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I completed the my I-485 interview today and I'd love to share some experience with the forum.
My application based on marriage with USC. I was on F1 visa for 6 years (1 year of that is OPT), knew my husband for ~5 years, and got married late last year. Concurrently filed I-130, 485, 131, 765 in October 2017, and PD was Oct 30, 2017.
My interview was scheduled 9:45am today (10/23/2018) at the Holtsville Long Island field office. We arrived and checked in at 9:20am, but wasn't called in until 10:50am. The officer looked serious and didn't have any smile on his face (he seemed to be angry with the husband he interviewed before us because that husband did not want to be interviewed separately with his wife and argued with the officer a bit...). I came to the door when he called my name, and asked him whether my husband should come in together, and he said yes. So we got interviewed together.
The officer took us to his room, and asked me to take a photo and input my fingerprints. Then he asked us to stand up and take oath.
After that he asked for both of our passports and drivers license, as well as my combo card and I-94 and made copies. Then he looked at my husband's naturalization certificate, our marriage license, my birth certificate, and took away the copies .
We were asked very basic questions:
To me (beneficiary):
Name, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Mother's first name, Father's first name.
What did you study for the time you are in the US?
When did you enter the US for the first time? On what visa? For which school? Did you finish your degree?
Did you ever get deported by the immigration court?
Have you ever used your combo card to leave and enter the US?
Do you rent or own? Do you have the rental lease?
What are you doing now? (I said I am working and gave him my employment verification and 4 months of paystubs)
What is the date when you get married? And where?
To my husband (USC):
Name, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Mother's first name, Father's first name.
How did you become a US citizen?
Where are you studying right now? Which school? Where is it?
Did you work before you attend this school? For how long?
To both of us:
Do you have kids?
What is your age now?
(To me): What is his birthday?
(To him): What is her birthday?
Then he asked for the supporting docs for our relationship. He specifically asked for financial docs such as joint bank accounts and rental lease with our names. I provided him a pile of docs of 4-inch thick, from 5 aspects including financial, residency, photos, interactions between us, and letters from family/friends. I thought he would take a look at some and pick a few..... but he didn't look at anything and just took most of the docs (I'll provide a checklist of my doc in below).
During the process that I handed the files to him, I tried to briefly explain what each of my file collection was. I mentioned to him that a family photo of me, my husband, my parents, and his parents was in the photo collection, and the officer simply said "OK I got you" but did not look at it. I asked the officer if he wanted the rest of the docs such as our chat history. He laughed and said "No need. These are already too much for this pile".
The interest things are:
I asked the officer whether he needed my new I-693 medical exam form (because I got the last one signed on 09/28/2017 and it should already expired if counting from the signed date), and he said no because it was counted from my application received date which was 10/30/2017 (Really???). I was a bit suspicious about that and would not want any RFEs, so I asked him to take my new I-693 anyway.
I also asked the officer whether he needed the most recent year tax return and employment verification of my husband and my co-sponsor (my husband was full-time student in 2016 and 2015 and he didn't have 3-year tax return for his I-864 so I got a co-sponsor). The officer also replied "no", and said the I-864 form I submitted "was already qualified" (I did see the "QUALIFIED" stamp on the form when he double checked it...), so I didn't need to provide any additional docs for it. (Again, really???)
Then the officer told me to wait for the green card and it would not be too long. I asked whether this was an approval, and he said he was going to give me the green card but I might have to wait 2-4 weeks to get it, and that if I needed to travel abroad I could use the combo card to re-enter. Then he asked when I planned to go to my home country, and when I replied early next year, he said "Oh it [the card processing] won't take that long".
He then asked which address the card should be mailed to, and happily made fun of my husband that "are you sure this address isn't somewhere you hide another woman?", as our mailing address, which was my husband's parents' home, was not our current living address. Finally he printed a piece of paper which checked "your case is being held for further review, no additional information is required", said "congratulations" to us, and then walked us out to the waiting room. I didn't get any written approval from the interview and no status change ever happened up til now except for the officer's oral promise and congratulations.
I suppose this is a positive outcome...? I'm so anxious now >_<
-----------
Below is my checklist, which I hope will provide some references to other applicants: (Many thanks to the collection of successful checklists posted by @UScitizenFilingforspouse at https://www.immihelp.com/forum/showt...737#post582737)
Financial:
* Joint checking account -- 12-month average balance statement, checks, 2017 tax refund deposit transaction record in account statement
* Joint credit card -- photocopy of front and back of both credit cards
* Joint tax return 2017 -- 1040 + both W2
* My husband paid for our expenses and my parents' expenses when they were visiting -- hotel/flight reservations with highlighted transactions in credit card statement
* I paid for our living expenses -- rent payment records and electricity payment records with highlighted transactions in credit card statement
Residency:
* Shared living address -- email between me & leasing manager confirming lease signing, electricity bills, rental lease with both our names
* Shared mailing address -- both drivers licence showing same address, 2 bank accounts from each of us showing same address
Photos:
~50 photos since our first trip (2014) to October this year, all glued to A4 paper with printed explanation of when & where & with whom & for what event this photo was taken
Interactions:
* Chat history from the first day we friended each other on that app until the month we moved together -- 1 screenshot per month with timestamp shown in the app
* Gift receipts & gift message cards between us
* Flight reservations that my husband visited me when we were long-distance -- paired with all boarding passes we could find
* Flight/hotel reservations of the trips that we took together -- each referred to a photo in the photo collection
Letters:
* Letter from my husband's parents
* Letter from my 10-year friend
* Letter from my husband's childhood friend
My application based on marriage with USC. I was on F1 visa for 6 years (1 year of that is OPT), knew my husband for ~5 years, and got married late last year. Concurrently filed I-130, 485, 131, 765 in October 2017, and PD was Oct 30, 2017.
