Nik+Heather

The OP has since stated (post 13, here: http://www.visajourn...ost__p__4294504 ) that he is not up to date and received booster shots in the UK following his K1 medical. He most definitely needs a vaccination transcription.

Well, I guess I find the OP's whole timeline to be confusing. They had shots in the UK, they are flying the NZ flag, and they sent their P3 from BUDAPEST! I didn't feel like I could interpret from their response where the boosters occurred in the timeline, so there are a lot of ifs and conditionals in my response. Re-reading, I feel as though I added plenty of qualifiers for how they should check their own records and make their decision rather than assuming I understood and providing a no-background answer. I did say that if they thought it was complete at the time of the 3025 they could skip. I ALSO said that if they were not, they would need a transcription.

c9 is the correct thing to use if you filed concurrently with your adjustment.

c9 is the one you use if you are an adjustment applicant and results in an EAD good for 1 year (or for as long as you AOS is pending) and can be renewed if your AOS is not completed before it expires.

a6 is for K-1 entrants, but it is good only as long as the I-94 (max 90 days) and cannot be renewed.

For green card holders (that's what you'll be when you enter the US on your visa for the first time) absences from the US of greater than 6 months can be frowned upon. Not only that, but total time outside of the US could cause them to consider you to have abandoned your residency, so just popping back into the US for a week or so and then back out again *CAN* cause you issues.

I say that it CAN because they actually have to initiate some action against you, and they typically don't bother to spend the effort unless you've been doing it for a long time or tick someone off. There are reports on VJ of people staying out of the US for nearly a year and they don't have their residency affected***. You might look into a returning resident visa if you expect him to be gone for longer than the time discussed above.

Of course, if citizenship is a goal, you need to do more than just maintain your green card, you need to accumulate time in the US.

Hope your husband gets home safely again soon!

*** As with any policy which goes against what the letter of the law states, (see VWP overstayers and their AOS headaches these days!) policy may change at any time, so if you wish to treat your immigration status in a conservative manner, remain out of the US no longer than you remain IN the US.

One of the key things with the DS3025 is that it has to have the appropriate dates under MMR, TDAP & Varicella. Sometimes Varicella will have just "VH" which means you had the chickenpox before, and that's OK.

If you were up to date on the vaccines, and the K-1 medical DR noted the *dates* on the 3025, you can probably get by. If you only had the first shot or they didn't put the dates (checkmark probably not OK, etc), then you need to get your records transcribed onto the I-693.

It's really complex, and lots of if this, then thats to get it right. If you can find a civil surgeon who will do it for $20, it may be worth it. If all you can find is $150+ maybe you want to risk the RFE if you think you are all complete.

In general, send plain vanilla, regular old, off the xerox machine PHOTOCOPIES of all documents (things you personally can't replace without sending off to the gov't for) and originals of all forms (things you fill in and can print off in a flash).

I could be wrong but I remember the assets have to be at least 5 times the income disparity.

Hypothetical question: If someone where to have $150,000+ in a savings account with all the tax documents supporting the income, then there wouldn't be any issues right?

It's actually 3x for the I-134, and 3x for spouses on the I-864, so each time, it will be 3x.

It IS indeed 5x if you're sponsoring someone who you aren't related to.

Hi, welcome to VJ!

I agree with everything Marlea has said, and will add some of my own experiences and the resources I used to make my plans and decisions. I'm not sure if you've found it, but I think just for some clarity, you should review the K1 flowchart. The major milestones in the process are the petition phase, visa phase, entrance & marriage, Adjustment of Status (AOS or Green Card filing), Removal of Conditions and Citizenship (optional). Here's the link (From the blue bar, "Guides" -> "K1 Flowchart"): http://www.visajourney.com/content/k1flow The first part, the petition phase is taking at least 5 months for people.

So, if you are curious about timelines, then you have definitely come to the right site, because we collect data from all of our users in order to estimate time frames. Plus, you can watch other people's cases that are about the same as yours. So, some links:

Timeline data - historical: (From the blue bar at the top: "Immigration Timelines" -> "K1 Visas > Historical Trends") http://www.visajourney.com/content/k1historical

Igor's List - current: (From the blue bar at the top: "Immigration Timelines" -> "Processing Status: Igor's List") http://www.visajourney.com/timeline/monthly_filers.php?cfl=

Your Filing group: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/274047-september-2010-k1-filers/

As you explore around those links, you can get to the raw data tables and do your own sort of investigations in excel. The problem with the average numbers in there is that it's not a very steep slope in terms of the timing when I plotted it out. The standard deviation is quite large. Keep an eye on your filing group thread. When others start getting their petition approvals, yours is probably on it's way as well!

