OldUser

Always better to meet in a third country when you're talking Iran, North Korea, Cuba et al. With current developments, it may be safer for US citizen to travel elsewhere. Current Travel Advisory is Level 4 - Do not travel https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories.html/

Can you not amend it and get the money back? Did you file Married Filing Separately? Other evidence makes sense.

Why isn't there tax return transcript for year 2021? If you got married on that year, you should have filed MFJ and got larger tax break.

If you have existing relationship with a bank you can ask them to open a new joint account or add her name to existing account. Wells Fargo is usually one that is more immigrant friendly, at least it used to be.

Yes, it's form I-131. Best to file at the beginning, because it takes months to get. Filing later may be useless. You can also get her EAD by filing I-765. This would allow her to get driver's license, help with opening bank accounts and, most importantly, get employed while waiting for GC.

Evidence of living together is super important. Adding her to lease is excellent proof. If you're not sure, ask the landlord / lease office for details.

It doesn't hurt IMHO

True, but it's probably better to renew passport now. Many countries require 3 or 6 months validity on passport for it to be even considered for travel. It's not like OP's GF is gonna benefit from holding useless passport that's about to expire.

So you inquired about name change... I don't think it's spam but I wouldn't believe 10 days timeline.

Yes, J1 - H1B - GC is a pretty normal path for a professional. I know few people who went this route.

Apply with confidence. Only make sure you don't move shortly before N-400, as you're required to be a resident in your USCIS district in the last 90 days before applying.

I believe OP already sent the packet, so there is no way to do it now AFAIK.

Good call to renew it early. Many states do the same and treat conditional LPRs as regular LPRs giving max validity for IDs / DLs. Also, did you remove wording from SS card (if you ever had something like "Valid for work only with DHS authorization")?

Replied here:

You said it yourself. You did not qualify for citizenship if you naturalized earlier than 3 / 5 years anniversary of being LPR. It's all about how many days you had at the time of oath, not after. One would hope so. But it depends on the judges. If they interpret law strictly, it can be taken away. As an example, during pandemic, some people received stimulus check by mistake. It was a government's fault. But yet IRS chased people to return the money. Same here. Benefit was given in error. It can be taken away. Theoretically it can be taken away. Naturalization occured before one was eligible. This is how the law works. It looks at the facts as of the day of naturalization. There were cases of people getting US passports in error and then, denied passport renewal decades later. There also may be other downsides. If this person tries to sponsor somebody, USCIS may claim they're not eligible to sponsor somebody.

Employment status is irrelevant for naturalization. It is perfectly fine to be unemployed / seeking jobs. Public charge is an issue when one waits for I-485. After you have GC, you can receive unemployment without issue.

Oath is taken voluntarily. You're not forced to take oath. You can always politely decline IO's offer to do same day oath saying: "I'm not yet eligible. Is it possible to schedule after mm/dd/yyyy"? Even if you forget about it at the interview, you probably have a chance to tell about it before ceremony begins... The OP in quoted thread wasn't sure, but others reading this thread must already know it when they're eligible.

Theoretically yes, practically N-400 is the last "gate" to immigration benefit that's hard to revoke e.g. citizenship. I'd treat N-400 very seriously and submit as much evidence as possible. There's two camps of people. One camp believes in only submitting new evidence since filing I-751. And for most of people, it worked just fine. The second camp believes following form instructions to the T. If it says all evidence since start of marriage, submit all evidence. USCIS would have zero chance of arguing you didn't submit enough evidence in this case. What does it cost to print it all? $50, $100, $200? For me those are reasonable costs of prepping the strongest case are justified. If it's about online filing, what are we even talking about, since it's digital and there is no cost of printing? No brainer to go all in for me...

We can only dream! But none of us have a crystal ball to tell the future. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this subject, I understand your point.

AP is insurance policy. GC can take over a year to receive. AP can take 6-9 months. If something happens to family outside the US at least there is a hope one can travel without abandoning AOS. But yes, it's totally optional and everybody have their priorities and risk tolerance level. When I filed for mine, it was a no brainer because it was free with pending I-485 back in the days.

It's his form. Technically, he filed it. Estimated timeline? You can ignore it, it's hugely inaccurate.

It takes 8-10 weeks to get receipts for any cases filed by mail lately

Estimates are unreliable. Yes, the official study materials are enough.

People got case updates on Saturdays including me, and even on federal holidays.

I think you're quoting @Elena V here not me. This can happen under any administration if an unexperienced IO is adjudicating the case. There's also complexity when somebody gets denied in 90 day window for other reason (for example broke residence within the last 5 years but didn't wait long enough for it to be disregarded). People tend to focus on few things on their case but ignore other important bits when reporting it online. I wouldn't be surprised if IO gives a vague reason for denial like as "Didn't meet residency requirements" and people blame it on 90 days VS other issues in their case.