cosmiclobster

Welcome to CFL! Sorry that I'm no great authority on this either , but I would go with the DCF. I think you can get the DCF at any US consulate and you will avoid a ton of paperwork and the long drawn out process of the K1. Also, C4 is right about the IR1. If you have been married for 2 years you can apply for the IR1 and "go directly to GO and collect the $200". By far the easiest process, she'll get the 10 year Green Card and you will both be free to come and go as you please. What city do you teach in? Good luck with your process!!

CONGRATS Ken !!!!!! You offer good advice and I agree 100% ! Also, thanks for the laugh of having the Black Pearl being called Sir!!! I'm sure the "Pearl" is experienced and mature enough to realize that China does not have gender pronouns so it was an easy mistake to make but it is still pretty funny!!! And for the record, Amy still mixes up him and her, preferring to use her because it is easier for her to pronounce It throws me off every so often but I am learning how to hear "gender neutral" B)

Sorry Dan but it looks like our govt has served up another helping of horse$hit!! Why would the DMV even issue an ID card for only less than 90 days??? Does that even make a little bit of sense to anyone who is not totally brain dead??? She came to CA on a fiancee visa with the intention of getting married and living in CA. What is their problem???? We went to the CA DMV with her passport, attached I-94 and her SSN and she got an ID good for 3 years. **EDIT 5 years!** What did you do differently??? Looks like you always have the option of getting a KY license! B) B) And, no, the KY I mean is the state, not the jelly!!!!! (Ya gotta wonder about a state named after a jelly that was meant to be used to ease objects into body cavities!!!)

You appear to have fallen in hurricane hell! Since New Orleans no longer exists, your case is somewhere in limbo also! All of the terrorists that operate out of N.O. are also free to cause mayhem or whatever they want to do since our great DHS is still not able to fill the slack and deal with a closed office. It's disgraceful!!! As for some real help, contact your congressperson. Their explicit job is to help their constituents deal with govt. agencies. If your congressperson says he'll look into in but does not ask you for written permission to inquire as to the status of your case, forget him and move on to your senators. You may also get results by inquiring to Maury Harty (sp?) as she is a laison for the USCIS and she has produced results before for other CFL members. Good luck and welcome to CFL!

And if that don't work, a swift kick to the groin!!!!!

Our Social (IN)Security dept is definately one of the most screwed up depts in our govt. You could easily go there 5 times, talk to 5 different people and get 5 totally different answers to the same question. 3 "workers" got involved in our case when we first applied for her card because the first lady wasn't sure of what to do and even with the help of her boss and the other lady, it still got screwed up! We did get the card number after one month though and the actual card after 6 weeks. NOTE TO EVERYONE WHO JUST GOT THEIR FIANCEE HERE - APPLY FOR THE SSN IN THE FIRST 90 DAYS or you will have to wait many months until after you get the green card!!!!!

Congrats Amber! I remember getting the same letter a few weeks back! B) We didn't get a welcome letter per se, just the green card. With the efficiency of our govt, we might get the welcome letter in a few months! Oh, and your $175 didn't go totally down the drain, you have helped to reduce our country's budget deficit by .000000000000000001% (or so)

Now that you mention it, I also remember the line about copies being sufficient and to bring the originals to the interview!!! I guess it's our govt workers perogative to change the rules as they go along - maybe they had a bunch of extra outdated RFE forms and didn't want to throw them away - or maybe they need to generate extra business for their office so they can come in on the weekend and collect overtime pay to process the backlog!!! After some of the things I have seen our govt pull off in this process, I wouldn't be a bit suprized!!!!

Send them the original and send for another copy for yourself. County recorders are pretty good about keeping these things available(albeit it that it may be a slow process!). We should have it listed somewhere in the AOS FAQ to order 2 official signed embossed copys of the marriage certificate for just this reason! (or maybe 3, one for the USCIS, one for you and one for her in case one of you misplaces yours and it is needed later on for name changes or other such official BS)

My wife is attending free ESL classes in Camarillo. 4 nights a week for 2.5 hours each night and her English has gotten better! Now the things that come out of her mouth are only 1/2 silly!!! B)

Your wife only has ten fingers? 186398[/snapback] Yeah - I got the economy model this time. When she's naked, she can count to 22! B)

Jason: Did you send in the official county recorders embossed, recorded, certified and stamped certificate? If you did and they lost it, then it's yet another case of HUTAS!!!

Congrats Frank!!! Looks like the USCIS got tired of harassing you and finally gave in!!! Boss to paper pusher: "Hey, what's this 2+ year old case doing in our files? O.K., no excuses!, just send him the green cards and close out these files!!!"

My guess is that since the first biometrics showed up online shortly after they were taken the first time, a glitch in a program spit out the second request for fingerprints. I don't think they would have issued the appointment for interview if they were waiting for something, but you never know . . . . . Either that or else they think she has 20 fingers and were dissappointed to have only gotten prints of the first 10!!!

This is another aspect of the visa process that is not mentioned anywhere in the application process. You would think that the USCIS would mention at least once somewhere in the huge pile of paperwork that they have you fill out 3 times that you should apply for a SSN within the 90 days!! They reminded us to get married within the 90 days at our POE but didn't say $hit about getting a SSN. (that is, after all, another department!!) I took it upon myself to get her the SSN card and if I hadn't, I might be in your same situation. I have heard of people who waited past the 90 days and then had to wait until the AOS was approved.

Hi. We filed 100 days after she entered the US. As long as you get married within the 90 days, you should be o.k.

It's been a long (often strange) trip but it sure does feel good not to have to deal with our illustrious govt for another 21 months and be free to travel or work or do anything else that we all take for granted!!! I want to thank everyone who has helped us along the way, my CFL family has been a sincere blessing and I would have become a mad man without your help! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I would also like to assure those still caught up in this "mess" they call immigration that the game can be won!! Do whatever you have to to keep your sanity and look forward to the day you can be together, unhampered, with the one you love! Good luck to everyone in this process!!!! :candle:

Good luck Tony! Shanghai is a great city with stuff to do all over!

China during spring festival is a lot of fun! Shanghai is a crazy city then!!!!!

It's quite simple really- there's a consulate/interview fingerprint an enter the country fingerprint an AOS/biometric fingerprint an EAD fingerprint an AP fingerprint an ID/DL card fingerprint and a few missing/undefined fingerprints so they can charge you $$$ and beef up their account balances! And I would be willing to bet any amount of money that if a different set of prints showed up anywhere in any of these processes, it would go totally unnoticed. Does anyone really believe they check each set of prints each step of the way to see if they are the same as the last set?!?!?

Sounds like your case got the USCIS daily WTF is the right hand/left hand doing award for incompetence! Kinda makes you wonder how the DHS could even possibly come close to protecting our country if they can't even work out the bugs in what should be a simple procedure. It's pretty scary when you think about it!!!!

Geez, you can't expect a govt worker to be able to handle more than one task at a time, do you?!?!? They needed you to drive a few hundred miles for fingerprints so they could SEND the fingerprints to the local office!! Any other way would be logical and sensible and, for those reasons, not an acceptable way for our govt to conduct it's business!!!

Lee in VS nighties!!! B)

Sounds like another case of HUTAS if you ask me! The L.A. service center did not have people waiting in the halls to get into the waiting room for the interview, in fact, there were a dozen empty seats when we got there. My only guess is that they transferred it to CSC as part of their trial run no interview AOS procedure. On the other hand, it wouldn't surprize me if they went out of their way to make our (and their) lives more difficult!!!! Be patient! At least you are together already!

Some guys get all the fun!!!! It took about a week for our biometrics to show up on line. Good luck!