Anyway, we didn't (or probably more correctly, *I* didn't) let any of that stop me from planning a wedding. When we filed it was an average of 8 months start to finish, and I picked a date roughly 10 months out and started planning a wedding for that weekend at about the same time in our process as you are in yours now. You'll see a lot of advice on here warning you not to plan anything without having the visa in hand, but we are all adults, so it's up to you to assess your risk and more importantly your priorities, and make decisions based on your own financial ability to absorb any lost deposits or to write into any vendor contracts the ability to move the date as the visa processing changes.

So, before I get any farther, let me tell you what our priorities were when we were making wedding and flight decisions:

1. We wanted only one wedding/marriage ceremony. The legal part and the floofy dress part had to occur at the same time. We wanted all of our family there.

2. We wanted to make sure that Nik's risk was minimized in terms of health care etc. This requires legal marriage soon after entry - it's difficult to find decent health insurance options, but Nik would be retroactively covered from the date of our marriage.

3. We wanted to get Nik working in the US/Nik wanted to work as long as possible in the UK.

4. We wanted to be together ASAP.

5. We wanted to minimize our costs/financial risk.

Unfortunately, as you can imagine, #1 and #2 actually somewhat conflict with #4! Maybe your priorities are in a different order than ours were. If so, perhaps a different plan of attack is appropriate. So what happened was that we had the visa 4 months before our wedding, and 3.5 months before Nik actually entered the country! As I said, I started planning before the petition (first phase) was even approved! I set a mental milestone (for the contracts and the invites) of 60 days. If we didn't have the visa or we didn't think we'd get it in time, that's when I was going to make the decision to go forward or push it out. Luckily, we had the visa well before that. It's useful to have that 6 months validity on the visa, because then the beneficiary can wrap up their affairs with a firm date in mind rather than trying to handle it all at the last minute, or with an unknown date.

Besides, there are a lot of things that you can do to plan the wedding without having to worry about the date. You can pick your dress, and select flowers and colors, work with your attendants, and at least tour locations and interview caterers. You can pick out the paper for your invitations and select the wording with everything except the date, think of a guest list and start gathering their addresses. There are tons of things that can be done before you have to sign on the dotted line!

Good luck!

I can't remember, and I don't have the papers here with me, but I thought there was something that you got in the papers along with the card which told you to check it for errors and what to do if you find some. With the EAD, I thought the papers came separately from the card, so keep an eye out for them if you don't have them already.

I checked out ASU requirements (just for curiosity) and in there they list all these requirements for residency, but then at the bottom they say that if the student's SPOUSE meets the requirements, then the student can be considered a resident as well.

Good luck!

Found/remembered her username: Marie620

Do an advanced search on that author and have it show the posts (not the topics) and you can probably catch all of their story.

You may even be able to message them (and hope they monitor the email they registered with VJ) to see if they can give you any tips if they have gotten anywhere.

Sorry...

There was a woman whose husband had an issue getting past the visa medical because her husband said he had a lot to drink the night before (or he answered how much per week and she was asking how much in one night etc). She had a few different threads going on about their process, and it actually was a big mess because they got denied and had to have their waiver go through the CDC or something.

I'm not having any luck finding her postings, but I'm sure they are on here somewhere. Maybe some one else remembers her username...

Did you ever think of doing a forums search?

Hopefully you'll actually come back and let us know what happened afterwards unlike most of the posters below. It all seems to be 3rd hand information, and different circumstances than what you've said here. Work contracts, etc.

http://www.visajourn...ar-on-greencard

http://www.visajourn...sing-green-card

http://www.visajourn...4-long-time-out

http://www.visajourn...e-than-one-year

Thank you soooooo much!!!

I read that links and was just trying to get a better understanding.

Let me say before someone thinks Im impoverished or lazy and that I NEED my husband to work the second he gets off the plane.

I was just asking a question because I thought what I read was very interesting, this is all news to me. My fiancé is very active and needs something to do. I just wanted to make sure he didn't lose himself in the process... That's all! He will arrive here to a very comfortable environment with more than what any person needs. I work and go to school full time...

Im just saying cause I asked another question before and people got really worked up about it…

Thank you to everyone who takes time out of their busy lives to respond to these posts. They are really helpful!!!!

