mam521

You are married to an American and have a greencard. Nothing to worry about. Also remember, there's 3 sides to every story and pretty much every one that hits a headline leaves out some important information, when you dig into them further. That news article about the Canuck - yep, she'd been POE shopping and had been told by a CBP officer to go through consular processing. Furthermore, she been advised by her legal counsel to listen to CBP and not attempt to go to Mexico. She didn't listen...play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Go and enjoy Japan! It's an amazing country! Tokyo's Shibuya crossing was straight out of Lost in Translation. We also explored in Kyoto and I dragged my travel partners to the primary Ippodo Tea house. We definitely plan to go back and explore further

There's only one facility in Kentucky that is printing greencards. Remember, it's not just new greencards that require printing - all the renewals (2yr ROC's and 10yr renewals) plus whatever lost cards, in error cards, etc come from that facility.

The biometrics appointments take about 5 minutes, if your fingerprints cooperate. They retake fingerprints and take your photo. That's it. Mine took about 10 minutes when I did it because I had 2 fingers that didn't want to reveal their identity and scan nicely.

As @Crazy Cat said, get prepared. Make sure you take your spouse with you to the interview. I suggest the US Citizenship Test 2025 app to cover off the N-400 knowledge requirement.

In addition to the marriage certificate, has your wife updated her information with the SSA to reflect her new last name?

You can always try Ask Emma too. If you do call, you may have to escalate from a Tier 1 agent to a Tier 2 agent. Good Luck!

I submitted through my myUSCIS account. I sent an inquiry, creating an auditable communication chain there. They essentially have until midnight to still say it was the 27th, so just keep that in mind. And they do sometimes wait until the 11th hour to move on something, so don't be shocked.

Saw this and thought you may want to consider adding it to the ever so lucrative POTS ventures... Kid2 was grossed out by the accidental purchase of Dr. Pepper Zero. Yeah, hard pass he says. Don't blame him. I can't stand Coke Zero myself, so I pretty much attribute all of the "Zero" beverages to be a hard pass. I was chuckling at the cotton ball comment 😄

I'm with you on that. It's about as clear as light reflections on vanta black paint. 🤷‍♀️

The petitions aren't linked. The only time they are linked is when a child is a derivative on a fiancé or family preference case. Now that both mom and daughter have CR-1 and CR-2 greencards, respectively, the cases are managed individually. The wife's naturalization case is hers and hers alone. It's confusing because the child automatically obtains derivative citizenship, irrespective of a case being filed. Filing the N-600 isn't actually a request to obtain citizenship; it's a request for a certificate of proof of citizenship. The daughter is a citizen as soon as mom naturalizes, as long as the daughter is younger than 18 years old at the time of mom's naturalization. Again, it's one of these weird and wonderfully confusing nuances of USCIS. Based on the following, I'd wager a guess that once mom naturalizes, daughter can get her US passport and her N-600 and not waste the money on ROC, especially considering how expensive the N-600 is. https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-12-part-h-chapter-4 If curiosity prevails, chuck it at Hacking's show and see what he has to say.

I'm not an ice in beverages fan. My kids are. Ice is good for pina coladas and margaritas...I don't like it in regular beverages or water. I have a smashed front tooth from playing lacrosse years ago so it's sensitive to cold. Ice is such a North American thing! You can probably guess the brand of junk refrigerator we have. Korean brand. Absolute favorite of @Ontarkie (yes, insert dripping sarcasm! 🤭). We use a high volume of filtered water because Texas...kids, pets, lots of filtered water. I used to have a water cooler in Canada that took the big 5gal bottles, which was great, but everything eventually wears out and it took up space. We're going to go out later and take a peruse at what's available. Very likely to be the well regarded Bosch 800 series since it's a dual compressor model that is $500 off for Memorial Day sales. I'm just annoyed because I recently purchased a new, overhead garage door as a "big ticket home improvement" item, not anticipating having to consider whether I want to be continually inconvenienced or just replace the misbehaving refrigerator. Definite first world problems, I know. BTW, your kitten is beautiful! 😍

Nah, it's a piece of #######. I vacuum the coils on a regular basis (3 cats, a dog and 2 kids...they are all gross) and from reading on the forums, it's a known issue that will just continue to worsen over time. We're looking at replacing it with a dual compressor unit. The plan is to renovate the kitchen in the next couple of years, which means we'll move the location of the refrigerator as well. We would have purchased a counter depth unit then, so it may just come sooner than later. Depends what we find because I'm not paying 5 figures for a fridge! And, well, we can potentially get a Memorial Day "sale". The only annoyance is I have yet to find a fridge that does filtered water ONLY. I would rather buy a countertop ice maker because that's the first thing that always goes on the refrigerators. I'd do an under counter filter for water, but that will come when we renovate, not now. Sigh.

