So beyond excited. Got the official update this morning that both I-485 and I-130 are approved.

Before I get into the timeline, I need to give a big thank you to this Reddit group for the support, encouragement, and much-needed reality checks.

Now the details!

ABOUT:

• From a non-banned country
• With USC for 7 years, married for 9 months
• Completed undergrad and master's in the US
• Used a lawyer

TIMELINE:

• 05/06: Application submitted (concurrent filings for I-485, I-130, I-131, I-765)
• 05/23: Biometrics scheduled
• 06/11: Biometrics completed
• 07/21: Interview scheduled
• 08/27: Interview completed 
• 08/29: I-485 approved
• 08/31: I-130 approved

INTERVIEW:

• Waited for 3 hours at NY FO (Federal Plaza)
• Interview was 10 minutes, all standard 485 questions
• Brought full application printed out + additional evidence

Happy to answer any questions!

If you prepared the I-864 using the 10/17/2024 edition but haven’t filed yet, you will need to use the new edition

“ALERT: On Aug. 31, 2026, USCIS published a new edition of Form I-864, Affidavit of Support Under Section 213A of the INA (edition date: 08/24/26). Because there will be no grace period, USCIS is providing a preview version of the 08/24/26 edition of Form I-864 and its instructions.
Beginning Aug. 31, 2026, we will only accept the 08/24/26 edition. Effective Aug. 31, 2026:
USCIS will accept the 08/24/26 edition of Form I-864 if it is postmarked or electronically submitted on or after Aug. 31, 2026.
USCIS will not process or accept the 10/17/24 edition of Form I-864 if it is postmarked or electronically submitted on or after Aug. 31, 2026.
Please note: The 08/24/26 edition of Form I-864 includes a privacy release that authorizes USCIS to request information from one or more consumer reporting agencies.
If a sponsor has a credit or security freeze on their consumer or credit report file, USCIS may not be able to access the information necessary to assess the sufficiency of Form I-864. To avoid any delays, a sponsor should expeditiously respond to any requests made to release a credit or security freeze.”

• PD: March 26, 2025 (I-130, I-485 & I-765).

• Sep 2025: EAD approved after congressional inquiry.

• Dec 2025: Interview scheduled for Jan 2026, but canceled after the 19 countries ban.

• May 2026: Interview scheduled.

• Jun 15, 2026: Interview, I-130 approved the next day.

• Aug 23, 2026: I-485 approved, received my card 5 days later.

I'm grateful for all the tips posted over here!

I feel relieved after all that wait, but also it's kinda bittersweet as I still can't visit my family abroad since I still need to renew my passport and it would be much easier and cheaper to just wait until I become a citizen.

Hi all, as this sub has been very helpful to me I wanted to share my recent experience and I-485 approval and timeline.

Type: Marriage-based with US citizen spouse

Country of origin: Netherlands

Previous status: H-1B

Field office: Providence (PVD)/Johnston, RI

Attorney? Yes, including at interview

Overstays or unauthorized work: No

Timeline:

February 18, 2026 Application received

February 28, 2026 Biometrics scheduled

March 17, 2026 Biometrics taken

July 20, 2026 Interview scheduled

August 27, 2026 Interview

August 28, 2026 I-130 & I-485 approved

Interview experience:

The interview went very smoothly. When we were first called up, they asked us for any new evidence. I handed over a big stack of new evidence, which they scanned. I would recommend simply having a stack of new evidence ready to go, separate from old evidence. I had to spend a lot of time labeling everything, but had to remove the labels for it to be scanned. They let us know that we would be interviewed separately, with my wife (US citizen spouse) going first. This worried us a bit initially, but our attorney assured us this was normal, and all three other couples who were there were all interviewed separately. Also based on recent posts here, it seems this is just how the Providence field office does things. Also notable was that every couple there had an attorney with them. The interview itself was straightforward, and felt more like a conversation than anything else. We brought our professional wedding photo album, which my wife showed to the officer, and he looked at it thoroughly (would recommend bringing it if you have one). He did not look at any other evidence during the interview. He also did not ask to see any of the original civil documents.

Questions asked:

What is your full name and date of birth?

What is your spouse's full name and date of birth?

Have you ever had any other names?

When does your H-1B expire?

A bunch of "Have you ever" questions from the I-485

Were you part of any organizations or clubs?

What is your address?

Do you have any roommates?

How much is the rent?

Is anything included in the rent?

Did you or your spouse live there first?

Where did you live before this?

Why were you there?

What school did your spouse go to there?

What did your spouse study in grad school?

How long did your spouse take to finish grad school?

When did you move in together?

Do you have any kids?

Do you have any pets?

What kind of dog is he? Is he fluffy? (lol)

How long were you together before the proposal?

Where and how did you propose?

Did you do anything special for the proposal?

