signalsfly

As a few others have said - it's perfectly legal to go across to the US on an ESTA get married and return home. If anything the K1 is almost a less 'honest' way of going about it as it's with the intent of marrying and then adjusting your status in the US.

If you really do have no desire to immigrate to the US after your wedding, your best bet is probably just to cancel the K1/remove the petition and instead go across in August using an ESTA. Be completely honest but don't volunteer information that isn't necessary and make sure you have lots of evidence of strong ties to the UK (reasons to stay - leases/jobs to get back to/school/etc.). Then, if border control do find the fact you applied for the K1 suspicious you stand a good chance at proving you don't have an intent to stay after the ceremony.

Another option is that you could cancel the K1 closer to August if it looks like it wouldn't be accepted on time - if you decided to continue with the process and still have the wedding. But, if you don't intend to stay in the US then there isn't much purpose to continuing the process!

You technically don't need any vaccinations for the K1 - you're completely right with that. You do need them for the AOS and it's usually advised to get them done before the K1 medical to save on the costs of doing them in the US (from what I know, that is really the only reason to have them done before although I may be incorrect).

Best of luck!

I just dont know if i can adjust from "B1-B2" (ESTA) to something else - i am assuming it is possible to do.

Yes it was not my intention. I am on vacations (30 days in Brazil), but I work in the family business so is not a big deal to leave.

As long as you didn't enter the US with the intention of staying then you're allowed to get married and adjust your status without leaving the country. You can apply for an EAD (work permit) at the same time which will allow you to work while you're in the process of adjusting. This would take around 90 days from when you send the paperwork off.

Best of luck!

A USC sponsor that has an I-864 in effect needs to submit a change of address with the USCIS > http://www.uscis.gov/i-865

http://www.uscis.gov/addresschange

If you have previously submitted a Form I-864 for someone who immigrated to the U.S., you must complete a Form I-865 within thirty days of the completion of your move.

Thank you so much! I really appreciate it

I filed for my Adjustment of Status (after coming over to the US on a K1 visa) and have just received my NOA1. My husband and I moved into a new apartment a few days ago and so I wanted to check I was doing everything right in terms of the address change.

I filed the change of address form online that I got the link to via checking my case status on USCIS, I'm assuming that is everything that I have to do to inform them of the new address?

What I was was unsure about was what my husband should do to update them with his new address as he is my petitioner and listed as my sponsor on the affidavit. I thought that I remembered reading somewhere that he also had to file something for a change of address but have been unsuccessful in finding that information again so figured I would just ask if anyone could help!

Thank you so much!

Hi,

I came over to the US with a K1 on August 1st, my husband and I got married on August 16th. I went in to my local SSN office today to try and get my SSN and was told that as we had got married my status was now K3 and I couldn't get a SSN until I get my green card. We tried calling and they just said I was now a K3 and couldn't get anything without work authorisation or a green card. I was under the impression that as long as my I94 hadn't expired (which doesn't until October 29th) then I should be able to get a SSN.

Honestly I'm completely confused right now. Why would I now be a K3? My status shouldn't have changed and we've not even begun the AOS process yet as we were going to try sort out bank account etc. beforehand. Were they just wrong in the information they gave me or have I misunderstood something?

Anyone that could help me would be awesome, I'm feeling disheartened and worried I've done something wrong.

Thank you!

Hi there,

You will be residing in South Dakota, yes? By federal law, all those living in the USA must obtain health insurance or pay a penalty. Your fiancé, being on your in-law's health insurance is eligible to remain on that insurance until age 26 (under the new laws). When the ACA (Obamacare) law was adopted, this created the federal exchange. Individual states were eligible to create their own exchanges or direct residents to use the federal program. South Dakota, however wanted nothing to do with the law, and so they and a few other states sued the federal government, the law of which was upheld by the supreme court. In light of that, South Dakota still has no exchange. That means your options, if you want to obtain health insurance, are as follows:

Research private plans online and purchase one that best fits your needs.

Or

Head on over to the federal exchange, search and compare plans, and buy one there.

Immigrants are certainly eligible to use the program. See the link in my signature for information you will need to provide and how you are eligible. Open enrollment is closed, however since you will be newly married and also newly immigrated, you qualify under a special enrollment for a life changing event. You are free to purchase insurance whenever, but you may find doing so slightly less of a haggle if you do so while you are AOSing. Make sure you read the instructions about what evidence to provide carefully. You can also give them a call to clarify.

