Adjustment of Status - I-485

Hi all,

I've been following this forum for a few years now, since I first got my F1 visa about 9 years ago. Reading everyone's experiences has been a source of help and guidance so I figured I owed it to everyone to share my journey a bit.

A few months ago my wife and I started the 1-485 process with our lawyer in NYC. I was still living there and she was living in Boston so we were concerned that might affect us but after I got my EAD I was able to move to Boston, get a job and get an apartment together. We requested an address change and waited for our interview notice.

I'll add our timeline later on when I have a bit more time.

We just had our interview yesterday and it went a little like this:

We arrived 20 mins early and waited almost 40 minutes to be called in. We hadn't sent in any photos or evidence with our initial package so we had three binders full of documents. Our lease under both our names, our taxes (which we haven't filled yet but our addresses match on them) joint bank statements, over 80 photos, and three years worth of train and bus tickets from our long distance relationship (we tried to see each other every weekend so we took a lot of buses from Boston to NYC).

She was called in first, out immigration officer came out and introduced herself. My wife was interviewed alone for around 15 minutes and then I got called in. She swore me in and I sat down next to my wife. She asked me my name, DOB, address, info on the last time I entered the country (which I did using my advanced parole) and then proceeded to ask me all the NO questions; I kept trying not to smile while she asked them but some of those questions are pretty ridiculous; standard, but ridiculous.

She then asked me how my wife and I met, she asked me who she was visiting in NY the day we started dating, where we both have travelled together, and all the names of her previous roommates after she graduated college, honestly I kept forgetting the name of one of her roommates but I just told the officer I honestly couldn't remember, she didn't seem to mind.

Then she asked for evidence of our life together so we gave her a copy of our lease, our combined bank statement which we opened back in 2015, and she asked us to choose 4 photos to add to our file.

Then she said she was approving my green card and that it should arrive in 2-3 weeks. We thanked her and ran out of that office so fast we didn't realize we had forgotten my wife's passport ( which we had to go back and get an hour later).

It was such a relief after what is a long frustrating process. My advice to all is to prepare as much as you can, and just be honest I am sure though I was super nervous she could tell we both answered honestly.

Any way, thank you all for your help, I'll update with my timeline later tonight, but overall the process for us lasted from Sept - April, roughly 8 months.

Thanks again!