O.K. I am officially tripping out!

The waiting for an Interview with the Montreal Embassy is driving me nuts. At the heart of this panic driven madness, I been offered an amazing job in the US and they are willing to wait for my visa to be processed. Thank God! However, the longer I wait for an Interview the more this job is in jeopardy, not to mention when I will be able to work.

I am now trying to nail down an approximate time-frame for how long it will take until I am legally able to work. Any clue? Once I have me Visa, I will fly to the US asap and get married the next day (talk about a shot gun wedding, the one young girls dream over!).

So, any insight on time frames, forms etc... would be greatly appreciated.

When you enter the U.S. on a K1 you are legally authorized to work until your I94 expires (which should be about 90 days from entry). The problem is that unless you enter at JFK and get a temporary work authorization stamp you won't have an proof that your are authorized to work. Employers are supposed to require documentation of proof that you are legally authorized to work - if they don't and they hire you, then you won't be breaking any laws, but the employer will be violating the legal requirements they are supposed to meet.

As soon as you have your official marriage certificate you can file for Adjustment of Status, EAD, and AP. (While you can apply for EAD first it will only last the original 90 days of your I94 if you don't file consecutively with AOS).

So basically it is a matter of whether the employer is willing to let you start without proof of work authorization or if you manage to get a temporary EAD by entering via JFK. If not, you are looking at time to get the marriage certificate (which varies) + average 90 days to get an EAD from the time you file.

As I've been writing this - I'm not 100% sure you need the marriage certificate to file AOS, I'm pretty sure, but I'll check.

Also check out the guides!

Good luck with your interview & everything else!

okay, here's the link to the guide you need: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...mp;page=k1k3aos

And you will need your marriage certificate to file. I've heard of some people taking the signed license directly to the clerk or whomever is the registrar of marriages for the locality and being able to get their official certificate the same day if the judge lets them bring it themselves. Hope this helps!

Havng a POE of JFK from most parts of Canada is going to be difficult since so many of theCanadian airports are also the POE for USA

I'm going to go to Halifax first then fly from there as I too want that stamp from JFK.

Mo

You clear US Customs at Halifax now -- trust me, I was there and through it this morning. They built a beautiful 2nd floor for all US departures and opened it up recently. So no-go at Halifax, sorry, unless they stamp there and we don't know it yet!

We got married pretty much as soon as I got to the US too. Have all your AOS/EAD/AP forms filled out and ready to go before you leave for the US (you'll have to fill in a couple things when you get there that you get at the POE), but then you'll be ready to drop it in the mail once you have your marriage certificate, we mailed it the same day we got married. I can't give you any time frames except the obvious, the sooner you get everything in, the sooner you'll be able to work.



We did this! We got married at the courthouse, and afterwards the judges assistant walked us down to the registrar to make sure we got a copy of the certificate right away.

There is one airline that doesn't require you to go through US Customs in Canada: WestJet. Everytime I flew WestJet to the States, I always went through Customs in the States. I don't know if they are still doing this or if it is only with particular cities/airports, and I don't know if they have flights to JFK... I was going to check but their website was taking forever to load.

I'll repost this in this thread as well: all US departure flights, no matter what airline, go through the PFI on the second floor in Halifax, as far as I could tell when I went through it yesterday. They have a completely new section where all the US flights congregate, it's pretty nice.