Edward and Jaycel

Marrying for the purpose of receiving an immigration benefit is considered fraud and has severe consequences. (Case denial,being removed from the country, forever having a "Fraud" marker on your immigration record, etc.) Not to mention that entering into a marriage for anything other than love is a recipe for stress, heartache, abuse.... (In my opinion) I strongly urge you to practice patience in your immigration journey and do not try to take shortcuts. USCIS is really good at sniffing out these kinds of things.

This would likely be worth clarifying in your cover letter.

This is accurate 👆👆 You would file the I-130 for a IR-1/CR-1 visa once you clear up the other obstacles.

Agree 100% - When I had my RFE, my cover letter only itemized the evidence I was sending them in response to exactly what they asked for. Nothing extraneous.

You still need to go to your VAC appointment

Ok thanks for the details.... Sometimes those notifications come out for no apparent reason (Severely flawed Government IT system) sometimes the change in status of the case in the portal lags hours, days behind the email notifications.

What kind of case is it? Do you have an online account with USCIS so that you can check the status?

Yes agreed.... I misread while I was scanning the comments and thought he said his ex was naturalized and now I see that he said she was never naturalized. So yes the previous I-864 should be fulfilled or he has a high risk of denial for either.

Exactly.... This waiting for the approval of the Employment Auth is killing Jaycel. Wish foresight was as clear as hindsight 😑

It's a much higher bar for a Consular Officer to deny a Spousal Visa than it is for them to deny a K-1 visa. It's less expensive to go that route and in my opinion the superior way to go (Spouse gets the LPR stamp in their passport upon arrival, Green Card in the mail 6-12 weeks later, no Adjustment of Status nonsense, can work & travel out of the country immediately, etc.) I really wish Jaycel and I had gone that route. We could have married while I was living with her in the Philippines.

Yes we are DIY and I did not add in ROC fees- You forgot to addd Employment Authorization Application ($260 when filed concurrently with I-485) plus we set aside $750 in case something happened in the transit of her yellow packet from CBP to her USCIS A-File and they give us an RFE for needing a new Medical. We also did not file the I-131 Advanced Parole for travel purposes, but if you want your fiancee to be able to leave the country while the AOS is being adjudicated you will need $630 for that application. We also spent about another $100 on miscellaneous things for the AOS filing (Passport photos, Printing and shipping costs, etc.)

Ours says the same thing since the biometrics.... It also appears to have de-coupled the I-485 from the I-765 on the website. It no longer has them grouped together and the "Concurrent Filing" tag is gone. They are now their own separate cases. This happened to another VJ user here that commented in the November AOS Filers thread. He had an I-131 filed also and it kept that and the I-765 together with the concurrent filing tag. I'm presuming that's because they will issue a combo card for those?

Ok thanks! It looks like, after the biometrics, they decouple the I-485 from the other cases. Your I-765 & I-131 would stay concurrent I presume since they would likely issue a combo card right?

Yup… should have caught that 😆

All of this 👆👆 We are going on about $4k total so far for fees, etc.

And this is the best advice so far anyone has given in this post Heh We're going through the Adjustment of Status from a K-1 visa now and I really wish we had got married in the Philippines when I lived there with her and gone the Spousal Visa route

Yes Can't hurt to include a copy to explain the name change Just be sure you mail it to correct lockbox location based on the mailing service (PO Box if mailing it via USPS or the physical address if sending it via FedEx, UPS, etc.)

Like @OldUser said, G-1145 is not 100% reliable and in any case it only notifies you when the application was received and gives you the receipt number that was issued for your petition. They do not e-notify you of anything else after that. Once you get the receipt number, you can set up an account on my.uscis.gov and you will see any updates there (RFE, Approval, etc.)

Was the interview for a K-1 visa? If so you will not have the option to upload through the CEAC website. You will just send the original divorce decree along with your fiancee's passport to the embassy, along with the 221g instruction sheet and 221g submission form via LBC courier.

Question for you @AUTtoPA.... after Jaycel's biometrics appointment when hers cases statuses changed to "Your case is being actively reviewed by USCIS", the "Concurrent Filing" tag disappeared from her online case status page and both cases look to be separate now. Did this happen to yours after the biometrics too?

Congrats!! We have the same receipt block. Hopefully we'll get Jaycel's I-765 approval soon. It's only been 2 days since the biometrics so we got a bit to go

I wouldn't show up without an appointment for that day and time - But you can re-schedule. Here's my post on how we did it. The only update is that the new appointment notice does show up in your documents tab after about a day: In case anyone needs to do this.... Our status changed to "Biometrics Appointment Was Scheduled" on Friday. Within an hour we were able to see the appointment letter in the Documents tab online. We saw that it was scheduled for 01/07/2025. This was a problem as Jaycel doesn't have her driver license yet and I have work that day with meetings that would have been difficult to get out of. So we went to the online portal and under "My Account" there is a link for "Reschedule Biometrics Appointment". We went there and selected the reason for the reschedule request, put in the receipt #, the date of the original appointment, the service center and her DOB. It then gave various available dates to reschedule and when you select one, it gives the times available that day. We selected 12/26 and there were like 8 slots open that day. Once we submitted it, we got the email that "An Action Has Been Taken on Your Case". Our case status updated that Biometrics Appointment was scheduled on December 24. 2024 and about 15 minutes later we received another email that "An Action Has Been Taken on Your Case" and this was the completion of the reschedule and the notice was available for download. Be aware, you have to go back into the "Reschedule Biometrics Appointment" and look under "View Submitted Requests" in order to get the new notice. So far it has not shown up in the regular "Documents" tab.

You should be able to see it in the documents tab in your online account in the portal

A K-1 is easier for a consular officer to deny because technically it is a non-immigrant visa for someone who is not an immediate relative of a US Citizen. If a CO denies an IR1/CR1 visa they have more paperwork to do as to why they denied it

For the moderators: I'm changing all the names here except mine and Jaycel's first names since they are our handle here (except Jaycel has two first names of which I'll fictionalize the 2nd one) Jaycel's maiden name: Jaycel Ann Ibanez Ortiz My name: Edward Jones Jaycel's New Married name: Jaycel Ann Ortiz Jones As long as the name you choose is some combination of the names that appear on the marriage certificate, you can change your name using that marriage certificate.