Officer's Fiance

I'm on my way to the US first thing tomorrow morning. Going through customs is making me nervous as hell!!!! Especially after hearing some people being turned away. Anyway, I'm bringing with me the following docs to show ties here at home in Canada:

-Letter from employer stating I am on approved leave and expected back to work on Sept 5th

-Couple recent pay check stubs

-Mortgage statement and a copy of my online banking showing mortgage and utility bill pay'ts

-A few utility bills

-Truck loan

-My return ticket (obviously)

-My sweetie is taking me on a 5-night cruise to Bermuda so I have those travel docs too.

They'll probably see that I have something going on with USCIS when they scan my passport, I was planning on telling them we just sent in our petition a couple weeks ago... (but only if they ask!) but I don't have the NO1 yet or any copies of anything submitted (my fiance has all that).

Is there anything else that somebody can think of that I might need?

I clear customs at the Ottawa airport before I even get on the plane and I live 5 mins from the airport so if they really wanted something, then I could rush home to get it.... but hopefully I'll get a nice Officer and they'll just let me through.....I'm keeping my fingers crossed and will post my experience at POE when I get to the "other side".

Tanya

Sheesh, I wish I had known this.... I had my German police certificate translated by a "certified" translator from the Embassy. It only cost me $25... but in the end, $25 is $25 I could still have in my pocket.

Our Q18 Supplement was 1 paragraph, about 5 sentences... lol and we have one hell of a story, but I really thought that they didn't need to know ALL of the details of our relationship...you really just need to concentrate on where and under which circumstance you physically at least once over the last 2 yrs.

Good luck!

4-6 months????????? That's RIDICULOUS!!!! That means I can MAYBE count on an interview around next May....Thank goodness we are planning a lae July 2007 wedding! But then again, I'm learning to to not count on anything and promised myself not to send invitation until I have that hot little visa in my hands.

I would recommend that you send it in whenever you have stuff ready.... you can always drag your heals when packet 3 and 4 comes along. Besides, the K1 is valid for 6 months from the time of issue and you can always have it extended if need be. I don't plan on moving to the US until end of next June or beginning of July and we submitted our I-129f last week

It's definitely a good sign!!! Just curious, when did you send in the petition? Can you update your timeline?

They cashed my check!!!! I can barely read the numbers on the back of the check, what do I do now, whats my next step, hehe sorry. I know this is one little step but im all excited

Ramos

Congrats! We just sent ours out on Friday too so it's always interesting to see other people's timelines who are filing from the same country

FINALLY got the word from my fiance that he mailed off the I-129f docs on Friday to VSC!!! YEY, we'll finally be in the system.... so I'm just wondering, if we get NO1 by the end of the month, and then another 2-3 months for NO2, how long is it taking MONTREAL Consulat to schedule interviews these days? I did a timeline search on VJ and it says about 2 months, but I thought I read somewhere that they are super slow and taking more like 3-4mth...... to all you Montrealer applicants, how long is the wait for an interview?

Thanks

Congrats and thanks for your post. I may be using Thousand Island POE myself so thanks

Does anyone know how long it's taking Montreal to schedule interview dates these days? I thought I saw somewhere it's taking 3 months... is that about right?

Thanks for all your replies... I'll see if the CDN cheque works, if not, I'll do the daily withdrawals with my debit bank card

I'm flying to Virginia in a couple weeks and I was wanting to give my US fiance a CDN check while I am down there for him to cash into US $$$. Has anybody ever tried cashing a CDN in the US? He banks with Navy Federal, not sure if you can only cash cheques with your own financial institution or not. If I can't do this, what are my options without having to bring the cash with me (not a good idea cause it's a significant amount). I guess I could wire him the cash, but then I don't feel like paying the $30 fee.

Ahhh, I got it now. Thanks for the post, and thank goodness I have a financial advisor who can help me take care of this for me.

I left both mine and my wifes. They are both self directed RRSP's and at two different brokerages. Both brokerages are licenced in Connecticut so they had o issues with me maintaining them there.

You have to report them to the IRS each year and disclose how much tax deferred income was made. For example. If you have an RRSP with 100,000.00 in it and you leave on August 31st, 2006. Then on December 31st your RRSP account has 110,000.00 in it you have a gain of 10,000.00 which you must declare. You can elect to defer the gains indefinately. You must also report the 110,000.00 as a foreign trust account.

Other than that, no problemo.

I was wanting to leave my RRSP's here in Canada and not touch them. Is this going to be a problem? I don't see why I need to report this on my US tax return if I am not going to cash them, at least not for another 30 years! Anybody else leave their RRSP's here in Canada?