Exhausted today. Last night was Kid1's graduation. 630 (sorry, @TBoneTX, I can't p math that one 🤣) or so kids in the graduating class. We were exhausted by the rudeness of some of the parents/families there. If your kids are too young to sit still for the time it takes, hire a babysitter. Seriously - we had a family sitting beside us and they got up 5 separate times to go do whatever and get whatever food and drinks, which required us to stand to let them pass. On the 6th, they left for good. But it was right after their graduate's name was called and they didn't wait until the end, despite there being more graduates being applauded. Meanwhile, in front of them were the two most well behaved kiddos who were polite and quiet and cheered when their graduate walked across the stage. I get it - it takes a long time, but come on! Show some respect. Kid1 graduated cum laude so was WAY early on, but we still stayed until the end because everyone should have their moment to cross the stage, diploma in hand. The poor behavior made it feel more like a sporting event than a graduation. Got home and the refrigerator was acting up. It's taken to icing these days. I miss the days of refrigerators lasting 40 years. This one is 11 years old and is just annoying the ####### out of us. We had to pull all of the food out, unscrew the back, inside panel, use the hair dryer to melt the ice, dry it, close it up, reload the food. NOT my idea of fun after such a long day. Kid2 has today as a final full day of school and then half days with finals for the rest of the week. So close to the end of the school year... Very much looking forward to this upcoming long weekend.

You may want to check out this thread for Montreal EB-2's waiting on interviews.

Yup. I was diagnosed with cervical precancer during my first prenatal exam with Kid2.

Sounds like you're making some decent headway with the house, @TBoneTX. It's hard work now, but in retrospect, you'll be glad you did it. The Marie Kondo approach can be very freeing! We had Kid1's senior awards last night. Oh my word...that was 2 hours I will NEVER get back...BORING. The actual graduation ceremony is Monday. The weather will apparently be excessively warm and windy. As long as the wind isn't TOO excessive, it may not be such a bad thing since the ceremony is at an outdoor pavilion. Doors open at 6pm with the ceremony commencing at 7:30pm. We plan to be there as the doors open so we can grab good seats for photo ops and to ensure we're under the shade sails where the Big ### Fans are churning.

Wonderful to hear things are progressing along! If you're a driver at home, I'd head into the local agency and get yourself a copy of your driving record to bring to the US. Not sure what the reciprocity agreements look like in NH in regards to license exchange, but your insurance rates are likely to be much less if your insurer has proof that you're not a new driver and in fact, have a driving history in Norway.

Its interesting that the video quotes statistics from early Q2 2024. Many of the images shown are old passport technology. As of 2021, the US has moved alongside many other countries to having the solid, enhanced biometric page as I'm sure many newly minted US citizens have received, myself included. Additionally, a number of other airports have gone to facial recognition biometrics; Dubai isn't unique, at least not for that reason 🤭. In 2023, it was all e-gates at LHR. It's definitely trending this way. My NEXUS membership required an iris scan in addition to "standard" biometric data and that was over a decade ago; the GE kiosks didn't use the iris scan. It's all feeling a bit Matrix like these days!

In my personal experience, irrespective of size and reputation, it doesn't mean the advice given is always good advice. Given the current political climate and the requirement for non-citizens to show proof of status, I'd get a new passport from your home country, request the old one with your visa and endorsement back, and present it with the evidence of a filed I-90 to obtain an ADIT stamp. You will need your greencard or evidence of the filed I-90 to file for naturalization. Once you do navigate the citizenship process, you may want to consider obtaining a US passport card in addition to your US passport, just in case anything happens. The passport card will demonstrate you're a US citizen easily and isn't a break the bank type of ID. Please do the community a favor and fill out your timeline, too. https://www.visajourney.com/timeline/profile.php?id=488067

I thought for a second there I was reading something one of my kids would have texted me from school when you said someone flushed stuff down the toilets! 🤣 While brain rotting, I saw a TikTok of a girl who had her grandmother's mail - a recently issued jury summons - but her grandmother had passed 4 YEARS previously. Just further highlights the systems are never up to date nor do agencies communicate!

I wouldn't risk the passport. Get a passport card or, take a photo of it. The information can be verified by a system check. A US DL or identification card might be helpful, too. I wouldn't stress about it. There's lots of sensationalism out there.

Adding to what @OldUser mentioned, the passports are issued by the Department of State. However, the information isn't registered with USCIS and USCIS is the ultimate issuing authority for citizenship. So, yeah...that's why you want the CoC. It's a weird one...kinda like pictures or it didn't happen - get the CoC or it didn't happen, irrespective of a passport. If the passport is lost or stolen after the age of 18, the kids will need proof of citizenship to replace it.

SSA? Step-father's last name? This is usually the first stop for people doing name changes, so if your name is the same as everything else, I'd guess the N-600 will be the same. What have all your NOA's for the N-600 said? Intriguing, for sure!

Gonna guess not. Alaska DMV uses SAVE verification for immigration status. That AOS receipt is just a receipt so I suspect EAD at a minimum, as you'd mentioned.

Have you already applied? What is your timeline for return to the US?