Stan1234

I won't worry about it. I'm sure your fiancee isn't the first person to not tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth regarding drug use.

I had my medical at the knightsbridge surgery and don't remember anything about drug use history and definitely wasn't asked to pee into a cup. Being a good looking 25 year old white boy has its perks. And even if on the off chance he is tested as long as he's not a regular user the screen should come up negative. Marijuana, from what I remember from my toxicology classes, is metabolised pretty quickly (less than a month, possibly even a few days, but I wouldn't swear to it).

Good luck.

Damn guess I'll have to practice my parking

I found a bunch of videos on youtube from the CA DMV which are hilarious.

Will also have to practice my ridiculously over exagerated looking - look my head is spinning more than the exorcist girl are you happy!

hello everyone here i find this site after long time searching so please i know here is best place and alot of ppl can help m

i was in realtionship with woman since 2007 and we request k1 visa to go to married here in the US

and few month ago while im waiting for my visa she want to broke up with me i dont know why and she didnt answer my email and i dont know anything now about her , and then i have met another gurl online and she also from US , so the problem now i was going to call the embassy to take my passport because i wait so much time they said they will send me the visa in few days and now i have question . can i married the girl that im in realtionship with her now , i dont mean the one broke up with me i dont mean the one file and request the k1 visa for me , i mean the one with me right now and can i married her while i go to the states , please tell me how can i married the girl not my fiancee on the k1 and where we can married and what paper we need and what she can do and what she need to do before i go to states and what should i so before go to the state , and the enbassy dont know anything about we broke up , please help me , i dont want to wait for another year to get new visa to go to states , thanks so much

So let me get this straight, you meet this girl the love of your life, someone you want to spend the rest of your days with. You're prepared to cross continents to be with her, leaving your friends, family and country behind.

For some reason the relationship breaks down and you haven't been able to contact her to find out why. So rather than trying to find out how this happend contacting her friends and family, doing anything possible to recover your lost relationship, reconcile with your fiance. You instead in the space of a few months find a new girl who also happens to also be the love of your life your life, someone you want to spend the rest of your days with. Who you're prepared to cross continents to be with her, leaving your friends, family and country behind.

And you don't think this sounds in the slightest bit suspicious? And you expect sympathy and support from the people on this site who have to go through emotional and beaurocratic hell to be with the ones they love?

If this is a serious post then your only option is to inform the embassy of your change in circumstances and re-apply for a K1. And hope that they don't (like the majority of people who have posted) think you're only out to get into the US at any cost!

Thanks for the replies. I'll be taking the test in sacramento so not sure how tough they are here?

My wife says I've already perfected the californian stop - the one where you kind of roll of to the stop line half think about stopping but don't! And my foot can be a little heavy, 25 just seems so slow. I'll have to try hard to be on my best behaviour for the test!!

Guess I'll also have to practice my parking just in case.

What vows could possibly be exchanged before God in a fake wedding?

Seperation of church and state anyone?

I don't want to denigrate anyones beliefs but say all the vows you like before god in your wedding but wait for the K1 to say you vows before the state.

I think its fairly common for people to have a religious wedding and then secular marriage.

Hello, so finally I've managed to get my driving permit (the lady at the DMV didn't even look at my EAD and didn't seem to care that my I-94 had expired months ago! so who knows?!).

Just wondering if anyone out there has taken their test in CA and give me any tips on what to expect. Its been *ah-hum* a few years since I took my driving test in the UK and have probably fallen into some bad habits. I'll definitely have to try my hardest to stop at stop signs! not speed!! and it still seems unnatural to turn right on a red light.

I'm mainly interested in knowing whether their are any manouvers involved in the test because I really can't parallel park for s**t and might need to practice my 3 point turn!

Thanks

We are planning our wedding for August 15, 2009. We've got a lot of things reserved, etc. However, I don't think we are going to recieve our visa in time. So my first thought was obviously to move the wedding. However, my pastor said that he thinks we can still do the wedding without the visa, but just not sign the paperwork. What i mean is, have the ceremony, etc, but not do a marriage license. And then after getting the visa approved, we could fill out the marriage license. Is this even a possibility? Or is it still illegal?? Please help!!!

Going back to the original post and question I can't really see the problem in going ahead with the "wedding" and then re-entering on you K1 visa (when you recieve it) and getting married for real. Have you nice ceremony which you've obviously spent a lot of time and money planning and then get married for real later. Legally as far as I'm aware you're only really married when your paper work is filed. It might be safer however rather than not sign the marriage licence to just pop down to the local town hall when you come back in on the K1.

There is the problem of being allowed into the country when you first come arrive, especially if you turn up with a wedding dress in tow! However I entered the US a number of times whilst waiting for my K1 to be approved and never had any issues with immigration. I think if you have a return ticket (and coming from the UK) you should be safe. Definitely a little risky but perhaps better than scrapping all you wedding plans?

