everything in writing, even if by emails. I’ve heard of scammers posing as immigration.

There’s not a specific time, but the green card processing begins after you pay it. Preferably before arrival but it doesn’t have to be. The earlier you pay the fee the sooner you get the green card.

You shouldn’t have a problem since you didn’t move during that time. Six months away is when you would start to worry. I think you’re overthinking it.

It wouldn’t be worth pursuing an exception based on the extra year-you’d spend that year trying to prove it if it were a real thing. I would just wait for the 5-year mark at this point. Doing the 3-year is also fine but the marriage thing is one more administrative layer that can delay things unexpectedly.

It’s automatic. You don’t designate which you want at application. They issue the appropriate one based on the the number of years married at the time the card is produced. You shouldn’t do anything.

The only time citizenship would be questioned would be a case of fraud, which this clearly isn’t. I think they just want to clear out the cases and years from now, no one is going to care about a few weeks’ difference.

I should’ve clarified that I meant that filing the form is easier. I spent a lot of time with the first two (mostly on the supporting paperwork). I’m not saying they rubber stamp it-they certainly do a lot of review and you should only file with no unresolved legal or tax problems.

You can file for citizenship. It’s actually easier than the I130 & I-751. The will likely do a combo interview for citizenship. Both of you should go just in case. I’ve seen some people say the citizenship piece gets delayed while they catch up with the I-751. You can proceed with citizenship though.

Being a widow or married isn’t the issue. She is a permanent resident for life unless she abandons the green card. Even if her husband were alive she would be in the same boat-if she’s been out of the US for years, they will consider her to have abandoned her green card unfortunately.

I thought you were in removing conditions, but I think she can try to adjust status on her own. Also uphill since she is getting a marriage based green card and is not in a bona fide marriage

If she’s just now removing conditions and you’re not divorced-well, she’s in a bad position if you don’t cooperate. She has to be divorced to do it on her own. Do what you want with that info. You are just theoretically responsible for her having a place to be to not require government assistance. If she ran off with a broke dude, she made the choice

I don’t think you can technically divorce if you weren’t legally married. It should be annulled though.

I think the entry stamp can be worked around as they will use their own information and they have record of her arrival. If it’s requested as a document in AOS, I would write a cover letter explaining it. I don’t think they would hold everything up to make you provide information that they already have

One instruction is to contact the embassy that processed the visa, though it doesn’t really say what happens there. The only thing is if she has already arrived and her info is in the system, you may not need to provide a physical passport to adjust status at this point. I didn’t go through that process so I may be wrong-but they already have it digitally and you have pictures of it. The green card doesn’t depend on a physical passport. From there, options don’t look super convenient -cross to Mexico by land and get a new passport at an embassy there as she can cross back with a green card alone (by land, not air). Or wait three years and apply for citizenship and get a US passport. That’s assuming contacting the embassy that did her visa won’t help.

It’s not mandatory at all. It won’t affect anything.

The senior plan is for those who qualify for Medicare. It would be subsidized by Medicare enrollment, which wouldn’t make it an option.

Glad it ended well in the end. The N400 for my husband was pretty upbeat and friendly. When we went for the interview to remove conditions, he seemed very gruff at first. We settled in for a lot of grilling. But he just said, “you’re good. You’re approved.” Then he complimented us on the the good documentation. It is funny how they can shift personality so quickly

They really only care about the outbound ticket for visitors, not immigrants. In our experience there was not a question about the ticket type, and I don’t know of anyone else that’s been asked. It’s not unusual for someone to arrive to activate their visa and return to finish up loose ends in their home country. With the visa, your spouse can travel in and out again so I don’t see a problem or a reason it would be looked at.

I don’t like LAX-the non-citizens line is very slow.

We are a same sex couple in a country that doesn’t recognize the marriage and isn’t particularly gay-friendly. It was not brought up at all. They asked when we first met, got married and a few other things that would be asked of any couple. It was fine.

The time for an interview changes all the time. We filed several years ago and it was about 10 months till the interview.

No. They’re more interested in the dates. I didn’t translate ours, and I didn’t include full conversations. That piece is more likely to be checked at the embassy where they will have speakers of both languages. But the short answer is no. Just focus on dates. They want to see there’s regular contact.

The previous name would be in their system. I would just file the documents as you have them, and just state the name was changed at the time of naturalization. They can see other names someone had with them.

He’ll want to show travel together as much as possible. If he saved any receipts of airline tickets (emails sent by airline), hotel and the like, that is useful. It sounds like this has gone on for years so he may have to work with what all he can get his hands on along with the passport stamps. Pictures together-especially together with family and in social settings. Label and date them. Cover a span of time. You don’t need hundreds, but a couple per year. Printout snippets of chats together. The content isn’t important as much as a regular communication. Emails to each other. Any document at all that was given to them as husband and wife. Invitations or anything. Email printouts as well. Records of money remittances. If he made her an authorized user on a debit/credit card, record of that. Any other bank or credit card records showing he spent money in her town. Anything else, no matter how random that has their names on it together can help.

Really anything more than 30 minutes isn’t any advantage. It may be different in different Embassies, but they had us outside in a line (one for immigrants and one for tourist/visitor) and we all went in together as a group. We all sat down and they called people up working cases from a stack that was already there. So, those that got there earlier had no advantage as the people working the cases had no idea who was there first or last.