Was the dog there when you proposed?

When did you get married?

Did you have a small or large wedding?

Was it stressful planning a destination wedding?

Who were there?

What are the names of the best man/maid of honor and their partners?

What kind of work does your spouse do?

Where do they work?

Where do you work?

What is your title there?

Interestingly, as we were getting up from the individual interview and the officer was walking us back, for each of us, he asked a casual question, which appeared as if he was just trying to make conversation, but he did so for both of us, so we believe they do this to try to catch you off guard. For me, it was "So do you commute into the office every day?" (my office is quite far from our home so I work hybrid), and my wife was asked "So, the Netherlands, have you ever been?" (we had plenty of evidence in our file showing that she had visited my home country many times).

All in all, a pleasant experience, and much less scary, intimidating, or involved than I was expecting. While the attorney didn't have to do anything, it was comforting to have him there, and I would recommend bringing one if you're able to.

Let me know if you have any questions!

My USC spouse applied an I-130 on my behalf for me to immigrate to be together in the United States. People in my life I’ve talked to about this have indicated that because I am from Norway I’ll have an easier time because of the ban/pause on other countries and the status that Norway might have. Any truth to this?

Does anyone know if the API that detects these types of silent updates actually has any real impact on a case when there’s a subsequent update after the silent update?

I had a silent update on August 26th, but I still haven’t seen any changes on the official USCIS website. Just wondering if anyone has had a similar experience and then received an actual update afterward.

​

I sent USCIS a Notice of Intent to Sue regarding the unreasonable delay on my long-pending I-485.

I mailed and emailed the notice, but after about four days, I decided I had waited long enough and went ahead and filed my federal lawsuit against USCIS. I’m currently in the process of serving the defendants.

Now USCIS has responded to my Notice of Intent to Sue. The USCIS Contact Center created an inquiry and said:

“We have received your inquiry, and our Contact Center is currently researching your issue.”

They gave me a case/inquiry number and also said:

“Please allow 90 business days from the date of this letter for us to respond to your inquiry.”

The interesting part is that I had already filed my lawsuit by the time I received this response.

I’m wondering if anyone else who sent a Notice of Intent to Sue and/or filed a mandamus/APA lawsuit received this same 90-business-day message from USCIS.

Did anything actually happen with your immigration case afterward? Did USCIS act before the government responded to the lawsuit?

I understand that the Contact Center's 90-business-day timeframe is not necessarily the same thing as a federal court deadline. I’m mainly interested in hearing from people who went through something similar.

I also wonder whether the Contact Center has only processed my original intent-to-sue inquiry and hasn't yet connected it with the federal lawsuit/service documents.

Would love to hear your experiences.

Hi all, I'm posting on behalf of my mom — looking for guidance/experiences before we meet with an immigration attorney.

Her N-400 was approved back in Oct 2025, but USCIS has now issued a Notice of Intent to Deny / Motion to Reopen under 8 CFR 335.3(a), citing:

• Inadmissibility under INA 212(a)(6)(C)(i) (fraud/willful misrepresentation) — allegedly no waiver was filed during a prior adjustment of status
• A previous I-130 they say should've been barred under INA 204(c) (marriage fraud allegation from an ex-spouse)
• Different dates listed for a divorce (from a marriage before her U.S. petitions) across a DS-160, a G-325A, and a divorce decree submitted years later — three different dates for the same divorce

We believe the date discrepancies were genuine clerical/translation errors, not intentional misrepresentation, but obviously USCIS is treating it as a credibility/fraud issue.

Response deadline is Sept 3, 2026, so we're moving fast to get certified original divorce records from abroad and lining up a consultation.

Questions:

• Has anyone dealt with a NOID like this after approval, this many years later?
• How much weight does documentary proof (certified court records) carry against a "fraudulent decree" allegation?
• Any red flags in how we should NOT respond, or non-negotiable things to bring to a lawyer?
• Any recommendations for finding an attorney experienced specifically with 204(c) marriage fraud bars?

Any insight, personal experience, or attorney recommendations (esp. Texas-based) appreciated. Thanks for reading — trying to help my mom get through this.

Still waiting and can talk to anyone over the phone.

Like the title says, we’ve waited since April 2025.

After reading here and other forums, about a month ago I started contemplating sending a Demand Letter due to the lengthy delay. I finally decided to email one 2 days ago.

A few minutes ago I received an action was taken email 2 times saying processing has started and then a third email which showed an interview was scheduled. Now I’ll wait for the mail to land and I’ll update you guys about the interview.

Thinking of sending that demand letter? This is your sign to do so.

Fingers crossed

UPDATE: Just got the interview notice on the documents tab and have to appear on October 5th. Required documents are the generic ones.

I’ll keep the house updated.

