TrueNorth

WOW, 27 years!

Thanks for the info, you're a gem!

I did some researching and I think the part I bolded below applies to hubby, so he can actually stay past the 17th and THEN adjust. Yes, I'm repeating this to myself a lot because I can't let myself be happy and relieved until I'm SURE. thank you for pointing this out, I never would have known otherwise!!

Alien must have entered the United States on the basis of a nonimmigrant visa

I.N.A. § 222(g) clearly states that the provision applies only to "an alien who has been admitted on the basis of a nonimmigrant visa..."

Aliens who enter the United States in ways other than with a particular nonimmigrant visa in their passport are not affected by § 222(g). USCIS and DOS clarified that the following individuals are not subject to overstay penalties, since they did not enter the United States on a nonimmigrant visa:

• Individuals who come on immigrant visas;
• Those who enter the United States under a visa waiver program (WB or WT status on the Visa Waiver Pilot Program or Guam Visa Waiver Program);
• Individuals who are not required to obtain visas under 8 C.F.R. § 212.1© (e.g., Canadians);
• Those who enter without inspection; and
• Those who are admitted to the United States in parole status.

It is important to understand that individuals in these categories who stay longer than the authorized period of stay are still in violation of their status, but they are not subject to I.N.A. § 222(g).

OK so because I'm paranoid and don't want to do the wrong thing, you're saying that he can "overstay" by those 3 days and I can file the package on the 20th (when I get paid, woot!) and it won't count against him as breaking any laws or overstaying because he's Canadian and I'm adjusting him here in the US and I'm a US citizen. I don't then have to submit the paperwork before the 17th which is technically his 180th day here in the States. I know you're usually only allowed 180 days as a visitor. (Is there any way to extend that, btw?) Seems things are different for Canadians and I'm always finding something new.

Am I understanding right?

And thanks because if this is cool then I can just ship the entire package and full payment on the 20th instead of scrambling to get it in by the 17th.

Wow, really? That would solve alllll my problems in a heartbeat! I could get everything to them within the next 2 weeks and we would not have to worry about any overstay. That's why I have been going bonkers with trepidation, I thought he'd get deported or something and banned if he overstayed by even a day. (This was also extremely worrying to me back in 2008 when I was pregnant and putting together the package, I thought he would not get to stay and see his child born. talk about stress!)

I had no idea Canada was treated differently that way; I did find out that they don't give stamps in your passport a lot of the time coming into the states from Canada and also we don't get that entry document (something 94?). They kept saying we were supposed to get one but I found online that they don't bother with that for Canadians.

I have been to a lot of immigration lawyers here in Texas but I have to be honest and say that they really have no idea how to handle Canada. They're experts in Mexico, but Canada is probably very rarely seen by any of them, which is why I ended up doing the whole thing myself.

--Answered my own question. I must have missed that in the list the first time. It just gets worse every minute:(

I don't think I can wait the two weeks, can I? He'd be considered having overstayed after June 17th, no? I get paid June 20th.

Can I possibly file the I-130 or the AOS separately by about 2 weeks time? I am short by less than $200 on the money because I have to pay to have my car imported, inspected, registered and just got new car insurance for Texas since the Canadian one expires tomorrow. So I'm a bit short for the fees. Is it possible to not file both together and still have them be ok as part of the same petition? I just need 2 weeks, maybe less if I can borrow the money. It would change where I file, right? Not the Chicago lockbox, but somewhere else?

Thanks!

We moved up there in December of 2010. We didn't know about the form you can send in before you leave which gives you 2 years without losing your PR status in the USA so he voluntarily gave it up after a few months. We always wanted to come back but didn't know how soon, like if it would be a year or two or more.

Thanks for the directions, I will go check it out!

I don't think we have conditions as we have been married 7 years in July. We did the removal of conditions last time as we were less than 2 years married.

The guy at Homeland Security told me to AOS with him here and handed me the stack of paperwork to fill out (with the neat holes at the top and all).