When you applied for AOS did you also fill out I-765, Application For Employment Authorization - this is the EAD or a temporary employment authorisation - allows you to work whilst waiting for AOS.

As for driving licence, the CA DMV likes to make it difficult for us. You can get a drivers licence if you have more than 30 (sometimes 60 depending on which DMV worker you talk to) days left on your I-94 but the drivers licence will expire when your I-94 does.

It seems to be the general consensus that the EAD should be acceptable to apply for a drivers licence. Hopefully when mine arrives in the next week or two I'll be able to test this out!

I'm now living in CA and am in a similar situation. However when I went to the DMV they wouldn't even issue me with a learners permit because I had less than 60 days left on my I-94. The DMV website says:

"If you are a visitor in California over 18 and have a valid driver license from your home state or country, you may drive in this state without getting a California driver license as long as your home state license remains valid.

If you take a job here or become a resident, you must get a California driver license within 10 days. Residency is established by voting in a California election, paying resident tuition, filing for a homeowner’s property tax exemption, or any other privilege or benefit not ordinarily extended to nonresidents."

Now I know I'm not a visitor but under those conditions (I'm ignoring the vague "any other privilege or benefit not ordinarily extended to nonresidents") I'm not a resident either. So I'm just assuming that my UK licence is still good to drive on until I get my EAD. I hadn't heard that if you get a CA license that your foreign licence would be invalid, I thought that only applied to licenses issued in other US states, though I might be wrong?

I've read mixed reviews about even getting a license based on the EAD (as that also temporary and I think has an expiry date) but I enjoyed queuing outside the DMV for over an hour only to sent straight home the first time so much that I'm game to do it again!

Hurdles, red tape and frustration seem to be what its all about - though from the way most people seem to drive around here you'd think they give away licenses free inside cereal packets!

As far as I'm aware (and I may well be wrong) your finaces pay no part in the visa process. I recently applied and was approved for a K1 visa coming from the UK and at no time during the application was I asked about the state of my finances (I too have student loans and at the time of applying had credit card debts that I was furiously trying to pay off).

I think the main thing is that your USC fiancee can prove that he has the finances (job, savings etc) to be able to support you once you're in the US.

Hope this helps and good luck.

Yes you can and it's awesome make sure you get to see some turtles!

I think the form or the guide to filling the form says not to leave any gaps in your dates. I wrote unemployed and from the date I quit my job until present on the top line.

Yep I also put my previous UK address as the last address outside the UK - seems kind of repetitious but I guess this is just some kind of general biographic form, not specific to K1.

And then for in connection with I checked the Status as a Permanent Resident Box and also wrote I-485 in the little bit next to it.

Hello

Anyone know of any way I can watch the up coming rugby games over here in the US? My local "english" pub will only be screening some college football game (nevada vs fresno state?!?). And whilst if I so wished I could watch a variety of sports ranging from bull fighting to xtreme bmxing, there doens't appear to be any channels that I get that will be showing the games.

Anyone know of any website or other nefarious means by which I can watch England spank the pacific islanders?

Cheers

I renewed my passport earlier this year, sounds like the same situation - had it since I was 16, appearance hadn't changed much (apart from a god awful pair on glasses and a dodgy haircut). I didn't get my pictures countersigned and didn't have any issues.

I think with the application booklet thing it says you only need to get them countersigned if your appearance has significantly changed, which sounds a tad subjective, but I think as long as a reasonable person could look at the pic in your passport and the pic that you are applying with and be happy that its the same person then you should be fine.

I got mine just before I left the UK so I suppose it might be slightly different for someone applying overseas, but I wouldn't of thought so.

Cheers for the replies.

The wife rang back the insurance company asked to speak to someone more senior, got through to some kind of supervisor underwriter or something. Anyone turns out that the first person she spoke to wasn't up on all the facts. Because we're married I do automatically qualify to be put onto her insurance, however because I don't have US driving experience (the person said that driving in the UK is different as we drive on the other side!!) we'll have to reapply when the insurance is up for renewal next year. The lady said our rate would probably go up by about $300 which isn't from what I've heard that bad but think we'll shop around, progressive seems like a popular place to try.

Anyway good news for the mean time I'm now covered! whoop!

Vrooom vrooom!!!

The DVR and Netflix are wonderful inventions, I personally manage to fill the time watching all those tv shows I missed out on whilst being to busy back in the old country - I'm currently working my way through the sopranos and annoying my wife with my New Jersey gangster impressions!!

Combined with reading, excercising, and house work thats pretty much my life at the moment! I'm sure when I eventually get a job that I'll look back and wish I'd done something more productive with my time, learn a language, volunteer somewhere, but right now all I want to do is find out whether Tony's going to get wacked or not.

