Some good news I forgot to share

[jon-nyc]

Mayla got her green card!

We were suppose to go to Peru on December 8th. Mayla was staying three weeks, I was going down with her, coming back for a week, then going back down again and coming home together on 12-29.

Then we got a notice from USCIS that our interview was scheduled 12/8. So we moved the trip a day.

The interview went very well. We brought a translator, since Mayla's English isn't good, but it turned out the guy spoke Spanish AND agreed to do so (the second doesn't always happen) so we didn't need him. The interview went very well, we had all our ducks in a row and nothing to hide. He told us before the interview that he was going to approve us.

The card didn't arrive until the day we got back, fortunately about a month before they scheduled the interview they approved her travel permission (oddly and disconcertingly called a 'parole' document), which is why we booked the trip in the first place.

Coming back was a little stressful, technically she was a green card holder without physical possession of her green card, which is normally required for entry. We had read that they might just say 'whatever, welcome home' and wave us in, or they may let her in provisionally and have us take the card to an immigration facility within X days for a proper stamp. In the event they very politely sent us to secondary processing (which we were expecting) and we waited maybe an hour to eventually get the ok to go in.

Then we came home and the green card arrived that afternoon.

It's quite a load off.

[Axtremus]

Congratulations! It’s no small feat getting a green card in the current climate.

[xenon]

Huge congrats! I remember the relief of getting mine.

Make sure you always have it with you when you cross the border, even if you’re traveling on a different passport. They always ask for it (technically you’re supposed to carry it at all times - but I don’t risk losing it by carrying it in my wallet)

[Doctor Phibes]

Nice going, and congratulations! I'm another one who well remembers the relief when it finally arrived after years of waiting. Everything gets a lot simpler once you've got it.

[Mik]

Excellent news! I have a colleague from Epic whose wife is going through that now. they had interviews last week. Stressful.

[blondie]

This is good news for you 2! Congratulations!

[mark]

Great news!

[Tom-K]

Congratulations. Happy it all went well.

[LuFins Dad]

Huzzah!

[89th]

@jon-nyc that is awesome, how long of a process is it? I always presume it's between 1 and 25 years. Also, is it actually green?

[Horace]

Glad to hear it.

[jodi]

Congratulations! What a relief that must be!

[Horace]

My step parents are going to have their consulate interview in Guangzhou in March. It's been a 2 year process.

[jon-nyc]

Is that for a tourist visa or for some sort of residency thing?

Mayla’s parents were denied a tourist visa last year. They might have better luck now that she has a green card. They would have no intention of living here, just visiting.

[Horace]

Green cards. It remains to be seen whether they really want to live here, but we are giving the situation a chance. My wife is extraordinarily devoted to her parents, and they to her. But to ask them to live here is big.

[jon-nyc]

@89th said in Some good news I forgot to share:

@jon-nyc that is awesome, how long of a process is it? I always presume it's between 1 and 25 years. Also, is it actually green?

Ours was almost exactly one year which is amazingly short. The system itself was estimating 34 months and that number never really went down form month to month.

I’m not sure why, perhaps many people abandoned weak asylum claims and/or self deported shortening the line.

I was afraid it would go the other way, with lots of people applying for green cards at the end of the Biden years who had been putting it off for one reason or another.