My green card processing timeline

As I mentioned earlier, once I had obtained my K1 Fiance visa, there wasn’t much of a rest before I arrived in the USA, gotmarried and began the next phase of the immigration procedure which included more form filling, appointment attending and evidence gathering for the USCIS.  As the green card processing went on over a period of months, I thought it might be useful to write a summary of it as a chronological list - so here is my green card processing timeline.

IMPORTANT: Be aware that not everyone’s application follows quite the same pattern as my own.  I have read various accounts and the time delays can vary considerably, as can the order of events (for example, unlike me, many people receive their temporary work and travel permits before they get their green card).

January 14^th – My wife and I got married.  This fulfilled the requirements of my K1 fiance visa.  To become a permanent resident and obtain the necessary documents for getting work, however, I needed to apply for a green card next.

February 2nd - I received my social security card after applying for it at a social security office 10 days earlier.  Although it is not essential to the process of getting a green card, doing anything official can be difficult in the USA without a social security number, which is used as a form of I.D. proof, as well as for tax purposes.  The card had written across it that I could only work with DHS authorization.

January and February - My wife and I make up a list of everything that we would need as evidence and began gathering it together for my green card application.

February 25^th - Attend a medical and get my I-693 form filled out (confirmation of my vaccine records by a US doctor).

March 14^th - Put in the application for greencard (I-485), along with applications for a temporary work permit (I-765) and travel permit (I-131), all our evidence, a check for the fee, and a green receipt card for the USCIS to stamp and return to me.

March 18^th – Received the green receipt card I sent with package back, stamped by USCIS Chicago.

March 25^th - Received notification that my forms and fee money had been received (including receipts for the temporary work [I-765] and travel [I-131] documents as well as the green card) – but also informed that I’d forgotten to include payment for the biometrics appointment and I needed to send them the money before my case would proceed.

April 3^rd - Received confirmation that they’d received the money for the biometrics and that they would send me a date for my biometrics appointment in due course.

April 17^th - Receive a “Transfer Notice”, informing me that they have transferred my case to the California Service Center to speed up the green card processing.

June 30^th - Invited to attend a biometrics appointment on July 20th.

September 18^th - Receive notification that my green card application has been accepted and they will send me a green card shortly.

September 20^th - Received my green card in the mail.

Now that the green card process was complete and I had my green card, I requested that my social security card be changed to remove the writing on it that stipulated I could only work with DHS authorization.  Received my replacement card on September 26th.

I can take a breather now regarding immigration bureaucracy until my green card runs out in 2 years time and I have to replace it.

The USCIS Biometrics Appointment

Four months after I sent off my I-485Green Card Application, as well as my applications for temporary travel and work permits, known as the I-131 Advance Parole (AP) and the I-765 Employment Authorization (EAD), I received a letter inviting me to attend a USCIS biometrics appointment. 

It was good news, as it meant that I was getting closer to obtaining my green card, but also a bit of a pain as it meant my wife taking time off work to drive me to the nearest USCIS office, which was an hour and a half away. There was a stark warning on the USCIS biometrics appointment letter warning me that my application would be considered abandoned if I missed the appointment, so we set off an hour and a half early, giving us plenty of time to find the USCIS center and also some leeway in case there were any unforeseen travel problems.

The biometrics appointment is pretty straightforward and essentially just about getting your photo, fingerprints, iris scans, etc. taken.  In my experience, it is essentially the same information as was collected from me at customs when I entered the US for visits (except this time I had paid the USCIS for the privilege).

We got to the USCIS office without problems.  After coming through security at the door, I was given a form to fill out and told to wait.  There were lots of people booked for the same time, so they gave people waiting numbers according to a first-come-first-served basis.  Like with the London Embassy, there were security restrictions on electronic devices, so my wife and I left our ipods etc in the car and took in some books to read.

I was only kept waiting for ten minutes, however, and then sent through to a backroom where a lady collected my biometrics.  One worrying thing that she pointed out, that I hadn’t realized, was that my USCIS biometrics appointment was only for my green card.  Normally, she told me, she processed two lots of biometrics for people in my situation, one for the green card application and one for the temporary travel and work permits.  She asked me if I had received any other letters and I told her no.  She explained that it was therefore possible that I might be invited to go for a second biometrics appointment at some point in the future. 

I was less than happy at the prospect of my wife having to take another day off work and both of us traveling to the USCIS office again.  Plus it could cause a delay in the process.  I tried to get some advice and information off the biometrics lady, regarding what I should I do, but she said that she was unable to tell me anything more  and I should just wait to be contacted by the USCIS (to be fair, I think she just had the task of collecting the biometrics and had no access to my files, or knowledge of my case).

Despite my wife having taken an entire day of work, the actual biometrics appointment only took about 25 minutes.  I was still thinking about what the biometrics lady had said when I got home.  Then I remembered that I had received another letter from the USCIS a couple of months earlier, telling me that they were transferring my green card application to California to speed it up (I live in Florida).  Taking into account what the lady at the biometrics had said, my guess was that the USCIS were maybe skipping the temporary work and travel applications and just focusing on sorting out my I-485 green card.  My guess would later turn out to be correct.

(I wasn’t too disappointed with this situation. Although my research had recommended putting in the I-131 Advance Parole (AP) and the I-765 Employment Authorization (EAD) applications in with the I-485 Green Card Application, basically because they are free to apply for if submitted this way, my research also suggested that the temporary work and travel permits usually take almost as long to process as the actual Green Card, so were of very limited practical value to me anyway.)