I just don't know if I can skip doing the I-130 because isn't that one pertaining to bringing him across the border? Can I just the I-485 along with the others listed here:

http://www.visajourney.com/content/adjustmentforms

It doesn't have the I-130. I have already printed the Affadavit of Support contract between household member and sponsor as I know I do need that one.

I wish they had kept all this stuff at USCIS and not had us go through all of it again, I mean our past information has not changed. I can see paying the fee and updating address, income, photos. I have to get proof he has had his vaccines and last time we didn't have the proof with us (it was in Canada) so he got vaxed like mad. Now the clinic that did the vaccines on him is trying to get us to pay them another $100+ to get more. I find that wrong as they have the record of what he got in 2008 (seems they don't want to give it to us!) and he does not need to be dosed that much. He had childhood vaxes and another full round in 2008.

Thank you Krilkit.

I'm bummed about the DCF for Canada. Ugh. We have issues with a house up there half owned by hubby's parents that they're desperate to sell and we need to get our stuff out of it ASAP but there's no one up there to get it done (or we trust to do it!) Ha ha evidence we sure didn't intend to stay, even our marriage cert is up there. I will have to do some spry ordering and overnighting of stuff and I'm cutting it really close money wise.

Can I file the AOS without the I-130 or split them up somehow so I get a chance to get another paycheck? I just need two weeks time but he has to have something filed before the 17th, that's his 180th day here. ACK.

(I honestly can't recall everything I did in 2008 and as it is allll my copies of that paperwork are you guessed it, up in Canada.)

Hi!

My Canadian hubby is currently here in the US and we've been visiting. We usually live just outside Montreal. He used to have a green card for the USA but gave it up because his father offered him a job etc. up there. So off we went (me kicking and screaming). So here we are wanting to redo the whole thing and of course the costs have gone up quite a lot since we did ours in 2008.

We went to Homeland Security and they handed me the forms to adjust him here. We also talked to the Border and Customs officers at the airport who also said we can adjust from here (which we actually did successfully last time.) We entered as visitors in December for Christmas since we had not been down to see my Mom and relatives for 3 years. We ended up staying because there was a polar winter and we put off our return to avoid it (my friend in Quebec told me it was - 58 degrees Fahrenheit!) My mom had a health scare (she's 80) so we stayed longer to get her to doctors (she doesn't drive or have help, one reason I didn't want to move to Canada in the first place.)

Ok all that aside, I am trying to figure out which is the best thing to do: go back to Canada and apply for the IR from there, or stay and do it from here.

The biggest question is, can we do a Direct Consular Filing through the Montreal Consulate? I emailed them (they don't allow calls for this issue) and here's their response:

Hello,

Thank you for your inquiry.

Previous regulations permitted individuals overseas, who comprise about 5 percent of all I-130 petitioners, to file with USCIS or their local U.S. Embassy or consulate. Under the new process, USCIS may authorize the Department of State to adjudicate their case in certain emergency situations, including when:

· A U.S. service member stationed overseas becomes aware of a new deployment or transfer with very little notice.

· A petitioner or beneficiary is facing an urgent medical emergency that requires immediate travel.

· A petitioner or beneficiary is facing an imminent threat to personal safety.

· A beneficiary is within a few months of aging out of eligibility.

· The petitioner and family have traveled for the immigrant visa interview, but the petitioner has naturalized and the family member(s) require a new, stand-alone petition.

· The petitioner adopted a child and there is an imminent need to leave the country.

Individuals who must file Form I-130 at the Chicago lockbox should use the addresses provided in the revised form instructions, also available on www.uscis.gov/I-130:

For U.S. Postal Service:

USCIS
P.O. Box 804625
Chicago, IL 60680-4107

For express mail and courier deliveries:

USCIS
Attn: I-130
131 South Dearborn – 3rd Floor
Chicago, IL 60603-5517

This new process was published in the Federal Register on May 17, 2011. Additional details are available in the related interim Policy Memoranda, issued Aug. 10, 2011. Individuals with questions or concerns should contact the USCIS National Customer Service Center at 1-800-375-5283.

