Kevin Keane

Maybe. According to a recent law change (known as AC21), you are supposed to be able to change employers within the same field if the I-485 takes at least six months to process.

This question can become important when you apply for citizenship. The answer to this question is actually not quite clear. I believe that you are a permanent resident effective the date you returned to the US, but have heard other people suggest that you might be a permanent resident as of the approval date.

First, get the approval notice from the US. Have somebody send it. Then use the approval notice in place of the H-1B or Advance Parole document (you should still show the H-1B petition or Advance Parole document). You should in this case be granted deferred inspection. Go to the local USCIS office with your approval notice for final processing.

It can mean several things. At times, INS forwarded cases to different offices simply because they are overloaded. In that case, it can actually mean that your case will be processed faster. The other possibility is that your case has been selected for an interview for some reason or another.

For employment-based cases, interviews are usually waived. Only about 5% of all cases will be interviewed. About 3% of all cases are considered "suspicious" for some reason, or need some kind of clarification. Another 2% are pulled at random for quality control purposes. If you are selected for the interview, you will receive a notification that your case has been forwarded to the local office. (this also sometimes happens if the service center is overloaded, so don't panic just because you get this notification).

Sadly, no, unless you move to a different city - and that, of course, can be problematic in particular for employment-based cases. You must always use the office or service center (depending on your case type) that has jurisdiction over where you live.

This is a common source of confusion. No, you do not have a choice. Employment based I-485s must always be filed at the Nebraska or Texas Service Center (depending on where they live). Family-based I-485s are filed at the Missouri Service Center (via a Chicago mailing address). And if your I-485 is asylum based, you must always file at the Nebraska Service Center, no matter where you live. For detailed up-to-date instructions, please view the USCIS Web Site.

For cases filed with service centers, yes. For cases filed at the local/district office (very rare nowadays), it depends on the policy at the particular office.

Not having registered will usually only be a problem if you are applying for citizenship. You could try and show that you were not aware of the requirement through no fault of your own, but this is usually difficult. The easiest way of dealing with this is through time. Once you turn 31 (five years after the requirement ends), or 29 (three years after the requirement ends) if you are married to a US citizen and qualify for naturalization after the shorter residency, USCIS no longer cares about the evidence of your registration.

Thanks to Shona for inspring this question!

The USA does not have a draft, but the USA does require all males age 18 to 26 to register, including illegal immigrants. This is known as Selective Service. Please see the Selective Service System Web site at www.sss.gov.

There is one exception: lawful non-immigrants do not need to register. However, you do need to register if, between the ages 18 and 26, you ever violate your status (for instance by dropping out of school or by losing your job as an H-1B).