DaveAndAnastasia

12 hours ago, TBoneTX said:

RANT, grrrr man:  When will the sports-drink-makers comprehend that they should bottle and distribute at least Many times (2+2 times) -- yes, at least Many times (2+2 times) -- the amount of grape flavor as they do the worthless flavors, which people buy only because grape is sold out, huh huh huh man?

Perhaps they believe their customers are enlightened individuals who realize grape flavoring tastes like cough syrup?

On 7/1/2022 at 7:38 PM, Rocio0010 said:

We call them “paraguas”, which in Spanish means “umbrella”

Not "two waters?" 🤣

49 minutes ago, Eric-Pris said:

We got married in 4 days too.

3 here, though the plan was 4, the county clerk's office in Temecula (closest one to us with an outdoor wedding area) didn't have any open slots on Friday when we went to get our marriage license on Tuesday so we took the last one on Thursday (I didn't think they'd be busy, so figured we could do this in one trip and not have any issues getting the day we wanted; otherwise I would have gone ahead and sche). Which meant my parents met Anastasia in person for the first time a few hours before we got married. 🤣

52 minutes ago, mugatu300 said:

Thank you for the reply. Can you explain what you mean by "via Montreal".

 

When I checked the USCIS website, the estimated timelines looked to be about 12-15 months for CR1. Are you saying those timelines are underestimated and it is more like >2years? 

The timelines on the USCIS web site are for the USCIS part of the process, which is only the first stage.

After your petition is approved, it's then sent to the State Department's National Visa Center (NVC), and then goes on to the embassy or consulate that handles immigrant and immigrant-intent visas where your fiancée or spouse lives (in Canada, this is Montreal).

For a K-1 the time at NVC is pretty short (or used to be, seems like it's nearly 3 months now; it was half that for us and we thought that was long) and they don't do much there; for CR-1s it's somewhat longer.

See IR1/CR1 Visa Historical Processing Times - USCIS Immigration Processing Times - VisaJourney and K1 Fiance Visa Historical Processing Times - USCIS Immigration Processing Times - VisaJourney for how long every stage is currently taking according to VJ members' reports (note that these tend to be trailing indicators of changes in processing time for a lot of reasons, but only the USCIS stage has official estimates; NVC and the various embassies and consulates do not).

You can also see consulate processing times broken down by country 

K1 and K3 Visa US Immigration Statistics (visajourney.com)

and IR1 & CR1 Visa US Immigration Statistics (visajourney.com)

4 minutes ago, mugatu300 said:

Now, just have to consider scenario where: if baby were to arrive prior to CR1 process completion. Seems like there is a general consensus regarding that too: for her to have the baby in Canada. That said, just for the hell of it I still inquired with my health insurance plan about possibility of her having baby here in the USA. I simply asked about adding a (future) wife to my insurance plan if she doesn't yet have green card. Still waiting to hear back; maybe its a stupid question but oh well. 

If you marry and apply for a CR-1, she'll be a permanent resident right away, even if it may take some time for the physical "green card" to arrive. Immigration is a qualifying event, so you'll be able to add her to your health insurance when she moves to the US.

If your fiancée arrives on a K-1, once marriage is a qualifying event and you can add her to your health insurance even though she won't have a green card yet. There's no issue with someone in the 90 day stay granted by a K1 or the "authorized stay" granted by an AOS application getting health insurance via their spouse.

Depending on your employer's policies, you may be able to add your spouse to your health insurance retroactive to your wedding date.

Having said that, especially late in a pregnancy your wife probably will be happier not changing doctors and hospitals, even ignoring different countries' and companies' new parent leaves policies. You definitely don't want your fiancée to have a baby in the US before she has US health insurance; this can be extremely expensive (I don't know what they actually would have charged someone paying out of pocket, but the total top-line, before insurance plan discount charges when my wife had our son were over $70K though of course we actually didn't pay anything close to that).

I could spend a few weeks putting all common forms that aren't already online on the web so USCIS employees could wait for months or years to spend fifteen minutes processing things that were uploaded instead of mailed.

6 minutes ago, Daphne K said:

If you pursue the K1 over the CR1, she will not be able to leave the US until she receives her Advanced parole. The fact that she has a valid B1/B2 does not change that. 

Pedant, but you can leave the US before AP during AOS (whether from a K-1 or any other visa). The US doesn't do exit checks.

What you can't do is return without a new visa, so it's a very bad idea to leave without AP (and while emergency AP is a thing, your definition of an emergency may not be the same as USCIS's).

