Adjustment of Status - I-485

Hi all,

I posted my timeline a month ago. You can find it here: https://www.immihelp.com/experience/other-experiences-post-User_02_2018-1.html

I want to first express my gratitude to the senior members on the forum for their tips about the documents to prepare for the interview, special thanks to UScitizenFilingforspouse. I prepared many documents based on their recommendation.

During our preparation interview with our lawyer, she picked only those she deemed important: recent joint bank statements (since filing), recent bills with both our names (since filing), recent photos (since filing), health insurance online account profile page, health insurance cards listing me as spouse under my husband member's number, Expedia booking confirmation for a planned trip to my home country next year, IRS statement of taxes filed jointly for 2017, most recent paychecks and W2 for 2017 (for the affidavit of support), call history for the past six months, contract for booking a venue and a DJ for a celebration party that we held for my husband family in July (we got married at City Hall in December), an email from my work congratulating us for our wedding sent to everyone in our lab. My lawyer organized these documents and wrote a cover letter describing them.

We initially wanted to keep our finances separate but our lawyer explained to us that it is expected of us to co-mingle. So we did. At the time of the filing, we had been married less than a month, thus we only had one joint bank statement, and one bill with both our names.

When we filed our application, we have also submitted the following documents as evidence of our relationship: screen shots of our work benefits (Life, AD&D insurances and workplace retirement savings listing each other as beneficiaries), screen shots listing each other as Emergency contact for work, screen shots of my husbands' health-dental-vision insurance through his employer listing me as dependent, photos, plane tickets for a trip we took together a year prior to our wedding, a letter from our landlord attesting of the date I moved in with my husband (then boyfriend), a letter form my husband's grandparents...

My lawyer told me there is no need to prepare again the same evidence we submitted because she had a copy of everything in our application, but I insisted on having updated screen shots from our works benefits/ emergency contacts/ retirement (with a recent date to prove that the evidence we filed is still current). I also organized all of our documents (including our separate finances, our paychecks, our taxes even before we got married, our identity documents, our birth certificates...) and wrote a table of contents for each folder, just in case.

I had the interview yesterday (09-13-2018) at Lawrence, MA.

We arrived early and waited for our laywer to come before checking in. We waited 15 minutes before they called my husband (the petitioner) first. I had already explained to him all the evidence I prepared and he took the folders inside with him.

He does not remember all the questions, he was nervous, and his overall impression, is that the interview was hard, and the officer very strict. First, our lawyer handed the officer the package she prepared after our preparation interview. That's the only evidence the officer took. He did not want my husband to go through the folders I prepared, other than the one with our original documents (passports, birth certificates and marriage certificate). My husband had a feeling that the officer suspected him of having a prepared answer sheet, and that's why he did not let him touch the folders.

The officer asked my husband the usual questions while verifying the forms with him: name, date of birth, parents details... Then, he looked through the evidence our lawyer prepared and started asking questions about our relationship and some photos. He wrote down the answers my husband gave him, and kept asking questions based on those answers. That was to prepare the very specific questions he was going to ask me later.

This took around 35 minutes. He told my husband he could stay but was not allowed to talk. Then, I was called in. My husband was sitting on the chair behind me (looking all nervous), and my lawyer on the one next to me. I could not make eye contact with my husband unless I turned around, and I was not aware that we were not allowed to talk.

My overall impression is that the interview was OK, not easy, not hard. The officer was nice (not strict nor friendly) and professional.

He asked first for my passport and my ID, did my bio-metrics. He then explained that we will go through the forms and then ask questions about our relationship.

He started asking me usual questions from the form (name, DOB, parents details...) He asked me for my husband full name (it was in the form), and then asked me to spell his name. My husband has a very common name but with a spelling different than the widely used one. That's when I realized he was already testing our relationship.

When the question about my current status came up (J-1), he checked my visa stamp that says that I am not subject to the two-year residency requirement. He said: "the interview would have been a lot shorter if you were subject to that requirement".

Then, came the yes/no questions. I think my English is pretty good but it was hard to follow because he spoke too fast and I did not want to just say no without thinking. He did ask me a question in the middle where the answer should be yes. So, if you are not sure about your English, I would highly recommend bringing an interpreter with you.

We corrected my DOB on the form, updated my A-number, and attested that I was not in any other groups than those that I listed (various student organizations and alumni groups). I signed the form, and we started the questions.

1- How did you meet? Where? When? Why do you remember that date? (it was my father-in-law's birthday)
2- When was your first date? Why do you remember that date? (it was my husband's birthday)? Where? Can you tell me more about that? (I was trying to keep my answers short but he apparently wanted a more elaborate answer. I even described what kind of food we ordered.)
3- When did you relationship turn serious?
4- Tell me about your engagement. Where? When? (one week prior to the wedding, he said: things moved fast, huh? I said yes and laughed)
5- Tell me about your wedding. Who was there? (My husband's grandparents were with us). Anyone else? (My husband's coworker came to the ceremony to take pictures. I did not mention him at first, but I guess that was the answer that the officer was looking for.) What about after the ceremony? (I thought he was asking what we did that day after getting married but he meant the post-wedding party we held in July and specifically asked about it in the next question.) Did you have any reception at a later date?
6- Ask for my sisters' names. Ask if there is anyone else I am particularly close to ? (I would have said no but the way he asked the question and knowing my husband, I guessed he was talking about my two cousins and gave him their names, my husband had indeed said that I was close to one of my cousins).
7- Ask me about my husband's brothers and sisters? Asked how two of the sisters (specifically said both their names) are doing? (they were both pregnant)
8- How old are you? (when he asked my husband, the officer tried to make him doubt his answer regarding my age) How old is your husband?
9- Ask about trips together.
10- Ask about trips separately. (My husband traveled to Europe and stayed with my sisters for part of his trip, we had a picture of them together, I was not able to go because it was right after we submitted our AOS application)
11- Ask about any emergency rides to the hospital / major surgeries since marriage.
12- Ask about any chronic medical condition requiring medication.

For every answer I gave, he checked over something he noted on his paper from my husband's answers.

At the end, he finally checked the I693 (the medical form) and then, he approved us on the spot, explained to me that I will be getting a conditional resident green card in two to three weeks and that I need to file I751 to remove conditions 90 days before the expiration date. He said that I can apply for citizenship in three years based on marriage to a US citizen. He thanked us for making his last interview of the day easy. Our lawyer joked about us being over-prepared and he said he would prefer over-prepared to under-prepared. My husband later told me that the officer said he gets a lot of cases where people don't bring all the needed documents. The whole interview lasted around an hour.

This morning, I got email notifications about updates in my USCIS account: "the interview is completed and the case in under review" for I130 and I485, and "new card is being produced" for I485. Both updates were dated 09-13-2018. No updates on MyCaseStatus tracker.

Good luck to everyone.