savannah_boy

Hi everyone. I am a UK citizen and my wife is a US citizen and we live in the USA.

My conditional permanent residence expires on 30th March 2013 as does my US driving license. I have just received a letter confirmation dated 25th February 2013 that my green card has been approved and will be posted to me within 60 days.

My question is as follows:
As a I have a lawful permanent resident letter (new status IR1) is this enough evidence to renew my DL? If I wait for example for the green card to come and it potentially arrives on day 59, then I will have a period of time with no valid DL and obviously illegal to drive here. Would you wait for the card or bring in this letter to the DMV? I have had stories about how the DMV are less than helpful.

Cheers

Noorah101

You can certainly try, but to my knowledge DMV needs to see something with an expiration date. So it would be far better to wait until you have the 10-year green card in hand, so you can definitely get a new drivers license based on that expiration.

If you have time to kill, and you don't mind waiting at DMV, you can go and ask if they'll accept the letter, but my guess is that they won't.

They might accept the 1-year extension letter you got when you filed the I-751, because that has an expiration date on it.

Rene

slummymummy

My 2yr GC & DL got stolen, I was concerned about travel (and new DL) so made an Infopass appt and got a stamp in my passport, used this stamp to get new DL. This is something you could perhaps do if they don't accept what you have.

savannah_boy

Thanks for your response. The one year extension letter expires on the same date as the current DL.

About the infopass stamp. It's a 4 hour drive each way to Atlanta for that too and with a wife who is 33 weeks pregnant I am not keen on that.

On a side note, I actually took advice and went to see my Congressman and got his caseworker to look into my green card application because things have taken longer than the prescribed time to respond from USCIS.

sir_eccles

Do you tend to get pulled over often? :-)

I agree with Rene, you're unlikely to convince the DMV without a card expiry date. In terms of proof of legal status, that letter is fine but that is all. If you go to the DMV try asking for a supervisor, worth a shot.

You never know, the new card may turn up quickly.

SarahG

A friend of mine was in a similar situation but with the added bonus of being pregnant and having her husband a pilot who was away a lot. She got a letter saying her green card was in production and would be sent to her within 60 days and when she took the letter to the DMV here in SC they wouldn't do anything. They wanted to see the actual card before giving her a licence. Some States are different so you may be lucky in GA.

jeffreyhy

That will depend on your state's DMV laws and policies and, as a practical matter, how well the particular window person or office manager knows and follows those laws. The letter might be enough, it might not be.

Regards, JEff

JAJ

As someone else says, it's state specific so go to your state DMV website and start from there.

Either way, if you cannot renew your license before the expiry date, then in general you must stop driving until you get a new one. Unless your state has some kind of exception.

savannah_boy

Hi everyone. My 10 year Green Card arrived today
I had looked yesterday at the Georgia DMV website and without the Green Card I would have needed to make an InfoPass appointment to get a passport stamp with the 10 year green card end date.


In the recent build up to this I had several issues with my packet paperwork not being processed within the time prescribed and with the Green Card end date approaching I contacted my Congressman. It certainly helped the process move along.

slummymummy

Brilliant! Well done!