ErikMexico's US Immigration Timeline

Petitioner's Name: Erik Beneficiary's Name: Angel VJ Member: ErikMexico Country: Mexico Last Updated: 2023-06-14 Add Comment to Timeline Register or log in to follow this timeline

Immigration Checklist for Erik & Angel:

USCIS I-129F Petition:       Dept of State K1 Visa:     USCIS I-485 Petition:   USCIS I-765 Petition:       USCIS I-131 Petition:       USCIS I-751 Petition:   USCIS N-400 Petition:

K1 Visa Event Date Service Center : California Service Center Transferred? No Consulate : Juarez, Mexico I-129F Sent : 2018-02-20 I-129F NOA1 : 2018-02-26 I-129F RFE(s) : RFE Reply(s) : I-129F NOA2 : 2018-09-07 NVC Received : 2018-09-27 Date Case #, IIN, and BIN assigned : NVC Left : 2018-10-02 Consulate Received : 2018-10-03 Packet 3 Received : Packet 3 Sent : Packet 4 Received : Interview Date : 2018-12-07 Interview Result : Approved Second Interview (If Required): Second Interview Result: Visa Received : 2018-12-21 US Entry : 2018-12-29 Marriage : 2019-01-04 Comments : Processing Estimates/Stats : Your I-129f was approved in 193 days from your NOA1 date. Your interview took 284 days from your I-129F NOA1 date.

Port of Entry Review Event Date Port of Entry : Newark POE Date : 2018-12-29 Got EAD Stamp : No Biometrics Taken : Yes Harassment Level : 0 Comments :

Adjustment of Status Event Date CIS Office : Newark NJ Date Filed : 2019-02-09 NOA Date : 2019-02-21 RFE(s) : Bio. Appt. : 2019-03-14 AOS Transfer** : Interview Date : 2019-12-05 Approval / Denial Date : 2019-12-05 Approved : Yes Got I551 Stamp : No Greencard Received: 2019-12-11 Comments :

Employment Authorization Document Event Date CIS Office : Chicago National Office Filing Method : Mail Filing Instance : First Date Filed : 2019-02-09 NOA Date : 2019-02-21 RFE(s) : Bio. Appt. : Approved Date : 2019-09-13 Date Card Received : 2019-09-19 Comments : Processing Estimates/Stats : Your EAD was approved in 216 days.

Advance Parole Event Date CIS Office : Chicago National Office Filing Method :   Filing Instance : First Date Filed : 2019-02-09 NOA Date : 2019-02-21 RFE(s) : Date Received : Comments : Processing Estimates/Stats : Your AP was approved in 216 days.

Lifting Conditions Event Date CIS Office : Vermont Service Center Date Filed : 2021-09-07 NOA Date : 2021-09-21 RFE(s) : Bio. Appt. : 2021-10-11 Interview Date : 2023-06-13 Approval / Denial Date : 2023-06-13 Approved : Yes Got I551 Stamp : Green Card Received : Comments : Combo interview with citizenship

Citizenship Event Date Service Center : Online CIS Office : Newark NJ Date Filed : 2022-10-10 NOA Date : 2022-10-20 Bio. Appt. : Interview Date : 2023-06-13 Approved : Yes Oath Ceremony : 2023-06-13 Comments : Oath ceremony was for the same day about two hours after our approval!

Member Reviews:

