My wife and I just attended her Green Card Interview today, and she was approved on the spot! Here's our background and what our timeline looked like:
Marriage based AoS application (adjusting from F-1 student)
Applied from southern California to the Los Angeles county office (Chatsworth)
- July 2019 - Entered US
- December 2019 - married and sent in AoS packet (485, 130, 130a, 131, 765, 864, g-1145)
- January 16 2020 - 4 I-797 notices arrived (485, 130, 131, 765)
- January 17 2020 - biometrics I-797 arrived, scheduled for January 29
- January 29 2020 - went to biometrics appointment
- February 28 2020 - courtesy letter to do I-693 and bring to interview
- February 29 2020 - I-485 case status changed to interview ready to schedule
- March 30 2020 - finger prints applied to I-131 application letter arrives
- Silence :(
- June 8 2020 - I-797s arrive telling us to expect EAD/AP card
- June 10 2020 - EAD/AP card received!
- June 2020 - Went to Civil Surgeon for i-693
- June 26 2020 - SSC received!
- Silence :(
- January 29 2021 - I-485 Case status changed to interview scheduled!
- February 4 2021 - Received interview notice, scheduled for March 9th.
- Couple days later the same notice comes through with more details on I-693 validity.
- This is pretty important and I think there is a lot of misunderstanding on this (even the nurse at our doctor appointment told us we shouldn't have got it at that time because it wouldn't be valid). However, to my knowledge, I-693s have a 2 year validity from the time the doctor signs, but if the signature is more than 60 days before the time you submitted your I-485, it is not valid.
- March 9 2021 - Interview and I-485 and I-130 status changed to approved!
We had a really positive experience at the interview. Started with the swearing in, and then the interviewer asked to see our IDs (used US Passport and EAD/AP card), originals of birth certificates and marriage certificate, and any evidence of our relationship. We brought quite a bit of evidence to the interview, about as big of a stack of papers as the original application. Here's my table of contents that I made to help myself and the interviewer find the documents:
Applicant and Petitioner’s Additional Evidence
- Financial Comingling
a. Most recent 3 statements from joint checking accounts and savings account.
b. Copy of joint credit cards and HSA account.
c. Most recent credit card and HSA account statements
-
Petitioner and Applicant’s 2019 tax transcript and joint return
-
Petitioner’s updated financials
a. Employment verification letter
b. Most recent earnings statements and 2020 full year earnings statement
c. 2020, 2019, and 2018 W-2s
- Evidence of relationship
a. Joint lease agreement and lease renewal (originals available)
b. Home Country’s adjustment to family register & translation (original available)
c. 2020 1095-C to show joint insurance coverage (original available)
d. Dental insurance information and claim history
e. Health insurance cards (original available)
f. Life insurance beneficiary
g. 401(k) beneficiary
h. Auto insurance
i. Rental insurance
j. Letters from Petitioner’s parents and Petitioner and Applicant’s property manager (original)
- Applicant’s School history
a. I-20
b. I-94
c. DS-160
d. School transcripts and general record
e. School residency reclassification & student data change form (original)
f. Applicant’s 2020 and 2019 1098-T
g. Applicant’s history of arrivals and departures
The interviewer said she didn't need anything in section 5, and seemed to mostly focus on the financial comingling and our 2019 joint tax return. Still, I would recommend taking as much documents as possible and organizing it well. It seemed to be that she got the impression from the organization and size of the documents that we had more than sufficient evidence to show we've combined our lives, and didn't dive into any details of the files with us (skimmed through section 1 & 2). She kept the entirety of sections 1-4 and added them to our file.
After the review of the birth certs and marriage cert, she started with my questions, which were all very straight forward. She went through the application and asked my birthday, full name, how many times I've been married, when we got married, if I still work at the same company, our address, and my wife's full name.
After questioning me, she asked my wife mostly straightforward questions as well. My wife is still learning English, so she did get tripped up on:
- have you gone by any other names (maiden name),
- how did you enter the US (She answered "by plane" lol, but she was asking about what visa did she use, so the interviewer clarified ad my wife responded F-1 visa), and
- questions about her student history (asked if she was still going to school, responded yes, the officer asked for clarification because her student status was terminated last year when she went part time after AoS was filed, and my wife let her know that she is still going part time, so the officer made a note of that.
After the questions she noted that she did update the application with her most recent job, as she had just started her first job in America last month. She also ran through some of the "No" questions, and it seems they kind of just pick a handful of these to ask and mark off.
After our individual questions, she asked "Who wants to tell your love story?". She seemed genuinely interested and was most interested in dates and places of meaningful events, like where/when you met, where/when you started dating, where/when you proposed, where/when you got married.
After our love story she went through the photos we brought and picked out ones to keep. I'd recommend keeping the pictures that you bring outside of a picture album, as the interviewer asked us to just give the pictures without any casing so she could flip through them.
After about ten minutes of her finishing up her paperwork, she let us know that we have been approved on the spot! The interview took about 30 in total, and seemed incredibly smooth. No "gotcha" questions that we spent the last month preparing for.
Thanks to everyone on this sub for always being so helpful! I will update when we receive the GC, the notice said up to 60 days, but I'd imagine we will get it pretty quickly.
Happy to answer any questions!
[link] [comments]
source https://www.reddit.com/r/immigration/comments/m1mpcp/marriage_based_green_card_approved_timeline_within/