You may refer to the links below for more information regarding the filling of an I-130 petition abroad.

http://www.uscis.gov/i-130#

http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/immigrate/types/family/immediate-relative.html

http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/immigrate/immigrant-process/petition/file/filing-immigrant-petitions-outside-the-u-s.html

http://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/uscis-centralizes-filing-form-i-130

We hope this information is helpful in guiding you in the processing of your immigrant visa application.

Thank You

Sincerely,

OP19

Correspondence Unit

U.S. Consulate General in Montreal

-----------------------

It's looking like the answer to filing directly is NO. Did I read it right?

So my option is filing the IR-1 from Canada or filing the...what? from here. Do I need to send in the I-130 and the I-485 together at the same time? The price for those together is currently how much? I think I read the I-? (adjustment of status) is now $900 something dollars? (It was I think $585 or something when we did it last. HUGE hike!)

Other option is sending hubby back and I stay with our daughter with my mom until he's approved. I have to have a domicile established here, anyway. Mom is also my co sponsor for him, like last time. (Figures that in those 3 years I had much better finances and could sponsor him myself but things have taken a downturn.)

Also, do I even file the I-130 if he's already present in the country? Isn't that for permission to enter? Sorry, the homeland security people were really no help and this is very confusing. I don't know if I can afford to send both at the same time if it's going to cost like 1700 dollars. I can afford about $1000 right now, maybe $1200.

All the Immigration issues aside- moving to Canada sounds like a great opportunity for you guys, at least for now. It would give yourself a break, you could recover financially and you already mentioned the benefits for your daughter.

Just by that I would say move, unless you have some personal issues with moving up there. You can always file again when you decide to return to the US.

If you file for removal of conditions now and decide to move, that would be a total waste of money since your husband would lose his status again within the first year of moving back to Canada.

I am not sure if you can do DCF in Canada, but if so, that would be a good solution when you want to return.

All the best wishes to you!

BTW What's DCF? I have a migraine and I just can't remember what that means.

All the Immigration issues aside- moving to Canada sounds like a great opportunity for you guys, at least for now. It would give yourself a break, you could recover financially and you already mentioned the benefits for your daughter.

Just by that I would say move, unless you have some personal issues with moving up there. You can always file again when you decide to return to the US.

If you file for removal of conditions now and decide to move, that would be a total waste of money since your husband would lose his status again within the first year of moving back to Canada.

I am not sure if you can do DCF in Canada, but if so, that would be a good solution when you want to return.

All the best wishes to you!

Thank you:) We're just worried because if we don't file to lift conditions, he will be deported at the end of October. So there's a small window of time to file it, and I have no idea how long Canadian immigration could take for me. I don't want to have us get separated after all we've been through to be together. Ahh borders:( If only he'd been American we'd just pack up and drive to another state with no mess and no fuss but this is just stressing all of us out. His dad is talking to a lawyer but he himself doesn't understand the whole "conditions" thing. I tried explaining it to him but he seems to think lawyers are like pixies who make everything all right;) He's a great FIL but he is stubborn in a lot of things and doesn't always listen.

He would not have to give up his Canadian citizenship. He can be dual, and your kids most likely are dual too. (You have to have your husband report the child's birth abroad with the appropriate Canadian authorities and get this child their passport). and Canadian immigration will not care about your bankruptcy.

As far as immigrating to Canada, there are two ways, in country and out of country. out is faster.

We're definitely out of country right now Yes, our child is dual already as she was born in the US but Canada gives her citizenship because of her father being a citizen. She has a US passport but not a Canadian one yet (I wonder, do we need to be in Canada to get her one? That may be a question for another thread.)

I'm guessing you mean removal of conditions since from your timeline it appears your husband did AOS in 2008. If I were you, I would wait until my husband had become a citizen so you don't have to ever go through immigration again if you want to come back. I'm not an expert on citizenship, but it can be applied for after 3 years of permanent residency...check the guides and that will correct any errors in my language or knowledge. The rest I guess depends on your priorities and what is good for your family.

