New Beginnings

Can someone point me in the right direction to determine whether my MIL will need a transit visa to connect in France.

Moroccan citizen, valid tourist visa, layover time 2-4 hours. Flight would be casablanca - CDG - Minneapolis.

Married to a Moroccan for 7.5 years now! He came on a CR-1 visa almost 6 years ago Since then, he's become a US citizen, we bought a house, finished school and had a beautiful baby girl

Just checking back in after several years to see how this site is doing.

My husband interviewed for the K3 and then waited 6 weeks. He then was scheduled for his CR1 interview and after that interview he was in AP for about 2 weeks. I can't remember if his status said Visa Issued or not.

Totally normal, this is just administrative processing. It took about 4 weeks for my husband if I remember correctly. I emailed/called the consulate daily to check on the status. I was always very polite and nice but I just wanted them to see how involved I was. I doubt it helped at all, but it helped me.

I think it only took a week to fix our issue. It wasn't long at all.

Yeah, that's exactly what they did for us. They couldn't correct the actual contract but they gave me another page that mentioned the contract and I sent the contract and that other page (had both translated to english) in our packets. The consulate never had a problem with it.

No, the issue with ours was related to my job. At that time I worked in customer service and they put Customs Officer. So that was the correction they made. We have never had any issues with it, no RFEs, no issues at the consulate. My husband received his visa right away and is now a US Citizen.

We needed our marriage contract corrected too, but we did that before we even submitted the paperwork. I noticed it was incorrect a few days after we had it done. We went to the Adoul that did the contract and he wrote a correction that referred to the contract. So when we submitted the paperwork i just included that correction that he wrote and had notarized. If i remember correctly, that didn't take long at all. probably just a week or so.

The first time I met my husband in person was at the airport in Tangier. I also did the primping during my layover in Madrid, I was very grateful to have that time since the flight from Minnesota to Madrid was quite long. When I got in line for customs I was stuck in the slowest possible line so I ended up being the last person from that plane (at that time Tangier's airport was quite small). So after finally getting through customs I was supposed to walk through these big doors out to where the people would be. It took me about 5 minutes to finally get the nerve up to go through the doors. When I did, I saw him leaning against a wall with his friend. We both saw eachother and I walked up to him. He kissed both my cheeks and then we had to go find his other friend who was sent running through the airport to look for me because I was so late they thought maybe I got lost.

It was great that he had a friend with, we were able to sit in the back seat of the car on the way to his city and it gave us plenty of time to chat and relax. That feeling of seeing him for the first time though... one of the happiest moments in my life. We were married a couple weeks later and now we're having our first child!

Leaving my husband in Morocco was the worst feeling in the world. I still hate airports because they represented the sadness that I used to feel when I would have to fly back home. That being said, as hard as it is, try to think positive about it. You will be coming home to start your petition and then you're one step closer to starting a life together permanently. It's going to suck when you leave, there's no way around it. I remember how it felt and there is nothing that will help make it better. Try to immerse yourself in work or studies to help take your mind off of it.

My husband started out working in the produce department at a grocery store. It was a very low stress job that allowed him to communicate with people and gain some confidence. He went back to school as well right away and has moved into the industry he's studying.

If you can't find halal, try to find kosher if he is comfortable with that.

We front loaded, I sent all of our chat records, it ended up being several hundred pages. I can't say that was the right thing to do but we never had a problem with our case.

I agree, it's all about how they handle the question. My husband was asked to tell the interviewer what I had done in my 29 years of life. I was 26 at the time and so he corrected her with my age and birth date. She fought with him saying that he didn't even know his wife's birthday but that was definitely just a test. He remained calm and sure in his answers which was important.

It took us 2 weeks 2 days to get married in Morocco and we were very organized and basically sat in people's offices to make sure they were working our stuff first. Plan 3 weeks to be safe.

As for plane tickets, just make sure you buy the round-trip tickets. He won't be allowed on the plane with a one-way ticket from what I've been told. You can always cancel the other half of the ticket... just make sure you actually get it cancelled and that you have confirmation. He can absolutely fly directly into Dulles. It's just a matter of finding the right flight. You could also try Expedia.fr (the French version of our site). Finally, buy your tickets AS SOON AS you find out your dates. The closer you get to the departure date, the more expensive tickets will be (and prices are always lowest on Tuesday afternoon at 3p).

My husband came on a one way ticket with Royal Air Maroc...

I, too, heard about this on the WCCO radio yesterday. I thought they said it was the largest gathering of Oath ceramoy ever in the nation.

A big congrats to your hubby and you! Very exciting!!!

Yeah, it was absolutely amazing to see that many people. There were 100 countries represented and as they read the countries (from smallest number of people taking the oath to largest) the people there were asked to stand. Morocco was about 2/3 of the way through with 4 members, Canada had like 30 I want to say, a few Asian countries had 40-60 and the last country to be read had about 600-700 people. It was a very cool experience!

Thanks, everyone! Seriously, it's so hard to even believe at this point. I keep thinking that I should be gathering documents for the next form we have to fill out

I am so incredibly happy writing this post, yesterday my husband became a US citizen along with 1,509 other people in Minneapolis, MN. Yesterday marked the end of the exciting, stressful and seemingly endless journey that we have been on since 2007 when we met, fell in love and married. Overall our journey was relatively easy; my husband passed all of his interviews and we never had an RFE. But I don't think it would have been this way without the help of all of you. We will continue to visit this site periodically and I hope that the knowledge we've accumulated will come in handy for those still going through the process. Good luck to everyone!

1,509 people at the oath ceremony yesterday in Minneapolis, MN. 100 countries represented! Congrats to all the new citizens!! That was surely an amazing sight to see!!

Can someone please update our timeline, oath ceremony scheduled for 9/6/12!!!

Thanks for the update!

Quick question for those of you who have just passed the interview step. When checking the status of your case online at https://egov.uscis.gov/cris/Dashboard.do, did your case immediately move into the 'Decision' state, or is it still showing that it is in the 'Testing and Interview' state? My wife was told she passed yesterday, but her online status still shows her in the 'Testing and Interview' state.

Ours also still shows Testing and Interview and my husband interviewed on the 9th and was told he passed.

My husband has his interview yesterday. It went extremely well and only took at 15 minutes. We had "front loaded" our N-400 application so for the interview we just brough updated documents as well as our original marriage contract, passport and translations for both. The officer looked as his drivers license, green card and his passport but did not require the translations.

The officer asked my husband a few questions, my birthday, his birthday, the date we got married, if we had been married prior (which we hadn't), what I did for work, and who my husband lives with. He also asked him about his trips out of the US back to Morocco and if I had gone with him, I went with one time but not the second time.

After this he was asked to read a sentence "Abraham Lincoln was president during the civil war" and he had to write "Lincoln was a president". Next began the civics portion, he was asked six questions: Name one of the longest rivers in the US, How many years is the president's term, who was in the US prior to the europeans, who is the speaker of the house, what is the first 10 ammendments called, when was the constitution adopted.

After that the officer told my husband "congratulations I recommend you for citizenship" He was told that he will receive a letter scheduling the oath ceremony soon. I was shocked at how quick this interview was, I barely had time to play angry birds on my cellphone.

A visa will be required for the baby if born outside the US.