DaveAndAnastasia

Because the USWNT frequently wins the Women's World Cup (of the 8 tournaments, they've won 4, made the final in one other, and finished 3rd in the other three) ... while the guys made the regular World Cup semifinals once in 1950.

There are various short-term insurance plans available and you can decide for yourself if the coverage is good enough to be worth it for you, but if you're using a K-1 how you're supposed to (which is to say you already know you are going to get married, you're not treating it as a "trial period"), the best thing is to just get legally married ASAP and put your new spouse on your plan. And many employers will let you make coverage retroactive to your legal wedding date. So in our case Anastasia had no health insurance for ... three days. I think that was a manageable risk.

UnitedHealthcare is one of the largest insurance companies in America (and what we have now and had since we were married, though my employer's changing for next year); you shouldn't have any trouble finding hospitals, doctors, and other medical service providers that are in-network for just about anything with them though of course you should check.

I didn't say anything that was opinion. You can look at the numbers yourself; they're publicly available. If there's significant levels of fraud in marriage-based visas outside of a handful of countries (of which Russia and Ukraine are not on the list), there's not sufficient to prevent any significant number of visas from being issued, to deny AOS, or to deny removal of conditions on a conditional green card. It's possible there's a lot of fraud that USCIS and/or the state department are not able to prove, but the existence or lack of that is basically by definition not provable (I have a lot of doubts about people who remove conditions on a divorce waiver after a very short marriage with no kids, but they were able to prove their sincerity sufficiently for USCIS, and fraud which both parties are in on is extremely difficult to prove if they can keep their stories straight), and any speculations about such are basically guesswork. And it's certainly possible that a reason why couples broke up before a visa was issued was that the US citizen suspected they were being used for a green card. But again, that's speculation based on zero data; there are a lot of stressors on international relationships and many couples file after their first in-person meeting so it's hardly surprising that a non-trivial number of couples break up after filing a petition.

In fact fiancé(e) and spouse visas see very little provable fraud in most countries (including Russian and Ukraine, which have a reputation for fraud that's not based on reality, or at least reality before Putin's adventures in Ukraine). At least on the K-1 side as of a few years ago when we were in-process, the overwhelming majority of petitions were approved, and while a significant fraction of approved petitions don't lead to issued visas, that's very rarely due to suspected fraud. The most common reason -- by far -- for a fiancé(e) visa petition to not lead to an issued K-1 is that the couple broke up and so either the petition was withdrawn or the beneficiary declined to apply for a visa. AOS applications from K-1 visa holders are almost never denied for anything other than paperwork errors, and the same goes for removal of conditions later on.

Good luck. On one hand, the housing market is nowhere near as crazy now as it was last spring when we bought our place, so you may not have to deal with, erm, many other offers. On the other, interest rates are much higher now...

Though if you can get refundable or minimal change fee tickets, that's less of an issue. And I think that's more common now than a few years ago (though not as common as at the height of covid). /back when Putin wasn't invading his neighbors and Anastasia's K-1 was in post-interview administrative processing, there was a point where there was basically no difference between a refundable ticket from Moscow to LA and a non-refundable one plus an extra checked bag (which the refundable ticket included), so I got her ticket then ... and she ended up with her visa in hand a few days before she needed to leave her hometown for Moscow on the original schedule.

Yup. CR-1/IR-1 was always the better visa once you had it. K-1 used to be a better process if actually getting married prior to entry to the US was difficult (that's why we did one; young single Russians couldn't easily get tourist visas even in 2018, marrying in Russia was a pain, marrying in a third country would have taken another trip to somewhere we wouldn't have otherwise gone just to get married) and/or if you wanted to get to living together in the US significantly faster even if you had to then do AOS. However, since then ... Covid made it clear that fiancé(e)s' (as opposed spouses') needs won't be prioritized in emergencies Utah Zoom marriages made difficulties with marrying in some countries largely moot Processing time differentials have fallen a lot (when we first filed it took about twice as long on average to get to the US as a spouse vs a fiancé(e) -- ~9 months vs ~18 months; I understand the numbers are quite different now) ... and even back in 2018, I would have advised someone from a VWP-eligible country to do a CR-1 in most cases.

Depending on what's involved in legally marrying a foreigner in Croatia (this is more complicated than you'd think in many countries), you might consider marrying in the US (Croatia is visa waiver program eligible, in most states marrying a foreigner quickly is pretty simple, and if you have documents in English to start with then you don't have to get them translated later for US immigration stuff) or doing a Utah Zoom marriage (perhaps while in Croatia) rather than getting legally married by Croatian authorities. It doesn't matter where you get married before starting the spousal visa process, as long as the wedding is legal there, being married to that person is legal where you live in the US, and you've been together in person between the time of the wedding and the time you file (aka online/proxy marriages don't count until consummated, but for immigration purposes that just means you're together in the same place at the same time).

Unfortunately, the appropriate visa for what you're trying to do (visit) is the one that you were rejected for (B2). Perhaps some others here can advise how to best prove she has strong ties to Colombia and will return; normally a spouse (and maybe children) would be points in favor of intention to stay but as they'd all be American citizens I don't know how that would go. It doesn't make a lot of sense to go through immigrant visa (IR1/CR1) or immigrant-intent visa (K1) processing just to visit; they're expensive and take a very long time to process. The only way to make what you want to do easy (at least from a US immigration standpoint) would be to get married and come to the US (in whichever order, on the right visa for it), live here until she got US citizenship (minimum 3 years, probably closer to 4), and then come and go as you please.