If you are moving to a state that has a state-run exchange, you'll have to explore your options through that. You will still be just as eligible, but be aware sometimes state-run employees haven't a single clue regarding immigrant status and it may take more than a few attempts at finding a competent person able to help. The law is very clear, but people are not.

Once your fiancé/spouse is off of their parent's plan, it would be no different for them if they need health insurance. They will either have to pay the penalty, obtain a job that offers insurance, or buy it from the exchange. Once you or your fiancé has a job, they can be covered through the employer's insurance if offered (which is a whole other ball of wax as they say, with people who may or may not understand what the law says).

Be aware that there is considerable sticker shock either way. You can choose a low cost plan with a high deductible or a higher cost plan with a low deductible.

Weigh the pros and cons, and take some time to sort through all the info. For instance I hold a private plan that costs a little over $300 a month for just myself. My deductible is middle of the road but still pretty pricey. My co-pay costs for doctor's visits are manageable, and I don't require constant prescriptions. I can choose to add my fiancé/spouse to that plan once we are married, but as you can imagine that $300 will go up significantly.

By the way, your insurance if you decide to purchase it, is your insurance. You don't have to move off of it if you don't want to. You obtaining a GC has no bearing to make it more official, so long as you're here legally and you have the means to continue to pay for it. If neither of you choose to obtain health insurance, that is also perfectly legal.. but there will be the issue of the penalty of which has it's own cost. https://www.healthcare.gov/fees-exemptions/fee-for-not-being-covered/ There is also the risk of having nothing to fall back on, should an injury or illness happen.

Hope it helps.

Thank you so much!

You can get travel insurance for your trip to the USA and I believe after that. However once you marry, I am not sure. Usually you go on your spouse employers insurance

Problem is, we're moving to a new state from the one my fiance is from and so he isn't currently employed (we've savings to keep us going a while so his looking for a job before we move hasn't been necessary). But he's also not finished his degree yet after taking time off school and so any work he would be getting typically won't have much for insurance.

Most of the threads I've read are people joining their spouses plans which isn't what our situation would involve, hence my confusion on what route we need to take.

Hi,

I'm entering the US on a K1 visa on August 1st and I'm a little confused on how health insurance will work once we're married. I understand that travel insurance won't cover me and so we would be getting temporary insurance for before the wedding.

Since my fiance is still (and will be till he's 25) on his parents plan I would need to be on my own separate health insurance plan. Is this something I can do before I've got my green card? Or is there a way I can sort out a plan during AOS? Or should I be looking into just getting the temporary insurance until I've got my green card?

Thank you so much for any help!

I've just received my interview date in the post and, as I suspected, it's just after our petition expires. I had a quick look on the link I've got from the US Embassy and it suggests all we need is for my Fiance to do another intent to marry letter (and that we don't need to contact anyone about it). I just wanted to see if anyone else had been in this situation and what they did as I don't want to risk getting anything wrong at this stage!

Thank you very much in advance!

Should be fine. Remember the W2 needs to be with it to be complete. Or print a tax return transcript from online and it won't need a W2. Often when people take a handful of proofs, London will hand back most of it and keep one thing. If you have a few recent pay stubs, you can bring those for backup.

Perfect, thank you so much for your help! It has definitely helped put my mind at ease for the interview

London interview--

Nothing needed from fiancé who is unemployed. Not even an I-134

All that is needed from other sponsor is an employer letter or one tax return. And an I-134.

My fiance quit his job as of last week since he is coming over to visit me while we finish our final stage of the K1 visa process. We've got a co-sponsor sorted so we don't have any issues in terms of proving my not becoming a public charge. I was just wondered if anyone could confirm whether or not we should be adding evidence for his unemployment? Or does the fact he doesn't have a job mean we just need evidence of income to be added for our co-sponsors form? Since he had a job until recently I'm concerned that this would look confusing on both his tax return and bank statements?

I also just wanted to check, in terms of evidence - is it a whole year of bank statements that are required or would it be from the start of this current year (January 2015 - present)? I'm struggling to find much information on what sort of evidence we need for a K1 affidavit as it seems there aren't any concrete guidelines.

Side note - I'm from the UK so this is for the interview in London, in case that helps with answering.

Any help would be very much appreciated!

Thank you so much.

Well, I received the acceptance so I am not sure if it would be returned now that its been accepted or just denied?

It looks like they would have rejected it straight away and sent it back as opposed to accepting it if the forms werent actually in there.

Correct me, if my assumptions are wrong.

