New kid on the block...

[Ms Twinkle Toes 1]

Hello all,

Im new to this forum (joined earlier today) and wanted to find out if anyone has any advice/experiences/tips to share regarding filing petitions filed in the Johannesburg (South Africa) office - sadly we are right at the beginning of what seems to be a very long process!

My husband and I currently live in South Africa (SA). We met at the end of 2008 in the US, got married on one of my visits there in 2009 and then he relocated here soon after. Since he has lived here in South African for more than 6 months, we are led to understand that he can submit his petition to a USCIS office here in Johannesburg. Our first challenge is that we wanted to file this month but as his spousal permit has expired (he is currently awaiting an extension of said permit from the notoriously slow SA department of home affairs), the USCIS office has advised that he needs to have a current valid spousal permit in hand when he submits the petition or they will not accept it. Now it could take up to 3 months for his permit extension to be effected. So we would like to know if we should just go ahead and submit the petition to the chicago lockbox and start the process off that way? Will it not complicate thinfs for us later on? Are we better off waiting until his SA permit extension is issued (which could be forever) and then we submit here in Johannesburg?

Our second challenge is that my husband has been unemployed since he got to SA and thus cannot show income on tax returns for the last 3 years. This would obviously affect the affidavit of support step of the process. Does the fact that we have a sizeable amount of cash in a South African bank account help in anyway? It is an amount that is well above the 125% of the US 2013 poverty line figure. Or should he just return home and try and get a job there before we reach that stage of the process? We are unsure how to handle that one and would appreciate whatever advice you can give us.

Many thanks.

Ms Twinkle Toes

PS - I must thank those that have created this forum - its really useful snd encouraging for people like myself!

[Ryan H 3,865]

Moved from Introducing Our Members to IR-1/CR-1 Process & Procedures.