Congrats. Also thanks for letting me know they do same-day oath ceremonies here in San Diego. I had been trying to find out.

Though I largely agree with your general conclusions, and wouldn't do a K-1 today ... we started the K-1 process three months after you did, and my wife got her 10 year green card in April and filed for citizenship in July. Granted, a big part of that was because San Diego was processing AOS relatively quickly in 2019. Since Zoom weddings were not a thing in 2018, though, I definitely don't regret doing a K-1. We wouldn't have been able to get together for a third-country wedding (there was no way we were marrying in Russia and as a young-ish single Russian woman, Anastasia was unlikely to get a US tourist visa) for another few months (we filed after I met her family in Russia, and would not have married before then even if it had been practical to do so anywhere we'd been together at), and at the time it was taking about 9 months for a K-1 and 18 for a CR-1 from petition to interview.

I doubt it's typical, as my wife doesn't have a middle name (and using a Russian or similar patronymic as a middle name can cause issues some places and be useful in others, so it's a coinflip as to whether you should, but we didn't) and we never got anything with "NMN" in it. Did have a small issue because we put her patronymic as a middle name on the K-1 application and then didn't on AOS, which confused a social security administration worker when we got an updated card (as Anastasia [my last name] and with no 'valid for work only with DHS authorization' text).

Yes, you should (at least, as long as it's free). Your plans could change (especially if processing your I-485 takes an unusually long time), and your definition of an emergency may not be the same as USCIS' (so you might not be able to get emergency advance parole for what you consider an emergency). If USCIS ever starts charging for an I-131 filed with an I-485 or gets back to routinely processing AOS in a few months, then you might think about skipping the I-131, but they're not doing that now.

Okay, here 🤣

Ate last slice yesterday, man. Too late. I have photos. We'll see if you get to see them 🤣. Saw baboons, monkeys, gorillas, gibbons, and maybe orangutangs either at the zoo or the safari park, but no chimpanzees, I think. That's in Texas. In California one of our senators is Diane Fine-shine.

I think VJ was down for a couple of days? Anyway Dave's adventures in cooking - Instant pot ribs: very good. Instant pot Mongolian Beef: not as good as sous vide version (tried this because I was short on time) Low carb Pumpkin Cheesecake: pretty good (parents are coming for Thanksgiving, so I want to make sure any low-carb Thanksgiving food actually tastes good before giving it to them because I need to stick with my diet 🤣) Mini-Dave's adventures - Acquired Halloween costumes (mini-Batman, Captain Marvel, and a Jedi robe) and decorations; PRG said if she didn't know the adult costume sections in Party City and the Halloween store were for Halloween costumes, would have thought they were for something else 🤣. Went to the Safari Park (formerly the Wild Animal Park) a couple weeks ago with neighbors. Have some cute pictures of mini-Dave with neighbor girl. Also took the Africa Tram (which my mom didn't want to wait in line for the last time we went, but definitely should have), so have cute pictures of baby giraffe, baby rhino, and various other animals in giant open spaces. Picked mini-Dave up from daycare last week and seemed to be the end of a birthday party; no one told us, man (brought mini-Dave's cake and some party favors home; don't really know the birthday girl, but would have sent something with mini-Dave if I'd known it was her birthday) Immigration adventures - PRG learned Russian consulate was doing a few days in LA, so we can drive up to renew her passport instead of flying to Houston or DC; yay, man. PRG is also studying citizenship questions since someone on VJ in Sandy Eggo from our month got an interview scheduled; has not claimed our president, VP, governor, senators, representative, the Speaker of the House, or the Chief Justice is Calvin Klien 🤣.

/delete

More it's just irrelevant to the discussion; USCIS doesn't determine whether or not they'll be able to enter the US. Frequently Asked Questions on COVID-19 Vaccinations and Testing for International Travel (state.gov)

That was the theory. But given handing out divorce waivers like candy and otherwise a really low rejection rate for anything other than paperwork errors, it doesn't seem to be having that effect.

USCIS is a rounding error in the federal budget. It's badly managed, but they're processing things slowly because they're bad at it, not to try and make money. My dumb idea would be to change conditional green cards to three years, so you can skip ROC if you qualify to naturalize under the three-year rule.

We saw a few listings like that when we were looking around a couple years ago, but ended up with a more conventional two-story layout 3BR townhouse. Don't think mom would have appreciated that many stairs. In retrospect probably should have bought a place as soon as PRG got here, but buying in 2020 was a better idea than in 2021, and 2021 a better idea than 2022... Pacific cyclones never make landfall north of Mexico (parents, middle brother + wife + nephew even more mini than mini-Dave are in Florida), just saying, man ...

Cool. Especially since that's our field office too. Sorry, I don't know (and don't think so).

Yeah. My brother and his wife had a boy a couple months ago, and we alternate between thinking "he looks a lot like mini-Dave at that age" (not surprising, since they're first cousins) and "we barely remember when mini-Dave was that little". Snuck in reading a book to him early this morning just before early morning meeting started.

No, going to PetCo is expensive. The Padres are good, or at least have players that were good for other teams and spent a lot of money. Liked looking at a lot of stuff (monkeys, fish, sharks, turtles, giraffes, hippos, elephants), was disappointed sometimes when he wanted to backtrack but we thought walking through an exhibit three or four times was enough, got tired but still didn't like being put in his stroller until PRG turned on cartoons on her phone, but was out and walking again later.