awaywego

You are worried about the fragile state of the birth certificate. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to try and contact the people who keep the records in your husband's hometown in Bulgaria and ask about purchasing another copy. (I do not know who this is in Bulgaria, but, if it helps connect roughly equivalent government bodies, it is Vital Records in the US and the Standesamt in Germany.) That may or may not be possible, timely, or easy, but it may also be as simple as filling out a request form and paying a fee.

Since the birth certificate is not in English, someone who is proficient in both Bulgarian and English must translate it. That person will need to state/certify that they are proficient in both languages and that the translation is correct. (Example statement: link)

We will be sending our packets "Einschreiben" (registered, requires recipient's signature), possibly with "Rückshein" (signature mailed back to us). That might make you feel better about sending original documents.

If it helps, CA doesn't have a waiting period - you can marry right after you pick up your license. (Double-check that this is true for the county you choose, as some restrictions can vary between counties and not just between states.) You and your SO may need to make an appointment to get the license, but that should be online or via phone.

I suggest checking the hours for all of the County Clerk Offices for counties around where your SO lives. This might be a pain, but it can probably be done online. If the OC office has occasional weekend hours, perhaps another office does, too.

If not, I think your options are: 1) Take a vacation day, and do a long weekend to get married. 2) Marry when it is a long weekend in Canada, but a normal weekend in the US. 3) Vegas. (Double-check that weekends work there, but probably.)

I am getting all the paper work together to send out the i-130. My marriage certificate is in Spanish, I need to get a translation. Now my question is does it have to be a certified translation or can a close friend do it for me? Translations can be done by anyone proficient in Spanish and English. Your translator needs to sign a statement that he or she is proficient in both languages, example: link

Also, I see that to proof our marriage is bonafie a friend can submit an affidavit stating we are a legit couple. How can that be done? Are there any samples? I was thinking in having my pastors (here in the USA) write the letter. They know both of us. Template is "Sworn Affidavit from Friends" on this page: link. I've seen samples on various threads, but don't have any saved. A search should find them easily enough.

What other docs should I send along with my application and the g325 forms? See the IR1/CR1 guide here: link

Please advise!!

Thanks!!!

What about showing that you live together in Japan? Add your joint lease, utility bills, city/police registration (if that's a thing there), or whatever shows this.

I worry about #5, as you're nearly a year from the wedding, and the webpages might be taken down by the time that USCIS gets to the petition. You can probably show the same information from a copy of your invitation and photos from your honeymoon. (A more experienced poster might have something better to say on this.)

Would it be useful to specify in #7 that the visits are to spend the holidays "with [your] family"?

Is a WHO International Certificate of Vaccination (the yellow booklet the doctor marks when one receives a vaccination) acceptable for showing one's vaccination history for the medical? If so, and if BrianK has one documenting some or all of the required vaccines, it could cut down on or eliminate bloodwork and revaccinations.

1. You can peddle a bit to pad things out, but a whole year may be tricky. Keeping in contact with the embassy in Frankfurt may make that possible. You could contact the embassy now and enquire about how long they are willing to extend validity of a petition approved at their field office.

2. If you did cancel and refile, it should not cause any issues. Plans change, no big deal.

3. He can travel during the DCF process. They'll want to hold his passport after interview - but this is normally only for a few days to affix the visa.

Thank you so much for your responses! We're definitely glad to hear #3. We will talk with the consulate when we get closer and will look to go DCF hoping that there's a job offer or some alternate plan of action by the NOA2.

You should look up re-entry permits if you want to go down the GC route but not necessarily stay once he receives it. Not maintaining your US domicile as a GC holder can mean they will revoke it, which is what re-entry permits can help to prevent.

Also, as you are in Germany, you as the US citizen also need to show you either have US domicile or will be reestablishing one to satisfy the form I-864 (Google for the instructions) if you want to go down the spouse visa route. This would be easy enough to achieve if you're planning to move back, but it sounds like you're not making any plans so far. Do you work? Do you file your US taxes?

DCF is a pretty good route. It's fast and reliable. The visa he'll be issued will be good for 6 months from the date he does his medical (and getting the visa should take 3-5 months), so you could time things to give you a cushion to best fit your plans.

If you wouldn't be planning to move until August, you'd have plenty of time for that path.

If you don't ever go to the US, then I think he has to reapply for a new visa once it's expired. If you do go to the US but don't stay (like you leave for Germany to stay for more than 6 months), he should apply for a reentry permit, else he could lose his green card, and again have to start over.

If he got the visa, he'd only have to enter once to trigger GC creation, so it would be worth doing even if you are not sure you'll stay.

Or, you let the university take care of getting him there, but as you say... Then you would be looking into adjustment of status if you plan to live there for good (do you?).

Thank you for your response, lost_at_sea! (I'm not sure how to tag on here. Hopefully quoting does it.)

We do plan to make the US our permanent home and, as such, will end this process with residency for my husband. I should have included that in my original post. Sorry about that.

From what I understand in your post, you think that the best plan is to apply DCF early enough to be able to move in August, even if there's no job offer yet when we apply. The fallback plan if he does not get a job and we have to stay in Germany for another year would then be to keep the GC current until we do move.

This is a possibility we had not considered. Can one do the first entry with the GC, not establish a residence in the US, and return a couple weeks later to another country if one intends to return to the US and make one's permanent home there later? If so, this is good to hear - I had thought we would need to move when his GC was approved lest it go to waste. We visit my family in the States twice a year and, if my husband is going through the application cycle again, he would be traveling for in-person interviews. Would that be enough to keep the GC current?

Hi all,

My husband is a German citizen, and I am a US citizen. My husband plans to apply to American tenure-track assistant professor positions for the 2015-2016 school year. We will move if he gets a position and will stay here and try again the next cycle if he does not. From what I understand, typically offers go out in April-June for positions starting in August/September. By the time of the offer, we will have been married 3 years and have lived in Germany for the last 2.5.

Our visa options, from what I can tell, are:

1) Apply Direct Consular Filing through Frankfurt once my husband has a job offer. (If it matters, we will not be relying on this income for our I-864, and I don't think we can use it anyway.) This is what we prefer to do because of the speed and relative ease. However, the timelines posted in the DCF Frankfurt thread (link) make it sound like threeish months might not be enough time.

2) The university provides my husband with a work visa (H-1B?), and we file for Adjustment of Status after we are back in the States. This will take longer and cost more for everyone involved. (There is some debate on applicant sites about whether the visa is a detriment, but it's impossible to know if that's the case.)

3) Start DCF before finding out whether my husband will have a job and have a green card either way. (What happens if he does not get a job, and we do not move back to the States? Do we have to either move or start over again the next year?)

I would greatly appreciate recommendations on which way we should go. Any suggestions, words of wisdom, or other helpful information that I could give?