Corinthians

If you get married in the U.S. and want to register your marriage in Brazil you have to go through the consulate here - your marriage certificate has to be authenticated in the U.S. and then translated in Brazil - AND then registered at the cartorio.

We have had our marriage authenticated here (USA). The consulate gives you a 1 page document saying everything is legitimate basically and then you can take that to the cartorio in Brasil. It was pretty painless both here and in Brasil.

I think the toughest part would be trying to come back here to travel. Plus, if you are going to try and come back to the US one day, getting married here will give you less things to translate whenever that day comes.

Good Luck.

I am very happy to have found this community and have already found lots of good information and notes and i am welcome to any advice from anyone here.

Thanks...

-Logan

Best of luck with the K1. Visajourney and the members here are a great resource.

I'd lean toward sending copies rather than originals if I had to make the choice.

We didn't send any affidavits at all and we were approved.

Anyone feel free to chime in if you can think of anything else or if you think this is enough.

Anything on retirement accounts (401k, pension) or life insurance that shows your spouse as the beneficiary?

Any way of showing healthcare related costs you have paid for your spouse? We lined up Health Savings account statements with Dr. office bills.

I would wonder if your RFE is randomly generated as a kind of quality control check. IMO, your evidence isn't much different than ours and we were approved.

USCIS

Updated Guide Information Link:

http://www.uscis.gov/USCIS/Resources/A1en.pdf

My wife received her green card today. We were approved on March 15, 2012.

The interesting thing is March 15 was the day after I called to make sure we hadn't missed an RFE or appointment notice in the mail. The woman on the phone said there hadn't been any activity on our file since it was received. She was also very polite (which is weird) on the phone. Probably coincidence, but we were approved the next day. The letter we received is stamped by Mark J Hazuda, NSC Director (?). We didn't have an interview or an RFE during any part of the AOS/ROC process. We didn't include any affidavits from anyone either; that question seems to come up alot.

Best of luck to those who are still waiting.

My husband does not have his old ones or this years for that matter.

These should be available by the end of January, strange he doesn't have them.

When you file a change of address at the post office, they forward your mail for several months. I'm sure you could work things out with them. We've done it and been fine (from a mail received standpoint).

On a side note. I'm generating more evidence as we speak. We are expanding our house by two little feet. =) 11 weeks preggie. =)

Congratulations!

Anyone that has married a Brazilian can tell me what the process on the Brazilian embassy is ? In my case, Sao Paulo ?

Are you sure it is Sao Paulo? In the past, everything went through Rio unless it was for a tourist visa or something like that...

thxxxx that makes me feel a lot better! now on to the paper work! lol

The biggest challenge could be income depending on what your SO does for work. Age isn't a problem. There are all kinds of filers here on VJ: old, young and those with big differences in age and many get approved.

Nice to see more good news today!

Thanks everyone. Hopefully, we'd hear more news like mine.

^^

Ok i might do that,thank you so much for the information, but right now my biggest question is may i go abroad and come back in a month with having no problems at the DHS control point in the airport even that we are not together?

As long as your green card hasn't expired I can't think of a reason why you'd have problems. Just don't be gone so long that you abandon your residency.

My ideal would be to find a job in higher education so I could go back to school for free

Free is good. The state university here only gives 50% off to employees (I think) and definitely not more than 75% if I'm wrong.

Nah, I don't think social work is what I want to do for my career. I'm kind of exploring my options at this point..

Have you looked at public health at all? It could let you build on your experience but transition away from social work. I'm a little biased, but you should look at MPH programs. They are pretty flexible and will generally let you customize them into what works for you.

Not that sort of work. Confidentiality is an issue, but that's nothing being a citizen would effect. Over qualified...well yes, I have got that quite a lot. But given the present state of the economy, it isn't like I'd run off for something better in a big hurry.

Perhaps I might have to give up and consider my self retired by default.

Either that or you could dumb down the resume...

So, I have been checking this topic for the last few weeks... Nobody got approved in California center yet... i know, it's all just talking, with immigration you never know but can anybody estimate at least when Cali center can possibly start sending them cards for us "Octobers"? I even went to the last year October topic and most of people last year had cards by now ((( Not fair... I know, Vermont is even slower but C apparently sucks too now.

I bet it will take 5 or 6 months total to see anything out of Cali; so we have at least a month or two left. Probably longer for VSC.

Well I suppose I am in the South now. But when I started I was in the DC area, about 20 minutes outside Washington. It was worse there for sure. 27 years experience, but no citizenship meant I couldn't even apply for positions I was more than qualified for. In two instances, they demanded that the applicant complete the US qualification within 6 months of being hired. I already had that. In fact in my last two years I taught that program. Still no dice.

It would be interesting to know their reasoning. Unless you need a security clearance, I have no clue why citizenship would be an issue. If anything, being overqualified seems like it would be the biggest problem.

I'm in social work now and even though I've only been doing it a little less than 3 years, I feel like I've been here forever. I'm ready to explore a different industry, or at least a different population!

Tough field. I bet a different population to work with would be helpful. You wouldn't want to get a graduate degree in social work?

All of the similar employers here won't look at you without citizenship.

Probably because you are in the south; it is a little different than the rest of the country...

Now that it's February maybe they'll start moving to July filers..

How's everyone's new year so far?

Good here. Our new baby is fine and I'm basically half done with a graduate degree. Can definitely relate to being burned out on a job. Just hit 5 years with my current employer...

You don't wanna work yourself out of a job right?

Spain's Portal is here:

http://www.visajourney.com/portals/index.php?country=Spain

You're always going to get a lot of varying responses on here! Not wanting to poo poo anyone, but how many of these responses are from lawyers/immigration experts/etc.?

Says the poster before sharing his opinion. Are you a lawyer or an immigration expert??? No, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn.

I am going to definitely email that immigration lawyer that my dad is friends with and just see if he'll give me anything without making me come in for a "consultation".

Good Luck whatever you decide.

Here is what Question 7 says:

"Have you ever been arrested, detained, charged, indicted, fined or imprisoned for breaking or violating any law or ordinance (excluding traffic regulations) or committed any crime which you were not arrested in the USA or abroad?".

If you have ever been arrested or detained by any law enforcement officer for any reason, and charges were filed, or if charges were filed against you without an arrest, submit an original or court-certified copy of the complete arrest record and/or disposition for each incident (e.g. dismissal order, conviction record, or acquittal order).

NOTE: Unless a traffic incident was alcohol or drug related you do not need to submit documentation for traffic fines and incidents that did not involve an actual arrest if the only penalty was a fine of less than $500 and/or points on your driver's license."

Did he actually go to jail? Even then, I would say no.

IMO, the "excluding traffic regulations" is the out along with the fact that your fine was less than $500 and no points.

If you think link someone in immigration, they don't care about running a stop sign or driving too fast in the rain. They care about DUIs, domestic violence, etc., things you would see on COPS.

If they ask you about it in an RFE or an interview, just tell them it was traffic related and when you double checked with the lawyer, they said it wasn't necessary due to that fact. Keep the correspondence from the lawyer in case it comes up.

I don't see any reason to flag your file over a speeding ticket.