Rob & Monika

You will also need to check the laws of every state you travel through.  For instance, in NY you are allowed to transport handguns as long as you are allowed to have them at your origin and destination, they remain locked in a box with your belongings, and you do not stop to stay somewhere overnight like a hotel. Otherwise its a felony if you get caught.

Definitely call where you plan to cross and ask for advice.   K-1 is a nonimmigrant visa and it clearly states nonimmigrants are not allowed to permanently import weapons, you can temporarily import them with ATF Form 6NIA for non immigrant purposes (hunting, work, sports, etc). But since the intent of the K-1 is to immigrate, they may allow the ATF Form 6 Part 1.

4 minutes ago, spa said:

Where are you getting this stat from?  We have our interview in December this year, and my spouse was born in a country other than Canada but moved to Canada when she was like 10 (she's a Canadian citizen). 

It's been almost 4 years since I posted that...lol...and I haven't been following this site in about that long either.  Where did I come up with that?  Most likely from reading someone else's personal experience on this site, probably someone from a MENA nation who moved to Canada and where immigration didn't make a decision at the interview right away.  My wife has dual citizenship as well with another European country. They never asked anything about her other citizenship in the interview...in fact the interviewer seemed kinda bored and wasn't really paying attention, as if it had been approved before the interview.

Also, if you have more than 25k in assets the day you left, like property, stocks, and anything else that can be taxed as capital gains upon the sale, you will have fill out a T1161 to report the capital gains that accrued prior to leaving Canada.

I see the paper forms are taking you down the same road we went down with Turbo Tax. The good news is that the CRA will correct it all for you if you screw up (which we did). I'll have to dig it out and see what was changed, but from what I can remember, it was changed from non-resident to resident, and some things like tax credits were reduced to the percentage of time as a resident (so you were a resident for 62% of the year, you would multiply the tax credit by .62...like the basic personal credit.) This site mentions those deductions that are percentage based: http://support.drtax.ca/dtmax/eng/kb/dtmax/Keywords/T1/g421.htm

The Canadian TurboTax is not entirely clear when it comes to residency status. For 2013 it asked what our residency status was as of Dec 31 2013, which for us was Non Resident, and asked for the date we left. But for tax purposes, filing as a Non Resident is not correct and I don't know if they fixed their software since. I complained and they basically told me I did it wrong...even though their instructions were clearly wrong. You are a partial year resident and I'm not convinced TurboTax does it right following the instructions they give.

As far as your marital status, you are filing as single from Jan 1st to Aug 13th. Anything earned after Aug 13th is taxable in the US.

For the US taxes, you will have 2 options and you will need to see which one is better for you. If you file jointly, you have to include all of your Canadian 2014 income on your joint US taxes. I know you get foreign tax credits at the federal level, but at the state level you could end up owing if you file jointly. I don't know if turbo tax lets you file the state and federal with different marital statuses. The second option is to file Married filing separately. For this, you would only be taxed for your income while in the US after Aug 13th. Also note that if you have financial assets still in Canada, you may have to report them to the IRS depending on the amounts.

I would also suggest checking out http://forums.serbinski.com/for CD/US tax questions.

They understand that Canadians have a lot of visits. My wife has decades worth of visits. I wouldn't sweat it too much, put what you can. I think they asked us during the paperwork process at the interview either if she had been to the US before and she said yes, or something like that. They are just looking for consistent information. If you put nothing down and say you've never been there, and they have records of you traveling, that's a red flag. If you have a ton of visits and at least put down the last 5, they will understand that you can't put 100 entries down.

93% of the background checks are returned within 2 weeks (10 business days). The remaining are "positive" hits that require further review. The majority of the work is done quickly, but less than 1% end up having to dig through paper records or get the paper records from the correct agency, which can cause delay.

http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/name-checks/name-checks-faqs

I've seen people on here get to NOA2 in under a month, with no expedite, and I've seen people get stuck a year waiting. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the out of order experience many have expressed frustration over. If they said it was the background check holding it up, that means they are waiting for some paper records to be retrieved. If it was your fiancees name that triggered the delay, it wouldn't be denied at this stage.

The good news is that they have completed it and your RFE means as soon as you get those G-325As in, you should have your NOA2 in under a month.

Montreal is easy if you are born in Canada. You only need what they ask for at the bottom of packet 3 and they will ask for each form/evidence one at a time at the window. I spent all this time collecting all sorts of evidence and they didn't ask for anything more than what was on packet 3. Financially, you typically only need the tax transcript if he makes enough money. They will ask you simple questions, how you met, how the proposal went, etc during the interview. When we went there was 3 windows we went to, first to sign in, second to collect paperwork, third for the interview...and lots of waiting between each window.

If you were not born in Canada...then I would definitely bring all the evidence you can.

There are a lot of variables in this. The first thing is to look into your future husbands insurance plan. Mine has a list of doctors and hospitals that will take my insurance in Canada and other countries. There is also the ability to pay up front then send the claim into the insurance manually to get reimbursed. But there is nothing stopping you from going, you just can't use the provincial health care.

For medications, there is nothing stopping you from finding a doctor here in the US just to get prescriptions, especially for common things like BC, asthma, and allergy meds. Try to get a copy of your medical records before you move.

I don't see a timeline for you, what route are you taking, K-1 or CR-1? The CR-1 route would allow you to work immediately.

