I must admit I am now getting a bit confused.

I have been reading this forum over the last few weeks and there is a lot of very helpful information here. Here is where I am confused.

We live in Calgary, Canada, I am a dual citizen and my Husband is an Australian (perm resident in Canada).

We had a few questions about filing our 1-130, wanted to make sure we were on the right track, so we popped in to the U.S. Consulate here in Calgary in March and had a chat with them. This, of course, happened to be during the whole kafuffle about only being able to file directly with Vermont.

We asked the person at the Consulate about the K-3, she said most applications take from 6 months to a year and that the K-3 processing times were pretty much about the same as the immediate relative, so there wasn't much point in filing one.

We then decided to send our application off to Vermont and not bother with the K-3 at all.

Timelines in here are so varied and circumstances are so varied I'm having trouble deciding whether or not we should actually be filing a K-3. Secondary is that my Husband might only have to interview in Vancouver rather than Montreal. Also, would Direct Consular Filing have been faster, may still be faster?

We aren't 'desperate' to travel to the U.S., we are together, we have jobs, a house, family here, on the other hand, we want to move and open our new business etc etc and it's - well this whole process is pretty annoying!

Anyone currently in a similar situation, living in Canada and doing direct consular filing - I'd be interested to see your timeline and hear your experiences!

One other question - for the affadavit of support, when using assets vs income (since neither of us have U.S. income) do we need to show assets equal to 10 years of support at the poverty line or? I guess I'm looking for a number here, in terms of support how much is enough when looking at cash in the bank?

Thanks for your suggestions in advance!

To K-3 or not to K-3. To answer this, you need to have a look at the benefits to using a non-immigrant vs immigrant entry to the US.
The NIV (k-3) is probably faster to get, can be interviewed for in Vancouver and allows immediate travel in/out of the US.
It does not offer immediate employment authorization, which dominoes onto Social Security number, which cascades onto many things (credit, driver's license etc)

To DCF or stay the course?
Calculate however long Vermont is taking with I-130s and then put yourself in line for a MTL interview.
If you DCF, put yourself effectively into the line for MTL tomorrow. Now add the $$ cost of your previous petition.

I *suspect* you will have a longer wait for an immigrant visa no matter which way you petition vs filing for a non-immigrant visa. However, you'll have the downsides of the NIV to factor in.

We opted to stay overseas until we had an Immigrant Visa & were happy with our choice. Note that our wait time was non-existant.

The assets formula is clearly laid out in the instructions for I-864. Please don't call me pompous, but I do suggest you read the source material for a better understanding.

Hi Meauxna,

Haha, I see you read my other post today, that made me laugh. I don't think you are pompous at all and you offer a valid suggestion. To be honest with you I had never actually read down that far on the form!

Well I have now and have calculated we will need $85560 (basically 5 x the 125% above the poverty line) - which is very helpful information.

Thanks

lol trail, it did get up my nose for a minute...

Read further in the forms. Special formula for spouses.. 3X makes it even easier.

Now back in MY day, we had to have 5X AND walk uphill to the Embassy in the driving snow.. both ways!


PS: those are US dollars, not the sometimes-confused Canadian "dollars". hehehe.. love to wind up the rellies with that one too...

Well now that is twice today you have made me laugh! Ohh I guess I can't be relied on to read the whole form - I skipped over the 3x reference and went straight to the example. However! From now on I will actually read the form before posting a question. Thanks again for all your help.