6 minutes ago, mugatu300 said:

Just out of curiosity regarding "Spouse can not leave the US until she/he receives approved Advance Parole (approx 6-8 months)": If we pursue K1 over CR1, is she still not allowed to leave the US until she receives AP? Couldn't she re-enter US using her visitor's B1/B2 VISA or does she have to give that up when she applies for K1?

Once the K-1 is issued, any other existing US visas are normally canceled (there may be some exceptions to this I'm unaware of, but not for B1/B2 or VWP/ESTA), and the K-1 is activated the first time you enter the US after it's issued (note that any entry in the US, even changing planes at a US airport, will do this).

22 hours ago, ROK2USA said:

The K1 and and CR1 are taking similar times... if the beneficiary is the person who'd be getting pregnant I don't think K1/CR1 makes a difference (paging @DaveAndAnastasia for his experience). If the petitioner is the person who'd be carrying the pregnancy you might want to consider CR1 so you'll know at least one person will be able tobe employed throughout the pregnancy/maternity period... 

In our case, we wanted to have a baby soon but we didn't want to get started until we could live together (I can't imagine going through a pregnancy when you can't be together pretty nearly at-will). And while Anastasia would have had paid leave for a much longer time in Russia that she would have if she'd been working in the US, her salary in Russia was well below California minimum wage so that wasn't really a factor; we were better off financially with her here even not working. So it ended up that our son was born about 13 months after she arrived on a K-1 (he's a little over two now).

Especially from a VWP country like the UK (and one where Americans can visit easily too), it takes very unusual circumstances to argue for a K-1 these days. If it ever got back to a point where K-1s were typically being processed in 3 months but it took over a year for CR-1s then you could maybe argue for going that way.

Back when we did one, K-1s were a lot faster to POE vs CR-1/IR-1 than they are today, and the Utah Zoom Wedding workaround for couples that couldn't easily legally marry (the non-American couldn't easily get a tourist visa, and marrying in the non-American's country was expensive, time-consuming, or  both) didn't exist.

On 6/18/2022 at 4:45 PM, Family said:

I know you are conducting online research, so try just looking at the Marriage License Application as that will spell it out quite clearly and you may find you can marry ANYWHERE.

I read here once (have no idea if it's actually true) that in Idaho if you're eligible for an SSN then you need one there, which can be a problem for K-1 holders sometimes (although they're eligible for one, actually getting one can sometimes be difficult for some people).

But that's the only state I've heard of like that.

4 hours ago, Rocio0010 said:

Meanwhile, I did notice a train and I thought oh well, lazy people don’t want to walk”. I started walking to my gate, and walked, and walked, and walked…. “Well, here are my steps for this morning!”, then I noticed the clock was ticking and I wasn’t getting anywhere close.

Yeah, it is very important to remember at large airports that you cannot run faster than the tram (no matter how long you are waiting for it), and in fact should not try to walk between concourses unless the tram is nonfunctional.

10 hours ago, TBoneTX said:

Gas is $Many/gallon now, so if it's not your problem, you must be rich, si ma'am.

Yes, Teslas are expensive, si man.

Heck, even a RAV4 Prime is expensive if you can find one (and when PRG gets a job, may very seriously start looking for one; resale value on my car is apparently quite high, and between that and the EV tax credit if I got a not-too-insanely expensive plug-in hybrid or EV still eligible for it then it might make sense).

52 minutes ago, TBoneTX said:

Tabasco sauce drowns out that stuff nicely, try it DA man.

You won't fool me that easily.

A few drops of that stuff was great on paprikas, but only a few drops 🤣

I think if it still seems safe we're likely to visit next year some time even if it's expensive and takes sub-optimal routing.

I was only in Russia once before (visited Anastasia in May of 2018; we'd met twice before that but it wasn't in Russia); Anastasia hasn't been back since arriving on a K-1 in 2019.

First she couldn't (no AP or green card).

Then in 2020 even without Covid we had a newborn and probably wouldn't have taken a few-months-old baby on a transatlantic flight from the west coast.

In 2021 Covid was still a big deal, and we'd just bought a new place so finances were a bit tight.

And then Russia invade Ukraine, and my wife hasn't started working yet.

So we're hoping to once she gets a job.

My sister-in-law would rather meet in a third country somewhere and we could probably convince my mother-in-law to do that, but my wife still has some living grandparents and they're unlikely to travel very far from her hometown and we'd like them to see our son at least once in person.