It depends on what is in the custody agreement. Mine says if my ex moves more than 1 county away the whole agreement has to be renegotiated, and she's not allowed to move out of the state. It may be OK for US immigration for a consent letter, but if you don't do it legally as far as the terms of the previous agreement, the ex can make a lot of trouble if you leave the country and you haven't updated your custody agreement. Think of it this way, you leave, get married, then he files for custody because you moved. You are stuck in the US and cannot appear in court without screwing up your K-1 process. Don't take this lightly.

I'll be quite honest, given that I am a divorced father who constantly sees mothers bashing their ex's parenting. I wonder if it's not that they don't want to see their children, but rather that they don't want to see their ex during the exchange process. I have my daughter almost every weekend, and I do the best I can with the time I have over the weekend, I still get flak from my ex about how I'm not good enough. I feel so much anxiety every time I'm around her or I get a text from her. I will give her some credit though, she has made it clear to any potential suitors that she will not move too far away from me.

From what you have described, it sounds like he is afraid of you, and is resisting through his family. As much as I hate that people tear their own families apart, my advice is this, divide and conquer. Talk to his mother. Your goal is not to get permission for the move, your goal with her is how to get him to be a better father. It could take a few months of taking her out on the town once a week, or just regular conversations. You want him to be a better father, start there. Don't point fingers or blame, don't let it turn into arguing. She want's her son to be a good father too. If she nags him enough, he'll give you what you want...he'll either step up to the plate or cave to the pressure and give you your freedom. If she see's that her son is not living up to the task, and you can show her your future husband will be a good stepfather, you may not need to go through a court battle. Not only did my ex meet my wife before I proposed, but her mother did too. You battling an entire family, start working with the ones you can relate to the most.

Typically, the only other thing I can think of that Canadians might deal with at the border is importing their vehicle.

They staple your photo to the forms, so it's possible that if they are required to submit more forms, they need more pictures. What I don't get is why they don't just print the photos at the Dr's office, at the interview, etc. I even spotted my photo (the petitioner) stapled to the initial I-129F during the interview.

NVC doesn't do much with K-1's, I wouldn't worry about a backup there.

We brought Thanksgiving leftovers back last week. He asked why we had been in Canada (visiting family for Thanksgiving) and asked if we were bringing anything back, I said "Just leftovers!" No questions beyond that. Though my MIL said she had to sit there and eat a bag of oranges once because she didn't want them confiscated...lol.

Odds are, if its all nicely packed in a U-Haul, they won't even open it, or look at your list of things you are moving with. Check with the reviews for the location you plan on crossing to see whether that location is super picky or easy peasy.

Yes, you file for the IR-1. Your interview would be in Montreal. When the USC lives in Canada, the main concern is proving domicile (which there are a lot of topics about). If you guys already have a home there, then that is a great help. He will either need financial evidence that he can support you (a job lined up or one he can continue from the US, or a large amount of liquid assets), or have a USC relative cosponsor you.

Your timeline says Armenia, but your forum profile says Canada. Which are you from? The process can be different for different countries/consulates.

For Montreal http://photos.state.gov/libraries/canada/303578/montreal/Packet3-K1-MTL.pdf

For Vancouver http://photos.state.gov/libraries/canada/303578/Vancouver/k-pkt3_1_.pdf

So you have tax returns, and good credit...I don't see what the issue is.

The newer one is the current one, everything is done digitally now at Montreal. In all honesty, everything on the DS-230, DS-156/K is on the DS-160. We went through the process when we had to do all of them...and it was a lot of redundant questions, each form asking the same things, the DS-160 is the most thorough.

The I-864 will get done when you Adjust Status after getting married, or if you are applying for a visa and are already married. The I-134 is for the K-1 / fiance visa.

If your insurance company operates in both countries, you can just have it transferred to an agent in the state you will be residing, at least that is what we did with State Farm, no hassles.

And they charge a $15 fee on both accounts which they reimburse a few days later...makes no sense to me.

You can open the US account from Canada, we never had to go to an actual branch in the US. Just make sure you update your US account with your SSN once you get one.

One TD caveat is to look into the type of account you have setup, what the fees are, etc, read the fine print. We weren't using the account much and after several months noticed they were charging $15/mo fees because the balance was under $100...I was not happy about that.

http://www.tdbank.com/personal/checking.html

I was thinking something more like http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/485961-importing-a-vehicle-from-canada-to-us/

The process is very DIY unless your auto manufacturer doesn't like to issue a letter of compliance, otherwise you may end up using an importer.

Mentions the 3 forms that end up getting processed at the border, people have different experiences at different crossings. Many people have had the CBP handle everything, in our case the CBP handed us the 3 forms and said "fill them out" as if I understood what 1/2 the stuff on the cbp7501 even meant.

The main thing that concerns me is that you might not be able to drive the car here as if it were yours and import it, because I'm assuming it would still have your father's plates on it and is still registered to him. It may not be an issue, but you could call the CBP crossing you plan to use and ask.

There are many threads regarding the import process itself...we should have a sticky thread for it.

One additional note is that you will have to look into your state DMV for information on what the taxes are, as they will charge you when you go to register it.

That depends on if you are IR-1/CR-1 or a K-1 visa.

Ours was 13 days. Things were taking up to a month earlier this year with the computer problems that arose. Could be longer if he wasn't born in Canada.

Did you put a US address or your Vancouver address on the I-129F form?