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Hi,
I've been a lurker on this forum for a while and it has been tremendously helpful for me to get information. I wanted to share our experience with the Green Card by marriage case
Background - Indian Male, entered US on L1B visa 5 years ago, transferred to H1B 3.5 years ago and have been employed at all times and maintained my legal status. My wife is American (born here) and we had been dating for 3 years prior to getting married. We registered our marriage in NYC in early March and submitted the Green Card application in April 2017. Timeline of events below:
April 17th 2017 - Submitted I-485 application fo AOS
April 28th 2017 - RFE (one form was missing)
May 11th 2017 - Reply to RFE submitted
May 27th 2017 - Appointment notice for Biometrics
August 18th 2017 - EAD card received in the mail - valid for one year
February 14th 2018 - Interview scheduled for March 27th
March 27th 2018 - Interview completed and COS approved , I-551 stamped on the passport per request
March 29th 2018 - Welcome letter received by mail
March 31st 2018 - Conditional Green Card received in the mail.
We had made lots of preparations for the interview - my wife had created a fully annotated photo album which had 100 photos, we had all forms of address proofs, health insurance documents, joint account bank statements, immigration documents etc. It took us weeks to prepare it but was well worth the effort. Our case was relatively straightforward but it doesn't hurt to be prepared!
The interview - our interview was scheduled for 8 am. My wife and I arrived at 7:30 am to meet our lawyer and wait to be called in. We waited about 60 mins and were called in at 9 am. The officer started by asking us to give us all the documents we wanted her to review. While I was shuffling around for these she asked my wife some basic questions such as my name, where we went for our first date and how we met. My wife answered and they had a bit of light banter. It was very light-hearted. She then asked me questions about the second date, what I thought of my wife when I met her, how we proposed, how we celebrated our anniversary, about her siblings and about my work. The questions lasted only 15-20 minutes and anyone who is actually married would not have hesitated (aside from any nervousness) to answer them. She then moved to the standard questions to be asked at the end of the interview on declaring any criminal activities etc. and it ended there. She said our case was approved - our lawyer asked if it would be possible to get an I-551 stamp given some travel we had planned already and apparently this is not common but she immediately said she would talk to the supervisor and get it done. We waited 15 minutes and I had the stamp and was officially a green card holder!
All the best to the rest of you - the long wait times were very stressful for me personally, but in terms of the interview itself as long as you are genuine, have all the documents and follow all instructions you will be fine.
I've been a lurker on this forum for a while and it has been tremendously helpful for me to get information. I wanted to share our experience with the Green Card by marriage case
Background - Indian Male, entered US on L1B visa 5 years ago, transferred to H1B 3.5 years ago and have been employed at all times and maintained my legal status. My wife is American (born here) and we had been dating for 3 years prior to getting married. We registered our marriage in NYC in early March and submitted the Green Card application in April 2017. Timeline of events below:
April 17th 2017 - Submitted I-485 application fo AOS
April 28th 2017 - RFE (one form was missing)
May 11th 2017 - Reply to RFE submitted
May 27th 2017 - Appointment notice for Biometrics
August 18th 2017 - EAD card received in the mail - valid for one year
February 14th 2018 - Interview scheduled for March 27th
March 27th 2018 - Interview completed and COS approved , I-551 stamped on the passport per request
March 29th 2018 - Welcome letter received by mail
March 31st 2018 - Conditional Green Card received in the mail.
We had made lots of preparations for the interview - my wife had created a fully annotated photo album which had 100 photos, we had all forms of address proofs, health insurance documents, joint account bank statements, immigration documents etc. It took us weeks to prepare it but was well worth the effort. Our case was relatively straightforward but it doesn't hurt to be prepared!
The interview - our interview was scheduled for 8 am. My wife and I arrived at 7:30 am to meet our lawyer and wait to be called in. We waited about 60 mins and were called in at 9 am. The officer started by asking us to give us all the documents we wanted her to review. While I was shuffling around for these she asked my wife some basic questions such as my name, where we went for our first date and how we met. My wife answered and they had a bit of light banter. It was very light-hearted. She then asked me questions about the second date, what I thought of my wife when I met her, how we proposed, how we celebrated our anniversary, about her siblings and about my work. The questions lasted only 15-20 minutes and anyone who is actually married would not have hesitated (aside from any nervousness) to answer them. She then moved to the standard questions to be asked at the end of the interview on declaring any criminal activities etc. and it ended there. She said our case was approved - our lawyer asked if it would be possible to get an I-551 stamp given some travel we had planned already and apparently this is not common but she immediately said she would talk to the supervisor and get it done. We waited 15 minutes and I had the stamp and was officially a green card holder!
All the best to the rest of you - the long wait times were very stressful for me personally, but in terms of the interview itself as long as you are genuine, have all the documents and follow all instructions you will be fine.
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