I don't think that would work because he'd have to give up his Canadian citizenship and without that I don't think he can sponsor me (?).

Be careful when dealing with credit card companies (as if I really need to tell you but seriously they're all corrupt). I called up Discover where I had an account and asked for a card in my mom's name so I could give it to her for emergencies. They sent me the card but I ended up never giving it to her. I did get her a card on one of my other accounts that she didn't use, either. Anyway, all I had to do was call and ask for them to send the card. They even had a thing online where I could log into my account and add them and they ship me the card. They didn't ask for any kind of personally identifying info or anything!

So fast forward and my mom is going bankrupt and I'm going bankrupt. She tells me that she wants to make sure that she's "off" my card accounts so I call up and get her taken off.

My hubby also had a card in his name which he used a few times and now he has one credit report (the other agencies don't seem to know he exists?) and it's MY credit cards on it even though HE never signed anything or gave them any personal information.

So technically if you know you're going to go bankrupt, you can have a few cards made in the names of whoever you want, use them to run up purchases, then when you are delinquent it will ruin THEIR credit reports.

(There is another method of actually adding a person to your account whereby you fill out forms and have them sign etc. but the credit card reporting agencies don't really seem to care which way it's done -- your spouse, friend, family member or WHOEVER could be affected by this even if they have no knowledge of your getting a card in their name, using it and defaulting on it. Then they have to fight to get rid of it.

Technically just because I had a card in my mom's name or hubby's name should not make them responsible for the balance of the account. It is MY account, NOT theirs. I am allowing them to use it but I am the responsible party.

credit card companies are all shady so be careful. They have all sorts of ways to destroy you if you don't know how to play the game.

You do have to go into debt to get a credit rating because credit is when someone is loaning you money you aren't paying out of cash. So even if it's for one month or 5 minutes it's still debt. You can pay it off every month but if you're not paying cash at the transaction and you're using a credit card, it's a debt.

It seems that the main thing is credit cards, they seem to affect stuff pretty heavily. You can always go into debt with buying a house (mortgage) or car (car loan.) There isn't any way to really establish that you will consistently pay back what you borrow if you never borrow anything.

My Canadian husband is a permanent resident in the US and we need to file for LOC in about 3 or 4 months. Everything was on schedule and fine until his father had a talk with him about how he wants us all to move back to Canada so we will be with the family (they really REALLY want to be near our daughter, their only granddaughter) and Dad is offering my husband a full time job at the family business. Now my husband has had no luck getting a job in the US because he's only ever worked for his dad's business in Canada and has no experience doing anything else. He's been applying for everything under the sun he can find with no luck (he's gone on interviews, he's even gone to the workforce commission).

I am working 2 jobs while he takes care of our daughter and we're doing okay but we can't afford health insurance and cut things close financially every month. We don't have any money saved up and I am about to file medical bankruptcy (I'm fine but it took a lot of years and a lot of money to find that out).

So here we are and here's the problem:

My husband and I aren't really keen on moving to Canada. The things that are compelling for us are the opportunity for him to have a great full time job in an area he's familiar with while I and my daughter have access to his HUGE family and we will be better off financially. I have a very small family and don't see them hardly ever so I like the idea of my child being able to be around family, having her grandma and grandpa plus she has a cousin who is just 2 months older than her and so on. It would be great for her, and I'm thinking of her first.

If it were just a question of moving from one state to another, no one would ask questions or wonder why -- it would be obvious and simple. But because we have a border in the way, it's a huge complicated thing. The issues:

I don't know if Canada is even going to want me with my bankruptcy pending.

If we're staying in the US, we have to file LOC or hubby will get deported.

If we are going to Canada, how will that look to the US?