My interview was scheduled 9:45am today (10/23/2018) at the Holtsville Long Island field office. We arrived and checked in at 9:20am, but wasn't called in until 10:50am. The officer looked serious and didn't have any smile on his face (he seemed to be angry with the husband he interviewed before us because that husband did not want to be interviewed separately with his wife and argued with the officer a bit...). I came to the door when he called my name, and asked him whether my husband should come in together, and he said yes. So we got interviewed together.
The officer took us to his room, and asked me to take a photo and input my fingerprints. Then he asked us to stand up and take oath.
After that he asked for both of our passports and drivers license, as well as my combo card and I-94 and made copies. Then he looked at my husband's naturalization certificate, our marriage license, my birth certificate, and took away the copies .
We were asked very basic questions:
To me (beneficiary):
Name, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Mother's first name, Father's first name.
What did you study for the time you are in the US?
When did you enter the US for the first time? On what visa? For which school? Did you finish your degree?
Did you ever get deported by the immigration court?
Have you ever used your combo card to leave and enter the US?
Do you rent or own? Do you have the rental lease?
What are you doing now? (I said I am working and gave him my employment verification and 4 months of paystubs)
What is the date when you get married? And where?
To my husband (USC):
Name, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Mother's first name, Father's first name.
How did you become a US citizen?
Where are you studying right now? Which school? Where is it?
Did you work before you attend this school? For how long?
To both of us:
Do you have kids?
What is your age now?
(To me): What is his birthday?
(To him): What is her birthday?
Then he asked for the supporting docs for our relationship. He specifically asked for financial docs such as joint bank accounts and rental lease with our names. I provided him a pile of docs of 4-inch thick, from 5 aspects including financial, residency, photos, interactions between us, and letters from family/friends. I thought he would take a look at some and pick a few..... but he didn't look at anything and just took most of the docs (I'll provide a checklist of my doc in below).
During the process that I handed the files to him, I tried to briefly explain what each of my file collection was. I mentioned to him that a family photo of me, my husband, my parents, and his parents was in the photo collection, and the officer simply said "OK I got you" but did not look at it. I asked the officer if he wanted the rest of the docs such as our chat history. He laughed and said "No need. These are already too much for this pile".
The interest things are:
I asked the officer whether he needed my new I-693 medical exam form (because I got the last one signed on 09/28/2017 and it should already expired if counting from the signed date), and he said no because it was counted from my application received date which was 10/30/2017 (Really???). I was a bit suspicious about that and would not want any RFEs, so I asked him to take my new I-693 anyway.
I also asked the officer whether he needed the most recent year tax return and employment verification of my husband and my co-sponsor (my husband was full-time student in 2016 and 2015 and he didn't have 3-year tax return for his I-864 so I got a co-sponsor). The officer also replied "no", and said the I-864 form I submitted "was already qualified" (I did see the "QUALIFIED" stamp on the form when he double checked it...), so I didn't need to provide any additional docs for it. (Again, really???)
Then the officer told me to wait for the green card and it would not be too long. I asked whether this was an approval, and he said he was going to give me the green card but I might have to wait 2-4 weeks to get it, and that if I needed to travel abroad I could use the combo card to re-enter. Then he asked when I planned to go to my home country, and when I replied early next year, he said "Oh it [the card processing] won't take that long".
He then asked which address the card should be mailed to, and happily made fun of my husband that "are you sure this address isn't somewhere you hide another woman?", as our mailing address, which was my husband's parents' home, was not our current living address. Finally he printed a piece of paper which checked "your case is being held for further review, no additional information is required", said "congratulations" to us, and then walked us out to the waiting room. I didn't get any written approval from the interview and no status change ever happened up til now except for the officer's oral promise and congratulations.
I suppose this is a positive outcome...? I'm so anxious now >_<
-----------
Below is my checklist, which I hope will provide some references to other applicants: (Many thanks to the collection of successful checklists posted by @UScitizenFilingforspouse at https://www.immihelp.com/forum/showt...737#post582737)
Financial:
* Joint checking account -- 12-month average balance statement, checks, 2017 tax refund deposit transaction record in account statement
* Joint credit card -- photocopy of front and back of both credit cards
* Joint tax return 2017 -- 1040 + both W2
* My husband paid for our expenses and my parents' expenses when they were visiting -- hotel/flight reservations with highlighted transactions in credit card statement
* I paid for our living expenses -- rent payment records and electricity payment records with highlighted transactions in credit card statement
Residency:
* Shared living address -- email between me & leasing manager confirming lease signing, electricity bills, rental lease with both our names
* Shared mailing address -- both drivers licence showing same address, 2 bank accounts from each of us showing same address
Photos:
~50 photos since our first trip (2014) to October this year, all glued to A4 paper with printed explanation of when & where & with whom & for what event this photo was taken
Interactions:
* Chat history from the first day we friended each other on that app until the month we moved together -- 1 screenshot per month with timestamp shown in the app
* Gift receipts & gift message cards between us
* Flight reservations that my husband visited me when we were long-distance -- paired with all boarding passes we could find
* Flight/hotel reservations of the trips that we took together -- each referred to a photo in the photo collection
Letters:
* Letter from my husband's parents
* Letter from my 10-year friend
* Letter from my husband's childhood friend
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