11 hours ago, Ontarkie said:

Late but Happy Father's Day 

Thanks.

Mini-Dave had made a necktie out of construction paper at daycare, cute man.

Tried to make Mongolian beef for dinner, recipe was bit spicy though still good for me (gringo from the suburbs of Cleveland) but spicier than PRG (from a few hundred miles northeast of Moscow) would like. I guess a bit less garlic and red pepper next time...

On 6/17/2022 at 8:32 PM, laylalex said:

RANT: Jury duty next week.  I am not up for Monday, but I have to check in every evening next week. Plus side -- I can walk to the courthouse from our home. Minus side -- jury duty.

A few weeks ago PRG got a summons for jury duty.

PRG: What should I do with this?

Me: Check the "I am not a US citizen box" and send it back.

/I have no idea how she got on a list of potential jurors; like every time she interacts with the government she's checking something indicating she's not a citizen

16 hours ago, TBoneTX said:

Mini-B. refused to take off his ball cap, shy about haircut man.

As opposed to why I wear a hat when outside, which is to avoid getting sunburn on my bald spot 🤣🤣🤣

/I hate wearing hats, but sunburn on my head is worse

On 6/8/2022 at 8:17 AM, LJVotolato said:

TWO YEARS? That's insane! Everyone told me 6-9 months? I'm in California...

There are a lot of field offices in California, and processing times can vary a lot (though that's for your green card; EAD and AP are processed at the National Benefits center for everyone) among them.

When we were in that part of the process, Fresno was very fast (like 3 months to green), San Diego (which is our office) was pretty fast (my wife got her green card in 5 months), the LA & SF offices were very slow (SF was pushing two years!), and the other LA & SF area offices were faster than the one in the city proper but still on the slow side. I don't know how things look now.

It's a common misperception that states matter to processing times; field offices matter (for things handled at your local office). There are some states where everyone goes to one field office, but there are a lot of states with multiple field offices (and some field offices handle parts of multiple states).

My wife never changed her surname in Russia and has no plans to do so, but her legal name in the US is Anastasiia [my surname].

We thought about fixing the annoying double i in Anastasia from the official Russian government transliteration, but I think we've concluded that would be more trouble than it's worth.

I'm still using one I got in London the year before I met Anastasia after my luggage was stolen at Heathrow. After buying some clothes the day after I landed, I realized the next day I had nothing to carry them in on the way home.

I'm sure the thief was very disappointed to find nothing but a the clothes of a then-40-year-old American guy with inexpensive tastes, as my laptop and anything else of value (and, fortunately, a change of clothes) was in my backpack.

Erm, it used to be true that a K1 was much faster to enter the US than a spousal visa. Typo that I noticed after too long to edit.

1 hour ago, Domoniq said:

Okay thank you!! I was under the impression that the spousal visa would take much longer. But thank you for the clarification! 

In the past it was often true that a spousal visa was much faster from the US citizen filing a petition to the non-US citizen entering the US (though not necessarily faster to the non-US citizen obtaining permanent residence). However, processing times for K1s went up a lot more than spousal visas during the pandemic, and spouses have rights that fiancé(e)s do not which can be valuable these days. Given how much processing times have gone up and down over the last few years, I'd recommend choosing the path that works best for you without regard to processing times (which basically means do a spousal visa unless actually getting married is going to be difficult, you're not comfortable living apart while married for an extended period, or some other corner cases such as the beneficiary having 18-21 year old children they want to bring with them).

4 hours ago, Neonred said:

Are you in training for the July 4th Coney Island hot dog eating contest?

 

That would be way cool to see you try that.

I think T-Bone and Joey Chestnut would both eat Many hotdogs. 

34 minutes ago, EatBulaga said:

Yes, I guess I can reduce the travel insurance dates to from arrival to marriage (Special Enrollment period).

Also, check your company's policies; some companies will let you add a spouse retroactive to the date of the marriage for health insurance and some other benefits.

/which is to say that generally the best solution for health insurance for a K-1 beneficiary -- though not one that works for everyone (some people don't have insurance or don't have insurance they can add a spouse to and for some people adding a spouse is no cheaper than buying standalone insurance) -- is to legally marry ASAP and then add your new spouse to the your insurance. Also another reason why you should be ready to legally marry ASAP after your beneficiary enters the US on a K-1; you might not actually end up doing that, but there are a lot of reasons why it's a good idea.