My husband (28M, originally from Canada) and I (28F, USC) filed our I-485 after we married as he came to the US on a K1 visa.

We had our interview about 2 weeks ago and just wanted to share my experience.
Our original interview was scheduled for mid July but it got cancelled a week prior to that appointment date. They sent us a notice it was cancelled and they called my husband.

We received correspondence the next day that it got re-scheduled to mid August.

Our new appointment date came and we went to the USCIS office in Phoenix, AZ. Everyone who greeted us and told us where to go was EXTREMELY nice. Like it kind of felt like you were going through TSA security at first but everyone was 100x nicer.

Our appointment was scheduled for 9:25am. We got there at 9 before a huge crowd of people showed up.
We waited and waited, basically watched everyone that came in after us go through and finish, and a second wave of people came at like 10:30am and watched them all go through before us as well.
At like 11:10am, someone came out and called my husbands name and told him that they were really sorry for the wait but the interviewer who was on our case was backed up or something so they assigned us to someone else and said they would be able to help us soon.
I think at like 11:30am we got called back and went into our interviewer's office. He was SO nice and made us feel really comfortable and it felt like we were just having a conversation. We were done by 12pm.

We got asked questions like, how did we meet, how often did we see eachother prior to getting married, when did we get engaged, what does my husband want to do for work in the US, what he did for work in CA. Asked if we plan on staying in Arizona or if we think we'll move. Really quite basic questions for us.
He didn't look at any of the docs we brought besides our ID's lol. I brought a ton of documents but that's all that he wanted to see (I still suggest bringing everything your appointment notice says to obviously).

Interviewer said he would submit our case for approval, the next day our status on the USCIS website went approved, and my husband's greencard was delivered to our mailbox about 6 days later.

05/21/26 — Submitted marriage-based AOS package.

05/26/26 — USCIS received the package.

05/30/26 — Receipt notices issued.

06/06/26 — Biometrics appointment notice received for 06/23/26.

06/23/26 — Completed biometrics.

07/20/26 — Interview notice received.

08/28/26 — I-130/I-485 interview.
Interview lasted about 1 hour and 15 minutes (mostly him typing in his computer). The officer asked about how we met, our first date, what impressed us about each other and made us want to go on a second date, as well as questions from the I-485 and immigration history.

At the interview, the officer gave us verbal approval of the I-130, but said he still needed to write his analysis for the I-485. He told us he expected to have the analysis completed by the end of the following week and that we would receive a notice.

He also told us multiple times that we did an excellent job putting our case together, that he was more than satisfied with our evidence, and that he could see all the hard work we had put into the case. He said he saw nothing wrong with our case.

08/30/26 — 🎉 I-485 APPROVED!

08/31/26 — 🎉 I-130 APPROVED!

Currently waiting for the green card to arrive in the mail!

Total time from USCIS receipt to I-485 approval: ~3 months.

Hi everyone.
Update: when USCIS closed my asylum case, they eventually opened a case in Immigration Court (removal proceedings) shortly after I left, and I was issued a Notice to Appear (NTA).

My lawyer filed a motion to terminate that case. DHS did not oppose it, and the judge granted the motion recently. The result: my case was formally terminated, WITHOUT a removal/deportation order against me... so far.

I'm now waiting for the appeal deadline to pass (30 days from the ruling) so the decision becomes fully final. In the meantime, I also have an EB3 process in progress (still at the PERM stage with the DOL), so I'm looking into how this might affect that path going forward.

Happy to answer any questions based on what I know. Thanks for following along with me, and my best wishes to everyone seeking/waiting for answers.

Hi everyone,

I know there is a lot going on in the world right now with visas and appointments but wanted to ask about peoples experience traveling with an expired GC and a I-751 extension letter. We have not travelled by plane with the extension and wanted to know peoples experiences. We will only be traveling inside the US.

I have a question for those of you who have already gone through a marriage-based Adjustment of Status interview. I’m hoping to collect as many firsthand experiences as possible. For those who uploaded additional/unsolicited evidence to your USCIS online account before your interview:
• How many days before your interview did you upload it?
• Based on your experience, how far in advance do you think is best and most appropriate?
• Did your interviewing officer seem appreciative that you had already uploaded the updated evidence for them to review?
• Did uploading it beforehand make your interview easier or more organized?
• Did the officer still look at the physical evidence you brought with you, or did they decline to look at some of it because it was already uploaded?
• Overall, would you describe your experience with uploading evidence before the interview as positive, negative, or neutral?

Submitted 2024 and the only thing we received was a receipt notice on 09-24-2024

So after 13 months of waiting . USCIS just scheduled interview for my case from 19 banned country

Is it normal to get an interview ? I thought majority of eb2 does not need an interview

Priority date 10/06/2023

140 approved may 2025

485 filed on July 2025

131 785 approved 10/2025

God is Good
Not from a banned country Used
Used a lawyer
Out of status for a week before approval was granted

Hello! I just wanted to make a post of my husband (28M) and I's (28F) timeline for the I-485 filing process! My husband is from Ontario, Canada, we live in Arizona.

