fosterfication

We are in the process of shipping items to the US from my husband's former home in Switzerland and are filling out CBP Form 3299 (DECLARATION FOR FREE ENTRY OF UNACCOMPANIED ARTICLES). The form asks for his former country of residency-- this is where it gets confusing for us:

- My husband is a Swiss citizen who moved to London in 2016 and lived there as a resident until 2020, when he became a US permanent resident

- However, the items we are shipping are coming directly from his former home in Switzerland where he had lived for his entire life previously (and where his father lived until very recently)

- We also need to fill out the "Supplemental declaration for unaccompanied personal and household effects" form, which asks for his last foreign address, which would have been in London

Should we list his former residency as the UK or Switzerland? Should the last foreign address be the one from London, or from Switzerland? If we state that he was last a resident of the UK, but his stuff is coming from Switzerland, will that cause any problems since we are declaring these items for free entry?

Thank you!

For my fellow filers who, like me, had the misfortune of your petition heading to Nebraska, it's gonna be quite a bit longer for us 😬. The "out of normal processing date" for us is still weeks of June 2018, and processing times are currently at 12.5-16 months for just the i130...

We filed our I-130 at the end of March (went to the Nebraska processing center....booooo). My husband will be changing address from one flat to another in September, and will also start a new job in October. I cannot for the life of me figure out (a) If we need to notify USCIS of these changes and (b) If so, how we would do that. Given that we needed to list out his current employer and address on the form, I would imagine we need to send in updates. Does anyone know what to do in these situations? Given the length of time it is taking to process these days, I can't imagine this is a rare situation.

Never got a text even though I did include the form for one, but I just got my NOA1 in the mail today! Priority date 03/29 and Notice date 04/03. WOOOOO! Will come find the discussion for March filers too  

I sent in my I-130 the exact same day as you! I haven't received an NOA1 yet either, but do have a charge for the fee on my credit card from yesterday.

2 minutes ago, Lil bear said:

Just as you have to add you name etc at the top of the sheet , sign and date at the bottom of the form or in an obvious place near the additional information 

Cool. Thank you!

Hey team, today's the day! I've got everything all together for the I-130 petition and will be sending it off. Last minute question:

The I-130 directions for Part 9 indicate that you should sign and date every attached page of additional information. I had one more address & one more employer that I needed space for, so used Part 9 for this. However, I don't see anywhere to sign and date it. Any clues where I should do this? Is anywhere on the page ok?

2 minutes ago, hellspawner said:

as long as the doc is in the spoken lang of the embassy or consulate (well except Arabic docs in cassablanca), you wont need a translation. it just makes the review processing easier. 

I'll be filing at the Phoenix lock box because I live in Portland, OR though 😞

My Swiss marriage certificate is in 5 languages, including English, EXCEPT for my nationality (United States of America), my husband's residence (United Kingdom) and the apostille, which are all in Italian (Stati Uniti d'America and Regno Unito). Do I need to submit a separate translation for this document? And do I need to translate the apostille too?

If translations are needed, does the format of the translation need to be EXACTLY the same, or can we type it up in Word, with everything generally in the same location as the original?

Incidentally, I know that the marriage certificate didn't NEED to have an apostille, but that's what the civil status office did when they issued it (i.e. we didn't make the request or anything).

Thank you!

Oh hey, a fellow Spokanite (I grew up there)!

I'm baaaaaaacccckkkkk!!

I'm filling out the employment history section for the i-130 right now. The company I've worked for since September 2015 was acquired by another last summer. However, we were only issued a single W2 for 2018 as the company that acquired us kept us in the same payroll system to simplify our taxes (we'll get W2s from the acquiring company for 2019).

So... possible options for my employment history:

1. List Company A from 09/2015 - 07/2018 (when we were acquired) and Company B from 07/2018 - present

2. List company A from 09/2015 - 01/01/2019 and Company B from 01/01/2019 to present

3. Just list Company A from 09/2015 - present

4. Just list Company B from 09/2015 - present (this feels the most incorrect)

Do any of these options seem the most correct? I previously consulted with an attorney, and she said to list both if I received 2 W2s, but I only got one.... I imagine I could also provide an explanation in Part 9, yes?

14 hours ago, geowrian said:

You're over-analyzing. Relax.

 

Highlighting supporting evidence is fine. Photocopies that are not altered to hide anything aren't an issue.

hehe ME?? Over-analyzing???? Never 😉.

Thanks! 

This forum and site has been incredibly helpful so far, and I'm back again with another question. The i-130 Petitioner's Declaration states "Copies of any documents I have submitted are exact photocopies of unaltered, original documents, and I understand that USCIS may require that I submit original documents to USCIS at a later date." 

Does this pertain to EVERYTHING in the bona fide evidence? Or just official documents (ex: birth and marriage certificate)? If it must be for everything, how how do you deal with things like cards that are larger than a regular letter? What about boarding passes, can you resize them? Copies of passport stamps? Can you resize digital documents (ex: travel itineraries) that would otherwise take up an excessive number of pages?

Is it ok to highlight the pertinent information in these documents? Or would that be considered "altering" them?

Thanks again!

We had a fairly small wedding, so I don't have a ton of receipts, but I do have them for the wedding rings. I also have a lot of photos as well as a nice letter from the mayor that performed the service, the reception menu (with our names on it), cards, FB posts in our family's Facebook group congratulating us, and plane and train tickets from our honeymoon (plus more photos). This is in addition to all of the photos, boarding passes, passport stamps, hotel/AirBnB receipts etc... from our various travels, chat logs, docs showing we're each other's beneficiaries on life insurance & retirement funds, and photos of our matching tattoos. 

Now that I've listed all that out, I'm feeling fairly confident, but also overwhelmed at how much scanning and printing I have to do lol! 

Thanks all!

Great! Thank you everyone!

I'm aware that there isn't a required number of pages of evidence, just trying to get a sense of whether I should be aiming closer to 10 or 100, because I have quite a lot available to me :-). Generally I understand "the more the better", but is there a point at which they'll get annoyed by how many documents I'm asking them to review and store?

Additionally, we'll have to rely on travel documents as opposed to matching passport stamps, since we've never gone anywhere where we BOTH need our passports stamped since we've only traveled in the US and Europe.

Hi All!

I just got married in Switzerland to a Swiss citizen and we're going to begin the CR1 process to bring him over here. I'm a U.S. citizen. I'm wondering if anyone can provide a general guideline on the amount of evidence I should expect to provide to prove our relationship. Since we both have strong work ties in our home countries, we haven't lived together, don't have children together, and haven't been able to fully combined our finances yet (because banks make that surprisingly difficult for non-residents & residents). I have boatloads of pictures, travel documents (airplane & train tickets, hotel reservations etc...), chat logs etc..., and I'm wondering approximately how many pages of evidence should be sufficient? This is just for a ballpark estimate so I know I'm not going overboard.

Thanks!