OldUser

Awesome, thank you!

The other option is for you to meet them in a different country where you and they can visit. Somewhere in Europe? Both US and Ukrainian citizens can enter EU freely for 90 days. Another option is Mexico (visa free for US citizens and eTA for Ukrainians). Or Canada (visa free for US citizens and visa required for Ukrainians). Green cards are for living in the US. If they're not going to live in the US, they'll lose GCs eventually.

Essentially, you're validating US embassy's point your parents have immigrant intent. The more they live in the US the better. There is no black and white rule. At any point, CBP may presume they're not residing in the US. If they only spend 4-8 weeks a year out of the US, it would be much harder to accuse them of not living in the US. The closer you get to 6 months a year out of the US, the more probable it becomes CBP asking them about their travel and life in the US.

How did children arrive? Did they have immigrant visas? How old are they? How do they qualify for US citizenship?

Don't overthink. Answer questions directly. Most recently issued visa is J-1 in 2019. If you list B1/B2 from 2014 that could be seen as you hiding the fact J-1 was issued.

No I-130 is needed if parents are coming just to visit. They can apply for B2 tourist visas.

Jim specifically doesn't file visa cases and says all the time he'd have no capabiltity to help anybody detained by CBP. I think he's geniuinely convinced by what he's telling, probably watched / read too much from certain media outlets. OP's family has no red flags I'd be worried about.

He's saying it out of extreme caution. The other reason most of his clients are from countries that were previously on ban list.

Most likely then, you'll have to overcome misrep.

Hmmm, but USCIS stance is you were already legally married. Can a good independent lawyer back in your country research and determine you were not legally married? Then you can use this lawyer's statement and supporting evidence you didn't violate anything. That would be my suggestion.

Yes, if you apply for EAD, you can use that to get driver's license or state ID. EAD is also a federal ID on its own.

Nobody ever gets any USCIS fees back. Also, biometric fee is not just for an appointment. There's background check and fees associated with it. Biometrics fee covers it.

Your mileage may vary based on office, wether you're changing name and other factors. My oath was same day as approval, and same day as interview.

You can do if as you file N-400. Upload PDF in Additional Evidence section

Oh, not at all. Any sensible person assumes the info on field office locator is accurate and up to date. At first I assumed it was a number to get connected to office. The area code threw me off a bit, but I thought they're gonna redirect me to correct extension. But nobody ever answered my call. Local phone number was a lot better in this regard, once I learned it from staff

Amazing. Congratulations and thank you for sharing your experience!

Not my ZIP, but the same result. Let's say you enter this LA ZIP: 90045 The result right now shows national number. Location for my office was correct in locator, so it was useful to this extent.

As I mentioned, office locator showed national number in the results for my closest office. Google Maps also showed it, so I had no way of knowing exact number unfortunately. I suggested edit on Google Maps for my office based on number I got from field office employee.

@trac3rt you may need to go in person to update your records. Here's my experience so far:

Hi everybody. I'm going to post my experience and findings around updating citizenship status with SSA in 2025. When I applied for N-400 in December 2024, I was excited to use new edition of the form, which had a check to update my citizenship status with SSA automatically. Looks like this used to work like a Swiss watch: However, almost a month later I still don't have new SS card (which I don't need, as I don't have restriction). More importantly, as @Rekyrts outlined in this post, my record is not updated to show I am a US citizen: @Babu Frik was right about Enumeration Beyond Entry (EBE) going away, which is the mechanism USCIS used to update citizenship status with SSA: So, I decided to take matters in my hand and update citizenship status in person. I went to https://www.ssa.gov/personal-record/update-citizenship-or-immigration-status and answered few questions. The wizard helped me locate SSA field office and gave a phone number, which turned out to be centralized phone 1-800-772-1213 listed on this page: https://www.ssa.gov/agency/contact/phone.html So I gave a call to schedule an appointment... After 1 hr and 55 minutes on hold I gave up and decided to do a walk in on different day. I completed SS-5 form, took passport and DL to update status and showed up to local field office. Took a ticket, waited for about 1 hr, then was turned away by check in person, saying I need to have an appointment. She gave me a phone number for local field office which was different to one on SSA office locator. After 20 mins on hold I was able to get an appointment few weeks away from today. To be continued...

Yes, I would put J-1 visa info. This is not a legal advice though

You get letter in account online and letter in mail telling immigrant to go to a physical location to submit biometrics (fingerprints and photo)

A US visa means any visa. So yes, if it was J-1, its number and date issues should be entered. If form needed to be more specific, it would have mentioned B1/B2 in question.

Tax return transcripts is all you need for N-400. I guess having 0 balance allows you to day you don't own IRS anything...

Which transcript are you talking about? Account transcript? You need tax return transcript.