Your (future!) husband can do a lot of things to keep himself busy and active after he arrives besides work. Volunteering is allowed so long as it can't be construed as simply working without pay - so like at a hospital or shelter or something. He can also take classes, so if you guys have your eye on some ESL classes, he could be doing that. Or projects around the house too. Nik was on the ground about 1.5 days and I already had him patching the wall where I'd knocked some furniture into it (I'd like to see anyone else get a 1 1/2 chair up the stairs all by themselves without at least one bang into the wall!! )

I just didn't know how this would affect your process.... That's all…

Yeah, the discussion did go off on a bit of a tangent, didn't it.

Anyway, there will be two times during the K-1 & AOS process where you will be asked about your income. The first is at the K-1 embassy interview where you have to fill out the I-134 for sponsorship.

For sponsorship there are two possible components. There is income and Assets.

At both stages you'll need to state your income and then provide proof of that number. An expected way to do this is with a TAX TRANSCRIPT from the previous year which you can have mailed or faxed to you for free from the IRS. Just google "Tax transcript IRS" and you'll find the 1800 number. This is the only part which is "required" However, in uncertain economic times, the consulates frequently have been exercising their discretion and asking for more evidence. There are other ways to prove your income. They are mostly interested in the "current" income, so if you just got a new job and are earning more, you can provide an employer letter (This includes your name, the company's name, your salary or hourly rate and weekly hours, if you are temp or permanent, when you were hired & the name and title of the person writing the letter dated and on company letterhead), or paystubs. If this second list shows you in a more favorable light than your latest tax returns, definitely include it!

For assets, you need to show that you have assets which make up at LEAST 3x your income shortfall. These need to be assets which you can liquidate (sell) relatively quickly and don't harm you to do so. So, think stocks rather than your old record collection. The way you figure out what you need is by looking at the requirement (for calculation, let's say it's 19k for round numbers) and what you make (Let's say for example, 17k). For this example, you have 2k shortage in INCOME, so you need to prove that you have 3 x 2k = 6k in assets. At LEAST that much. You may want to even show that you have ~10k just to be safe. Or, boost your income.

A cosponsor is someone who can step in and support the immigrant with the same requirements as if they were adding the immigrant to their own household. They need to meet the same requirements as above for income and/or asset proofs and levels depending on their own household size.

So, you asked about how does a lay off affect all of that. Well, if you have assets, it doesn't really affect things, but you need a lot of assets. As I mentioned above, really the tax transcripts are all that's required. You could try to skate by on your previously shown income. Other people on here have also lost their jobs at various points in the process. Most that I have seen have either delayed their process until they got a new job, or they found a cosponsor. There are lots of little ways that you can delay the process. After the petition is approved, you can delay the visa application. Many consulates have a standard policy that they will wait for sometimes a whole year for the beneficiary to apply for the visa. You can keep in contact with the embassy to make sure the file stays active. That's a lot of time to get a job in time to provide the proofs at the interview. It's a little less favorable to do the same thing at AOS, but you have 6 months to use the visa after it's issued, and for many reasons (not just immigration - EAD included!-, but health insurance etc.) you might find it favorable to marry and get the AOS sent off ASAP after arrival. So if you loose your job after the visa is issued there is some padding on that side as well.

Hi Ewok,

It seems to me that for the purposes of Visa Journey it doesn't make any sense for the different parts of the UK to be in their own country portals. For immigration, they all end up in London for their interviews, and the distinction between Scotland and Wales doesn't seem to make sense in a category which includes Germany, India, Australia etc. I've polled the UK forum, to see what they think, however, there is some attachment to their Welsh, English and Scottish flags. (In case you're wondering, there isn't a separate one for NI). No one seems to actually use the portals to find fellow Scotsmen (vs. fellow Brits), it seems to be purely cosmetic.

Is it possible for the purposes of the portals and other functional parts of VJ for all to be in one UK group but leave the individual flag options? Or perhaps leave the images where people could put them in their signature or something. I thought at some point that I had seen that Vietnam had a "no-flag" option, but there only appears to be one portal at the moment.

Here's the discussion from the UK forum. http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/282169-country-portals/

It is true that some airports give out a stamp, but it is not actually valid for work. There is a pinned thread in the working and traveling forum which goes over this and shows from several sources why it isn't valid. You'll save yourself some headaches if you just put the idea out of your mind now.

No, you do not have to wait for your green card to get a SS#. You can get the SS# based on your K-1 entry. Go to the SS office at least 2 weeks after you enter (to make sure you're in the database by then, sometimes it takes some time) and apply in your maiden name. If you want to change your name, you can do it later with your marriage certificate. That second step sometimes means you need to wait until the green card, but it doesn't really matter that much what's on your SS card, most people don't show it to anyone.