The max you can receive is $413/week on EI. After taxes and then exchange rate, not much left but certainly better than nothing!!! I'll definitely be applying!

EI is Employment Insurance... Us Canadians pay big time into this every year from our paycheck

Once again what is Canadian EI?

Is it something like an unemployment benefit?

Yup that is correct. It used to be called Unemployment insurance but they changed it to the politically correct term of Employment Insurance.

Some for my little mind, if you come to the U.S. and can show you are authorized to work and don't have a job you can collect the benefit?

Yep, one must have enough qualified hours back in Canada to be able to get it in the USA, Depending how many hrs and how much you made in Canada all figures in how much and how long one can get EI in the USA. the max time I believe is 36 weeks and the max amt of $$$ one can get each month slips my mind. One has to actively be looking for work in the USA, they can call you up and ask for proof. Every two weeks they send you time sheets to fill out, very basic and easy to fill out.

EI is Employment Insurance... Us Canadians pay big time into this every year from our paycheck

Once again what is Canadian EI?

I thought I would add this link I found in the pinned section of working and travelling in the US:

https://s044a90.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/36f...b4?OpenDocument

It specifically states that K-1 only need an I-94 to work. However, K-3 need EAD. I'm gonna send this to EI when I apply so that they know and hopefully they won't give me a hard time. I realize that I'll still have to apply for EAD with my AOS after I get married though. Hmmmm, how would that work? You can work for 90 days until K-1 expires but then you have to apply for EAD and that takes about 3 months so can't work during then? This makes no sense...why bother only working for a few months?

Anyway, hope this link helps.

Agreed! No need to tell them if you don't want to. I've asked my HR dept for an updated letter of employment each time I cross, and I just said that I need proof of employment so they don't give me a hard time at the border. When someone some work asks if I am moving to the US cause my fiance is from there, I just say, we haven't figured out if he is coming here or I am going there

Ok help me out here as I am a little confused....

I understand so far that as a working canadian citizen, I qualify for EI in the USA cause I am "moving in anticipation of a marriage". GREAT!

According to the EI Canada website, I should apply within 4 weeks of my last day of work (and after getting my record of employment -ROE), and I assume only AFTER I have moved to the US, cause I need to send them a copy of my K-1 and I-94. Correct?

Well, what happens if I don't have an EAD to send them (cause it could take 90+days to get). On the USCIS website it specifically says that K-1 are eligible to work on a K-1. Do you send them a copy of the USCIS website saying.... "see, I am ELIGIBLE to work without an EAD"

It's just kind of confusing cause some people say they didn't need EAD to get EI and others say otherwise, what is really the policy on this???

We also have been able to receive EI without our EAD.

Dave faxed his I-94 and Visa to them about a month ago.

We got a full EI check just this past week, for the past two weeks. Don't really know how we started getting it without the EAD.

That's great, I am happy for you! It didn't work for me, I also faxed them I-94 and Visa. I guess it all depends on who is processing the case, so you may consider yourself lucky.

Thank you SO much for this post!!! I was planning on using Thousand Islands as my POE when my K-1 gets approved and now after reading your post I'll definitely use Prescott. It's not a big time difference from Ottawa anyway and worth the detour. I'll also be looking at trying to apply for the EAD ahead of time too since you mentioned it!

Thanks

Has anyone ever used Hill Island (near Kingston, ON) as a POE? That's where I'll be crossing to activate my K-1...

Great! Thanks for the advice, I'll do that today!!!

Cut it to 2x2. What I did was get one set of 2 done at Walmart, took them to Staples, made several copies. Cut the copies to 2x2 and used the originals for the passport.

I went to Costco today to get my passport pic taken for the I-129f and I noticed that the measurements are different for CDN passports, they are slightly bigger than the US. Did you all just send in the normal cdn passport size (which is bigger) or crop it accordingly to the mentioned 2" x 2"? I ended up getting the permanent resident card pics which are slightly smaller than the 2"x 2". Does anyone know how fussy they are about this? Does it have to be EXACT???

I read somewhere that you can get married in on the US Islands as well, since this is part of US land. As a Canadian citizen, my POE in the US will be via land at the 1000 Islands near Kingston where I'll be activating my K-1. I want to make sure I can still fly to the US Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico after I activate my visa to without jeopordizing the K-1.

Anybody know of anyone who has done this? My fiance and I have a very small window of opportunity to get married once I enter the US since he is military so this would be the easiest for us.

THanks

Tanya

Thanks very much for all of your feedback!!! This gives us lots to think about and start figuring out all the paperwork that needs to be done.

Tanya