Immigrating from Australia - a few questions

[Bulwara Road 5]

Hi

My wife lodged an I-130 in October 2013, and I hope some people here can answer a couple of questions that I can't seem to find answers to.

We both live in Australia. Will my wife have to move back to the US before I do based on her being able to support me (I have read that there is a 10 year thing where a petitioner has to commit to support their spouse) ?

Will I need a sponsor?

How long (typically) does the whole process take?

Thanks

[austex 42]

Hi, my husband (USC) and I lived in Australia when we applied for my I-130. Once we went through the process we had to prove that we had $75k approx to get my visa approved. Now that amount could be in assets (not cash just assets)....eg the pending sale of our house. Once we could prove that we got my visa within 10 days. Our visa journey took 10 months but that was after a couple of Request of more information. We did. Not need a sponsor with reaching the amount of money we needed

We have been married for 12 years so my visa was a IR-1

And no we stayed together the whole visa journey...

M.

Edited January 2, 2014 by austex

[Bulwara Road 5]

Hi, my husband (USC) and I lived in Australia when we applied for my I-130. Once we went through the process we had to prove that we had $75k approx to get my visa approved. Now that amount could be in assets (not cash just assets)....eg the pending sale of our house. Once we could prove that we got my visa within 10 days. Our visa journey took 10 months but that was after a couple of Request of more information. We did. Not need a sponsor with reaching the amount of money we needed

We have been married for 12 years so my visa was a IR-1

And no we stayed together the whole visa journey...

M.

That's a relief!

We should be okay with the $75K requirement, as long as our house in Las Vegas holds it's value (we bought a couple of years ago so we should be ok).

Did you use an immigration lawyer or did you do it yourselves?

We are looking at doing it ourselves - all of the forms seem pretty straightforward.

[austex 42]

No we did it all ourselves, no lawyers involved. It was pretty easy but I do think they over look or just miss paperwork because I know I put paperwork In my package but they asked asked for it again so that was a time delay but it was ok because it gave us longer time to sell things back in Australia.

[kev&ange 0]

Hey there

I would suggest having a read of the I-864 instructions, which has heaps of information about the Affidavit of Support requirements. When my husband and I started the process back in May, we decided the best way to meet our financial obligations was to ask his sister (who happens to live in Las Vegas also, perhaps near your house!) to co-sponsor, and got all that sorted, and we were just going to wait out the whole process in Australia. But then after a good job offer in Las Vegas my husband left Australia to set up over there in October so his job over there well and truly covers us and we don't have to worry about assets and stuff. I'm still waiting here in Australia with our two-year-old and it's brutal being apart! So if you want to stay together and you can meet all of the criteria in your I-864 you should be fine. I am no expert with timelines but I think the average wait is about a year at the moment from start to finish for Aussies. I'm at 7.5 months and counting.

[Bulwara Road 5]

Hey there

I would suggest having a read of the I-864 instructions, which has heaps of information about the Affidavit of Support requirements. When my husband and I started the process back in May, we decided the best way to meet our financial obligations was to ask his sister (who happens to live in Las Vegas also, perhaps near your house!) to co-sponsor, and got all that sorted, and we were just going to wait out the whole process in Australia. But then after a good job offer in Las Vegas my husband left Australia to set up over there in October so his job over there well and truly covers us and we don't have to worry about assets and stuff. I'm still waiting here in Australia with our two-year-old and it's brutal being apart! So if you want to stay together and you can meet all of the criteria in your I-864 you should be fine. I am no expert with timelines but I think the average wait is about a year at the moment from start to finish for Aussies. I'm at 7.5 months and counting.

Y

We lodged mid October, so I imagine things will start to roll mid year.

My wife has a really good job here, so we are hoing we can get everything approved before we head over.

That being said, if she gets a good job offer she wil head over - am really looking forward to the whole adventure!

[Penguin_ie 5,999]

***** Moving from Bringing Family to CR-1 Spousal visa forum- OP, you should change your profile to reflect you are NOT filing for a K1 fiance visa but a spousal visa *****