Hello, I previously posted about the joys of trying to obtain a CA driving permit whilst waiting for AOS (in short a big fat no) so anyway I was just going to continue driving on my UK licence until I was able to apply for a CA licence. My wife thought that it would be a sensible idea to check with her insurance company (Safeco) to make sure that I would still be covered and that it would be ok for me to carry on driving on her policy for the mean time. She just spoke to them the bad news was that I would only be able to continue driving on her insurance if it was only a temporary thing and that we were in the process of adding me. The almost good news was that it seemed like they'd be able to add me to her policy using my UK driving licence. However after a lengthy phone call in which she gave all my details (UK licence number, SSN etc) it turns out that no safeco doesn't accept foreign drivers licences and worse that even when I get a CA licence I would need to have 18 months (!) driving experience before they could insure me and that no, foreign driving experience was not recognised. My wife pointed out that this was a slight catch 22, how was I supposed to get experience without insurance! Turns out this is some bizarre Safeco policy so now we're going to need to shop around for new insurace.

So.... the question is does anyone have experience of getting CA (or any other state) car insurance on a non-US driving licence? I've read on this site that a number of people have had issues with the foreign experience not being accepted resulting in high premiums. Anyone know of any insurers that DO take into account foreign experience? Anyone been in a similar situation/have any pearls of wisdom.

Cheers

Cheers, seems like I'll just have to wait. CA DMV says that:

"If you take a job here or become a resident, you must get a California driver license within 10 days."

and that residency is:

"established by voting in a California election, paying resident tuition, filing for a homeowner’s property tax exemption, or any other privilege or benefit not ordinarily extended to nonresidents"

So looks like I'm good on my UK license until I get a job.

Just would of been nice to get it done now, not that I'm not loving all the hours of tv I'm currently getting, how else would I have discovered the genius of shows such as America's Toughest Jobs, and G's to Gents! So far though I have resisted Dr Phil!!

I found weetabix in the health food or natural food aisle in bel air supermarket in sacramento. I was very excited!

However when I got home and eagerly tucked in them they tasted slightly different, not sure what it was, but something just wasn't right about them. Very disappointing

So I had to resort to getting my folks to ship some over to get my fix!

I've just got back from the DMV, I had hoped to get my driving permit today, however I was told as I had less than 60 days left on my I-94 I wouldn't be able to apply (which was the first time I'd head this!)

I have a SSN and am in the process of apply for AOS so it will still be a while until I get the permanent residency thing. I have a UK drivers license so am still able to drive, but would be helpful to get a Cal license (especially as whilst I'm waiting for my EAD I spend most my time watching CSI re-runs on tv!).

Anyone have any advice or know of ways to get round this?

Thanks

Anyone a fan of Derren Brown? Do you think this is some bizarre psychological experiment on behalf of the US government? The temptation to rip open the envelope and see what's inside is almost unbearable!

Don't worry I'm not actually going to open it!

Just a round about way of saying my visa arrived today! whoop whoop

Cheers for all the help provided on this forum, I'm sure I'd of been a nervous wreck without, and would of turned up to the interview with the wrong police form, birth cert and passport photos!

Hello,

I've got my interview coming up in just under 2 weeks (whoop whoop ) and have been reading through various posts to see if theres anything I might have forgotten. One thing that cropped up a couple of times were issues with the letter of intent. I've read that a couple of people were told that there letters were too old. I think the ones I've got me and my fiancee did at the very start of the process so they're probably dated some time last year! Should I knock off a couple of new ones? And also do these need to be notarised? The originals weren't but I've read that some people had theres done? (might of been for a different visa? mines the K1).

Anything else I might have forgotten for the interview? I've got:

-police checks (x2 )

-birth certs (short and long)

-all her stuff, birth cert, tax forms, letter from her bank and employee

-all the gubbins from when we first applied, evidence of a relationship etc

-copies of all the forms

-x2 photos (do i need x3?)

Think thats about it.

Cheers

Cheers just been to the general register office website (http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/) and ordered a me new cert, says it'll arrive on the 19th of may, good thing the interview date is not till June!!

Ahh isn't bureaucracy a wonderful thing.

Hello

Just this morning got the letter through from the embassy with my interview date, still almost 2 months off but I've been checking through the things I'll need to bring with me. I read on the IV-15 thing after birth cert it says "Please note that the so-called British "short form" birth certificate is not acceptable".

Now as far as I'm aware and as far as many hours of digging through my parents "filing system" I only have 1 birth cert, but I have no idea whether this is a short form or not. To the uninformed me it looks fairly short, smaller than an A5 sheet of paper, with just my details (name, place and date of birth) and a signed statement by the "registrar of birth". Is this sufficient or should I set about applying for yet another form?

Cheers

I'm a little confused now, I sent off to the met police and have now finally received a police certificate or what i think is a police cert. Its has National Identification Services Authentic Document stamped along the top, then other than some fancy printing in the background, just seems to be a letter saying Dear/Sir Madad, Section 7, Data protection act, yada yada in reply to you request, blah, no information held, yours faithfully. Is this ok to be used to april, or should I hand over another £35 and get the ACPO thing done?

Cheers