If we file LOC while intending to move to Canada, that doesn't seem right at all. Immigrating to Canada it will probably be a long drawn out process and I can't figure out how it would work considering we have a time limit for LOC for the US. If Canada rejects me, I want to obviously stay here and just make the best of things.

How do I find out if Canada will let me in before the time limit for LOC is up?

We worked so hard and spent so much time, effort, money and put so much emotion into getting my husband into the US that I feel it would be such a waste to just go up to Canada. At the same time I'm working 70 hours a week and it's wearing me out.

Any thoughts or advice?

Ack I'm sorry I posted this twice! I'll report it for the mod to remove.

About the joint/supplemental issue, I have a bunch of credit cards and called up to get cards for my husband. He's not on my account as a responsible party, I just had cards issued in his name. At the time, I didn't KNOW I wasn't requesting the correct thing, but any card I got for him IS showing up on his credit report. How can that be, if I never filled out any paperwork or told them his SSN or anything? Like I said, I thought I was asking for joint, but since the rep just said they'd send me out a card with his name on it, I thought "Wow, that was easy."

Now I want to correct his credit report because technically he's not on those accounts but they're still showing up on his report. ANy ideas about this?

When my hubby and I came down from Canada I had brought my laptop and the officer had gone through all our stuff while we were inside waiting at the desk. I didn't know what he was doing out there but he was gone a long time. We had been married in Canada so the officer comes back and asked me what the To Do list item I had about going to the social security office was about. That was a To Do list file on my desktop. I told him I had to get my name changed to my married name and get a new Social Security card, which was the truth. He was okay with that.

They will take your stuff out and go through it. And this guy even left all our luggage out because he couldn't (or just didn't) put it back in the trunk so we were out in the freezing rain shivering trying to get it all back in.

We had our interview on October 23rd and were approved. I posted a review; the Officer was nice and interview lasted 10 mins. He didn't ask anything outside the info we'd already sent in. We brought tons of documents and photos etc. but he did not ask for anything other than our ID's and the notices for the employment authorization and the advance parole.

I don't agree that this was discrimination. It's more like a less informed or intelligent worker the first time. I went to the Dept of Homeland Security here in TX and there was a hispanic woman at the window who demanded our I94 even though hubby is Canadian and they don't get one. Was THAT discrimination or was she just ignorant about her job? We also saw a hispanic man there who also didn't know his butt from his elbow concerning Canadians. Hubby and I are both white. Was it racism? I don't think so. I think they were just completely not informed on how to deal with Canada as opposed to Mexico. We went to the Border and Customs at the airport and talked to 2 white people and 1 hispanic person, all were nice, all helped us, ESPECIALLY the hispanic guy. So don't jump to thinking it's gotta be racism. Sometimes it is just people are not knowing their jobs. We've all seen this in action when dealing with USCIS matters across the board. You always get a different answer depending who you talk to.

Technically they can not force you to be vaccinated in order to enter the country. Also, each state has their own laws on exemptions -- some allow only medical exemptions while some allow medical and religious, and others allow medical, religious and philosophical. It is a myth that you are required to be vaccinated to enter the country and also that your children need to be vax'ed to attend school. They tell you this of course in order to make more money. Of course the way things are and the way people in power are so ignorant I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to force the issue even though it is not legally required. They just aren't mentioning that you can claim an exemption;)

Howdy all,

My mom used to live with me and signed as sponsor under the household member agreement when we filed in April. We've now moved, hubby, me and baby in one apartment and mom at her own apartment. We just moved last week and I'm wondering now what I need to do to update things with the USCIS. I did the address change form online for myself and my husband, and received confirmation that my new addy was received.

Do I now change my mom from a household member to a Joint sponsor? Do I just need to have her fill out the I864 since they already have copies of all her tax forms and financial paperwork or do I need to re-submit those with the I864?

Mom is still able to be a joint sponsor because her income alone is above the 125% of poverty. I just need to know if filing a new I864 is okay and do I send it to the same address I sent the original paperwork? Is there a special way to address it?

Thanks so much!