LesleyRyan

Hey Family.
Just wondering what people do while trying to pass the time till they can basically start their lives together with their spouse?
Right now I don't even have the option of calling or texting my husband. Feel like I'm just sitting alone in the dark. We haven't even sent in our I-130 yet! Waiting on a new passport... Then I'll be waiting a year till I can go be with my husband. Lately I've been reading post on here to keep my spirits up..
When you get down, what do you do?

Your first sentence is outdated information. Believe me, we thought it was bizarre that we didn't need a copy of my Colombian husband's birth certificate or passport at the USCIS stage, and read the requirements a hundred times to make sure that was indeed the case. We were approved with no RFEs very recently. If you go to the VJ guide I linked to, #7 has a strike through with "no longer needed" in parentheses. Things change. Read the official USCIS instructions and you won't see anything about a copy of the beneficiary's passport or birth certificate there either. http://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/files/form/i-130instr.pdf
If she's waiting for a name change to go through, I guess that's a different story. But if not, I see no reason she has to wait to send the petition.

That is the worst.. i haven't met anyone that understands the immigration process.. "you're married, doesn't that just make you a US citizen now?"
Nope. Even my husband is in denial! We got married a year ago this month, it's been a hard year, and we dicked around and tired to file the I-130 in November, got sent back, again in December, but we were going through a rough time.. so I told him to forget it. I'm kicking myself for all the wasted months now.. but the main thing is that we're together and in love. We appreciate each other so much more now. The wait won't be that long in the grand scheme of things. Now I'm just anxious because we haven't even sent in the i-130 yet! The wait hasn't even started!
This community has already helped me so much... I'm so happy to have found SO MANY people who understand what I'm going through.. who understand how long it takes and the process. I feel so much more confident that I can do all this
Such as?

As much as I'd love that.. we kinda screwed around living in each others country last year... now we're both pretty much unemployed... this process seems even tougher when you're broke as a joke! I'm worried about the affidavit of financial support.

That sounds nice.. I hope someday my husband and I can get on some kind of routine, I'm planning on buying a car and going for a 3 month visit in 39 days! (pending I can provide enought evidence to the border people that I WILL come back to Canada!)
I guess it could be worse.. at least we're a 20 hour drive away. We are both in very poor spots in our lives.. hopefully that will turn around soon!

First: you will need to earn (or have a co-sponsor who earns) 125% of the Federal Poverty guideline for their family size (how many people they support/live in their home). So, you need one US citizen (doesn't have to be a family member) to fill out form I-134 (Affidavit of Support) [K1 Visa] in order to sponsor your fiance(e). You do not need to be employed. You will also need someone to co-sponsor your fiance(e) once you get married [or file a CR-1 Visa] by filling out an I-864. Form I-864 is legally binding - ie. they are responsible for your fiance(e) for 10 years or until they have worked a certain number of years. Be sure you have someone who is willing to do this for you. Loans/savings don't count as much as income. I believe you need 4x the amount of assets (so if you need to prove you earn $20k a year you would need $80k assets).
Student visas are difficult to get mainly because she would have to prove she had the means to pay for school. The problem with your plan is that you have the *intent* to marry. So yes, having your fiance(e) come there in order to live with you and get married (eventually) is considered, as you put it, "working the system". I would call it visa fraud.
Trust me - I totally understand wanting to live with your future spouse right away but sadly that isn't how this process works. Once you have the *intent* to marry, all of your plans still have the *intent* to get married. Say she did get the Student visa and somewhere down the road they found out you guys had brought her there in order to get married using the Student visa.... bad news. The likelihood of that is really small, but it is a possibility all the same.
Just file for the K1 or CR-1 and get the process started. Honestly, the 7 months or so you will need to wait will allow him or her to tie up loose ends in Canada and visit friends and family. It's not fun but its better than having your family torn apart for committing visa fraud.
I would recommend doing a lot of reading on this website. There are guides to the different kinds of visas. There are comparison charts. Read, read, read. You're wasting your time trying to work around the system. Sorry this sounds a bit harsh, but part of the reason we all have so many hoops to jump through is due to people trying to beat the system. I am sure your intentions are good, and you will do things legally and honestly once you are properly informed.
Good luck.

Only the self employed need to use income from a tax return as "current income". Assuming your spouse is "employed", his current income what he expects to earn from his JOB (not a business he owns) in the next twelve months from the time the affidavit is submitted.

*** Thread moved from Introducing Our Members forum to the CR-1 Case Progress subforum, to be among similar threads. ***