Mailing Address for Fiancee Visa

[keelec]

Don't anticipate that the INS will read anything other than what is on their official forms. But, try to explain too.

 

Try to be as unambiguous as possible with everything.

 

And anticipate the INS to get it wrong anyway.

 

Talk to Mick sometime. I believe that GZ sent his P3 to the wrong address (sent it to the USA when he was in China) which ended up costing him over 6 months additional waiting.

 

But,

If you want the INS to send your mail to a PO Box, figure out how to fill out the forms with your mailing address bing a P.O. Box without representing that you are living in a PO Box.

 

----- Clifford ------

[Guest Fionas_Fiance]

I had many headaches over addresses and called the USCIS at least three times. Fiona said mail to her street address was unreliable, and in any case, her complete address wouldn't fit on their stupid forms. The other point of confusion was line B-2 has a space for a zip code and line B-15 does not. This made me think line B-2 was for a mailing address and line B-15 was for a residence. However, line B-16 is where she writes her address in her native alphabet, presumably to make it easier to mail stuff to her, and the layout seems to match that of line 15. So that argues that line 15 is her mailing address! But where do you put the ZIP code?

 

Generally speaking, the people I spoke to at USCIS didn't seem to know any more than I did. On the positive side, everyone I talked to was extremely nice and eager to help. On the negative side, they just didn't know the answers. They gave me some answers but they basically said they were just guessing.

 

I wound up putting Fiona's P.O. Box on the I-129, on both lines B-2 and B-15. The short answer on the ZIP code question was "find a box where it will fit," so we decided to put it in the "Country" space. I put her residential addresses on the G-325a. For both forms, I attached a continuation page stating that correspondence should be sent to her mailing address (the P.O. Box), and giving the complete street address for everywhere she has lived or worked in the last five years. (this was the advice of one of the USCIS agents).

 

Here is a FAIRLY INCREDIBLE quote from the USCIS Site on the lengths of addresses, that may imply that trying to provide complete addresses was a waste of time. However, it does make me glad that I listed her P.O. Box as her address on the I-129F, because as I read this, that is what they will use to mail her stuff:

 

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http://uscis.gov/graphics/fieldoffices/scn...nal/index.htm#H

 

17. The address block on the forms is the data field captured for all of our mailings. Consistent with the limitations on the number of characters per line (a maximum of 32) and the total numbers of lines (4) in that field, whatever is in the block will become the mailing address used by the system. The data in these fields is entered exactly as indicated on the forms. Please include internal routing symbols in the address block, especially for large organizations. It is better to abbreviate the name of the organization and have space for the routing codes than to fully spell out the name and have notices sit in the organization's mailroom.

 

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In other words, if the address doesn't fit, they want you to abbreviate or otherwise throw out information until it does fit!

 

Doesn't it seem like, in the age of 2-GBYTE inboxes, they could update their computer software and allow us as many characters as we needed to put in a complete address?

 

- Ben

[Guest Fionas_Fiance]

....or call USCIS customer service center at 1-800-375-5283 and ask.

 

I didn't see anything about it on the "General Tips on Assembling Applications for Mailing" letter but you should call to make sure.

 

I agree you should call them yourself. I didn't have much luck asking - nobody seemed to really know, and I got 3 different answers - but you might get lucky and get a live one.