If you were going to receive an RFE this wouldn't be sent until they look over the package which would be post getting the NOA1 as this is merely to tell you that they've received everything and it's waiting to be processed. Unfortunately because you're being processed at TSC you will mostly likely have quite a number of months to wait until receiving either the RFE or your NOA2 if you have sent away all the right forms. On the up side, if you do receive an RFE it means they're looking at your case and once you send back all the correct forms you should, in theory, get your NOA2 shortly after.

Hope this is of some help, good luck!

We filed in November. The processing delay looks like it's getting worse. I reckon we'll be June, I was hoping for May but no point being disappointed, might as well aim for it being really late. They could do a bulk transfer to CSC, who knows! But for us we are planning nothing until we get the NOA 2

It definitely does seem to be getting worse. Hopefully they will do another lot of transfers to CSC, looks like they could really use it and it'd surely be beneficial for everyone. It's pretty crazy how delayed they seem to be .

Also for the OP, I'd definitely agree with the not planning anything wedding wise till you've got your NOA2 OP. We got sent to CSC but still didn't even consider anything concrete really until we got ours.

More like 7-8 months for NOA2.

Definitely much more likely, yes! However, there are some who have had their NOA2's after filing in August which was why I suggested 5 months or more as there is the possibility of it being less.

3. First Notice of Action - Is this received by the petitioner (my fiancee) at the beginning of the 2-3 week timescale on the flow chart or at the end? I presume it is 2-3 weeks following postage of the package?

This would be mailed to your fiancee or if you send the electronic notification form in with your petition you would receive an email/text when they first issue the NOA1 which would let you know a week or so earlier due to not having to wait for the mail. This is to say they've received your petition and from then you just have to wait for the NOA2.

4. Second Notice of Action - I have tried to understand the current processing times at http://www.visajourney.com/content/times but I'm struggling. I see the "Current Processing Times" heading on the right side but I don't know which date I'm looking at (CSC, TSC, or VSC) and what that date means.

CSC, TSC AND VSC are the different service centers - California (CSC), Texas (TSC) and Vermont (VSC). Only California and Texas process I-129F's and because your fiancee in Alabama yours should be sent to Texas which is unfortunately the one with the longest waiting times. Currently you'll be looking at around a 5 month+ wait for your NOA2 as they have quite a bit of backlog.

Best of luck with your process!

Our case was approved on February 18th, just waiting for the hardcopy to arrive in the mail!

I can't really say much in terms of specific embassy's as I'm from the UK rather than Canada but, as for the other questions -

My fiancé and I had been together for exactly a year when we became engaged (he proposed on our anniversary) and we then started the application process a month later, I've seen storys of people who have been together for far less time and had no problems so I wouldn't worry about that being an issue! We just sent a handful of pictures (most were simply selfies with I think 2 being us in front of a castle and things that were in my hometown and his) and they didn't seem to have an issue as our petition was accepted yesterday. We also sent our flight itineraries and copies of our boarding passes from visits, so if you have anything like this I'd suggest adding them in for evidence, we also added in a picture of the ring he gave me and some copies of scrapbook pages which had cinema tickets and things (not very strong evidence but it was all we had). From what I've seen boarding passes/passport stamps/etc. are very good for showing you've entered the country as well as sending pictures with you together to show you've met in person should be fine. Make sure you triple check all the forms and include letters for intent to marry for both of you with each signed in wet ink (they don't accept digital signatures).

Best of luck and I hope this helps at least some!

It's basically an estimate on when you will hear the decision on your petition, in other words when you should receive your NOA2 (not necessarily the hard copy however, as this may take longer to arrive in the mail). This could be earlier or later as it's merely an estimate that has been calculated from looking at others at the same service centre as you.

Best of luck!

This is a lovely thread it's so interesting hearing other people's stories!

We went to the beach to celebrate our 1 year anniversary, we had gone to a beach the first day we met in person and began dating so it seemed fitting. It was absolutely freezing due to it being December and we were in the UK but it was lovely even so. I was attempting (and failing) to skim stones on the water and he was trying to find some good ones for doing so. He then said my name and I assumed he was giving me another stone but instead, I turned round to a ring in his hand and he asked me to marry him we then went to see a movie, wander around the arcade place nearby and got some food.

We sent our petition on January 22nd and just got out hard copy NOA1 today! Now it feels like the process has really started!

I thought I'd say a little hello to everyone here and introduce myself! My name is Katie, I'm 19, from the UK and my fiance, Cody, is 21 and lives in South Dakota. We just sent away our I-129F yesterday and hope to be moving to Oregon if all goes to plan!

Also wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone here too, this site has been super handy and reassuring when we were trying to work out everything to include in our petition!