Consulate Review: Juarez, Mexico Review Topic: K1 Visa Event Description Review Date : December 16, 2018 Embassy Review : My fiancé had his appointment December 7 in Ciudad Juárez and was approved! For those wondering, we received notification from the consulate on October the 3rd and were able to schedule our interview for December 7th. There may have been a cancellation because it was the only appointment available for all of December. He had his medical and biometrics appointments in Mexico City, since he is a respondent there. Both of the appointments are in offices on Hamburgo, which is convenient to the city center. For the appointment in Juarez, we flew from CDMX on Thursday (we flew viva aerobus, and don’t recommend them). We stayed at the Microtel and were very happy with the suite. The location is great since it’s on the same side of the street as the consulate. There is a mall across the street with a Cinépolis, so we went there Thursday night to help keep our mind off the interview. On Friday morning he had his interview scheduled for 9:15 but he walked straight to the front (it looks like there is a line but it’s only people waiting for family members) and was let in at 8:45. (This part of the review was written by my fiancé) At the entrance of the consulate, you are asked to show your DS-160 completion confirmation. Once that's checked and marked, you're allowed into the first room/are that has an airport-TSA seeming security gate, where they will check that you do not have any electronics or dangerous objects with you. Once you're cleared from this section you will be asked for your DS-160 confirmation paper again to check what type of visa you are applying for. They will staple two pieces of paper on your DS-160 confirmation document with the same Turn/ID Number. In the case of the K visa, it is an Immigrant Visa, so they ask you exit that room and follow the blue arrows that will lead you to the waiting area for this kind of visa. The waiting room is right at the end of the building. You have to walk through a garden that connects all the areas. The waiting area is a warehouse-seeming room with many chairs and equipped with AC/Heating to cope with the different weathers across the year. Once you get there, you will be asked to take a seat next to the last person that arrived before you. And here, you will wait for a person that is coming every 15min or so to take a group of 2 rows of chairs at a time to bring them to the next room. The next room is where you will spend the most time of your wait. It is a closed area with different sections that has a very office-y feeling. Lots of windows everywhere. Once you enter this room, you will be shown where to take a seat in the first section and you will be instructed to prepare your current passport, photos, birth certificate (original and a copy), police records (originals only) and tax return documents from your fiancé (originals only). They explain that these are the documents that you will turn in to the first agent once you get a window assigned. They will also explain the next step, which is waiting in the second seat section of this room which is divided in two: Green chairs and Black chairs. The color will be assigned by the first agent you will meet. The wait in this first section is of about 15min as well. It moves pretty quickly since it's a simple step. As soon as you get a window assigned, you wait for less than 5 minutes and you will meet with your first agent who most likely will be Mexican. They will take the aforementioned documents and take one of the pieces of paper with your Turn/ID Number. They will instruct you to go to the next section and will tell you what color of chairs you need to go to—based on my observation and assumptions, I think the black chairs are for more complex or difficult cases. Since they have less black chair rows and they seemed to move a lot slower—. I got green chairs assigned. This section is where your wait will be the longest. I waited for over 2 hours there. The green chairs have a lot of rows. Probably over 10 rows, so they move slower. They take a row every 15~20min. Sometimes they will take two rows at a time. But it varies a lot, depending on how long the interviews for the previous row are taking. Once you finally get your row called for the interviews section, you will be taken to an area that has two rows of windows on the sides and two lines of people in the center waiting to be interviewed. This section was probably the most nerve-racking and overwhelming one of them all for me, since you can listen to all the interviews going on around you and you get to listen to the people getting the visa denied. But it also gives you an idea of what other people's cases are like and how complex they can be. After probably 15min of wait, you get called from the next window that is free and you will be meeting with your second Agent. This time, they will most likely be American. So it's your call to hold the interview in Spanish or English. I chose to do my interview in English, since I figured it would be the language we both would feel most confortable with. I had a TN-2 visa denied over a year ago and my fiancé and I were concerned about this being an issue. My interview started and the Agent brought up our case file with all the documentation we had submitted in our original application. He asked if I had a previous visa with me. I said yes and turned in my tourist visa (B1/B2). He started checking through our paperwork. His first question was about the TN visa (he didn't know what it was). He then reviewed my travel history to the US and asked how long was my longest stay (to double check that I hadn't overstayed when I was there). Then he asked about my job and what it entails. He asked how much I make a year. He checked more of the paperwork. Then he asked how I met my fiancé. What does he do for a living. How much he makes a year. He checked more of the paperwork again. Then he finally asked if I had any tattoos and what each one meant. He went through the paperwork one last time. He gave me my original birth certificate and congratulated me. My visa was approved. They give you a little green paper with instructions on how to track your visa from that point on and how to pick it up from your selected shipping destination. From this point I went back to the exit of the room, walked back through the garden to the main entrance and left the building with a great, great smile. (That’s the end of my fiance’s writing) I was waiting outside of the consulate and at 12:15 (so 3.5 hours later) he came outside and told me he was approved! We celebrated by having lunch at the mall, then we video chatted with both of our families to tell them the good news. Overall, it was a positive experience at the consulate, and we recommend the Microtel hotel. Additionally, the people in Juarez are very friendly and customer service is very good at restaurants, the hotel, etc. Rating : Very Good

POE Review: Newark Event Description Entry Date : 2018-12-29 Embassy Review : Our plane arrived ahead of schedule on Saturday afternoon at around 2:30. Once we got to immigration, we explained our situation (about the K1) to one of the workers in red jackets and he told us we could both go through the visitors line together. The wait was about 45 minutes, which was faster than what we were expecting. Once we got to the officer's desk we explained the situation and he processed my (US Citizen) passport and stamped it. He just asked how long I was in Mexico, and what I was doing there. Then he asked for my fiance's papers in the sealed envelope. He processed my fiance's passport, did his fingerprints and took his photo. He then radioed for an escort who came and took my fiance and pointed me to an area to wait while my fiance went to secondary processing. In secondary processing, they took his paperwork and asked him to sit to wait to be called. When he got called, he only got asked when we are planning to get married, and that was it! They gave him his passport back. He said there were only two people on line in front of him, so he was inside secondary processing for less than 3 minutes. We met up, and picked up our luggage and handed our papers to the customs officer and exited. One other point - we each filled out our own customs papers since we aren't married yet. We also didn't know what to put for my fiance's amount of things to declare since everything is staying in the US, so we just left that blank. No one said anything, so that was okay. So overall, it was about an hour from when we got off the plane to exiting the customs area, and things went well. Harassment Level : Low

Timeline Comments: 6



*Notice about estimates: The estimates are based off averages of other members recent experiences
(documented in their timelines) for the same benefit/petition/application at the same filing location.
Individual results may vary as every case is not always 'average'. Past performance does not necessarily
predict future results. The 'as early as date' may change over time based on current reported processing
times from members. There have historically been cases where a benefit/petition/application processing
briefly slows down or stops and this can not be predicted. Use these dates as reference only and do not
rely on them for planning. As always you should check the USCIS processing times to see if your application
is past due.

** Not all cases are transfered

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