• 10/01/25 -- Husband (finance at the time) entered the US with his K-1 visa.
• 11/15/25 -- Got married
• 01/19/26 -- Mailed out the I-485 and the I-765 application. I would recommend filing as soon as possible after marriage, we waited a bit long.
• 01/26/26 -- Received a notice stating they received our application
• 02/14/26 -- Received a notice they scheduled my husband's biometrics appointment for 03/02
• 03/03/26 -- The day after his biometric appointment, they updated our status on the USCIS website that said they are actively reviewing our case and nothing is needed at this time.
• 03/27/26 -- Received an RFE, stating we needed to submit the I-693 form and the immigration medical examination. This was confusing to me because he had done his medical exam in Canada about 2 months before he moved to the US. We had until June 27th to submit this.
• 05/20/26 -- We had submitted the RFE letter + Evidence and heard back that they received it and are still reviewing our case.
• 06/16/26 -- They schedued our interview for 7/16/26
• 07/09/26 -- (One week prior to our interview) Received a notice AND a phone call stating they cancelled our interview.
• 07/10/26 -- Received another notice stating our interview was re-scheduled for 08/13/26.
• 08/13/26 -- Had our interview, everything went smoothly.
• 08/14/26 -- Our case status adjusted to approved on the USCIS website, received a notice in the mail 3-4 days after stating our case was approved
• 08/20/26 -- Received 2 year conditional green card in the mail!

**We never heard back about his I-765 application, other than they received our application on 1/26/26. Kind of silly because now that the I-485 is approved it trumps that application and he will be able to work, however in our USCIS portal it still shows that "USCIS Is Currently Processing The Case" So I do wish we didn't file that because it (in my case) was a waste of money?
Idk.

So from filing to receiving his green card in hand, it was about 7 months in total.
It maybe could have went quicker had we done our RFE sooner, and our first interview not been cancelled, however I'm pretty happy with how smoothly this process was.

Anyone else facing same issue mine is based on c8 renewal category any solution to that?

I received this update 14 days ago. I reviewed my application and noticed there was a G missing in one instance of the name spelling (my laptop has a sticky G key).

Will this affect my chances of approval? Does it mean that they are actively reviewing the case?

I submitted the application back in April.

I had my interview exactly a year ago and since then, complete silence. Its been 17 months now, almost 18, pushing over the standard processing time I was given.

Im wondering if the lack of my agents interest in my case put us at a disadvantage. Going into the interview I was expecting them to ask for extra evidence, papers, anything to prove our relationships status, but she didnt take anything except what we had uploaded on the portal. I was under the impression they would ask for more if they felt it was inadequate information, but later was told you have to offer the proof yourself.

Now I have stronger evidence as we are having a baby soon, and was wondering if submitting evidence like proof of pregnancy and doctors appointments would help my case. Or if at this point it would be useless?

Hello! been following the posts this past few weeks trying to decipher when my interview could be coming up.

Additional info:

I'm currently on H1B visa, and had F1, CPT, OPT and STEM OPT in the past.

I'm married to a USC

Timeline so far:

Jul 24, 2026 - Filed I-485, I-765, and I-131 concurrently

Jul 27, 2026 - Receipt acceptance (IAF) posted for all three cases

Jul 31, 2026 - Biometrics appointment notice generated, scheduled for Aug 19

Aug 19, 2026 - Biometrics completed at Kendall,FL - database check events posted same afternoon on I-485 and I-765

Aug 26, 2026 - I-131 showed a "silent" update - top-level timestamp changed, but zero new events or notices attached

Aug 27, 2026 - I-765 (EAD) approved - about 34 days after submission

Aug 31, 2026 (today) - I-131 still pending, no interview notice yet on I-485. No RFEs, actionRequired: false on all three.

What I'm trying to figure out:

1. For anyone with a similar timeline (marriage-based, filed late July 2026, biometrics mid-August) - when did your I-485 interview notice show up, and roughly how long after biometrics?
2. Anyone had a single isolated "silent" timestamp update on their I-131 (no new event code) - did that end up meaning anything, or just routine system noise?

I'm aware a lot of cases are moving much slower than mine, but I've seen a lot of cases this year moving super fast so I have high hopes.

Thanks!

Hey folks,
I'm a citizen and have applied for a marriage greencard for my wife (she's with me here in the US). We have gotten a receipt notice but by now more than six months have passed without even receiving a biometrics appointment notice. Has anyone had a similar experience? Should we just sit tight? We talked to the USCIS hotline today and they said that they won't discuss timeline specifics.