JayFromTexas

My wife and I got married 3/3/23. She arrived in the U.S. in August of 2024. Her green card has an expiration of 8/17/2026. Should we wait until just before her GC expires to file the I-751? Or, since we've now been married 2 years, should we file it now?

Yes, it turns out all they (wife & stepdaughter) needed was a better picture. They got their green cards about 10 days later appointment. SS cards came first, about a month after arrival.

August 16

Maybe this will work Makes sense. Thank you

Scan attached I-797C Biometrics Appt Notice Redacted.pdf

My wife had her Visa interview back in July and entered the US on a CR1 Visa in August. Last week, she received an I-797c notifying her that she has a Biometric Submission here in Texas. I've searched here and see some messages that say Biometrics are required prior to some visa interviews. Should we be alarmed that it is happening now or is this normal?

I assume you've received your passport by now. My wife and stepdaughter interviewed for CR1 visa on July 19 and we didn't receive it back until August 15th. But, there was a period of administrative processing mixed in. How long did you wait for the passport to be delivered? UPDATE: I see in another thread that you got in on 11/14. Very fast!

My wife, stepdaughter and I are currently in Bangkok, waiting for the Embassy to deliver their passports with their CR1 & CR2 visas. They are very very slow. Their visa status went to "issued" last Friday and we got an email today that it could be another week to 10 days before we receive their passports at the agreed on postal location. Very very frustrating that the simple process of mailing and delivering our passports can take up to 2 weeks. That's not my question, though. We are looking at travel options and short notice tickets from Bangkok to Dallas ain't cheap. We are considering flying separately to save money because I can buy my flights with credit card points. The challenge is, the flight that is best to be purchased with CC points, is the not the best flight to buy for $$. Hence, the idea of traveling separately. My question is about my wife and stepdaughter entering the US without me. It is my understanding that as long as I enter the US before them, they can enter. They just can't enter before me. What if we are traveling on the same day, through different US cities? For example, say I enter the US in Los Angeles 6am and they enter the US in San Francisco at 10am on the same day. Will that work? I assume when I arrive my status will be updated showing I am in the US and when my wife presents her visas, everything will be ok. Is that how it works? If not, how does it actually work? Thanks in advance.

I’m glad our experience could help someone. Marriage certificates from previous marriages were never on any list that I saw. And then it all changed and they are now on the lists. I think one of the reasons the consulate accepted our case without them was they knew the requirements had recently changed.

That is exactly what they wanted. We already provided divorce certificates from all previous marriages but they also wanted all previous marriage certificates. And remember, this was for our CR2 case only. They didn’t require the marriage certificates for our CR1 case.

Yes, they have their domestic Russian ID. i went to the post office and all I had to do was show them a copy of their passports. thanks everyone.

They are picking up their identification

My wife’s visa is now “issued”. We selected a post office for delivery but we have no other information about how to pick them up. Are we supposed to have a code or other identifying information to pick up our passports? How do they prevent someone from taking their passports from the post office?

No. I contend that asking for marriage certificates from our previous marriages is was not a normal thing. Yes, you can go to State.gov and it clearly shows it NOW, but it wasn't listed in the items required when I filed the I-130 (without help from an advisor and yes, I WAS a student of the process) and it wasn't in the list required at NVC. Divorce certificates were and we provided those. My advisor says in the hundreds of cases she's handled they haven't been on the list of required documents and that this is a recent change. I don't know if that is the case or not, but that is what we told the consulate when they told us to submit the marriage certs. They agreed to process our case without them. The other part of this to understand is the marriage certificates were ONLY requested for the CR2 case and were not required for the CR1 case. They told my wife that they could go ahead and interview her and then interview her daughter at a later time, once they had the marriage certificates. She said no and that they should accept both cases as submitted because we submitted everything they asked for, prior to showing up for the interview. They relented. My wife is very persuasive. 🥲

I'm happy to report that our wait is over. Both cases were changed to "Issued" today.