Since we aren't religious, we didn't have a religious ceremony, and the only proof we have is the same thing you'd get if you stood in front of a judge. Really, they can't require more in terms of are you married or not.

We showed maybe 6 pictures, and only a couple of them were from the wedding. We hadn't done up the album yet.

The biggest thing to my mind was just like the embassy interview, they want to see that you can put your money where your mouth is. If you have co-mingled finances and have joint accounts and stuff. We spent more time on that, even though we did have a floofy white dress wedding.

Money orders are proof of a financial transaction. Transactions should NOT be confused with romantic relationships.

In fact, the exchanging of money is what happens in fraud cases. Do you want your evidence of relationship to have anything in common with a fraudulent case? I don't mean that any exchange of money has to immediately mean fraud is occurring, but it is at best open to speculation.

Focus on the less ambiguous relationship evidence like frequent/long duration communication & correspondence, things that you have in common and planning for the future.

After 6 months of fruitless job hunting my sister is getting offered a job at about 1/2 the salary I started at. We both have Bachelor of Science degrees, though in different fields. Anyway, I think they must know that she won't stay any longer than it takes her to find a job that will pay her what she's worth.

Ok sounds like its good I started asking questions. The devil is in the details once again! One thing that caught my eye was the chicken pox vericella vaccine. Nich says they don't even offer it in the UK so by that meaning someone in the UK can't get 100% of the vaccines required for the AOS? The simple reading of that says to me that most UK folks still has to get at least one vaccine in the US after coming over and getting married. I hope I'm wrong about that because it would be nice to have 100% of vaccines done before traveling. If not, its not a huge problem but again, I'm hoping we can do all possible and have the vaccines and documentation all complete for the AOS.

You can satisfy varicella by having had chickenpox in the past. Most of the time they will just take your word for it.

Keo's right. Don't let your concerns about getting together your 1000's of pages of chat get in the way of fully documenting the clearly REQUIRED evidences.

Now, Keo and I went through a relatively easy consulate. It's low fraud, and based on the stories of the members here, at the end of the journey we are for the most part still together or the relationships died naturally - not because the beneficiary does a runner once the GC arrives, so we deserve that good rep. The point of all that is that your interview experience and what you need to show is HIGHLY dependent on your consulate, and you need to seek out advice which is specific to that. A good resource for that is in the links at the top of the page on the second lighter blue bar (stretch your screen sideways if you need to, the text wraps funny) There's one called Reviews: Embassy. Look up your embassy and read about what other VJ members have experienced. Are there a lot of denials for lack of evidence? Or do a lot sound like Keo's experience? Find the success stories and the failures and learn from them.

Given the above, and that I didn't go through your consulate, consider the following thoughts along with your findings in the reviews: If a bonafide relationship entails frequent communication - I really don't think they care WHAT you talk about, just that you can talk, and do talk to each other - then what you need is to show summaries of your communication. So, call logs which would show dates and durations. They can be from the phone, or from Skype, etc. Or emails. Just show your inbox/folder with all of your emails. You're a real couple, so you probably have about 1 (or maybe more?) per day. Everyone likes getting snail mail, so even though it's not the most efficient, you've probably at least sent birthday cards or something, yes? Include those. Finally, I'd like to say something about including your chats and emails. A K-1 is for UNMARRIED people. If you think it is cute to call each other husband and wife in anticipation of your vows, this has been used against people in the past, and here all they were trying to do was bombard the embassy with paper to prove their relationship, and they ended up shooting themselves in the foot. There are other ways that chats can be harmful. What if you have forgotten some detail which was mentioned in those chats, and they quiz you on it and you get it wrong...etc. So many things, I could probably spend all day. Pick a couple safe ones to demonstrate you share a common language, and leave the rest out is my opinion.

Our IO checked the dates on the vaccines he needed to have as were age appropriate. I saw her review the sheet! So our experience supports the way that Nich sees things.

If things go wonky with this one or you need some extra time to recover, I believe the embassy has the power to extend the validity of your visa if you are unable to travel in time for medical reasons. Hope you don't need that, but I wanted to let you know the option was there.

Good Luck!

You are so funny! - the pressure of your unpaid activities...I am green with envy of you retired people! I saw in this gift catalog a clock which just said what day of the week it was!!

I have seen people engage more than one representative - I'm not sure it would hurt except that if they contact two different people and both are trying to look at the same file....Usually they use them in series - ask the congressman to look at it this week, he comes back with a response, then turn to the senator etc. If you've already started with one then just continue on, but if you haven't, then exploring your options might be a good idea. When I was fishing for help, one office never called me back, so I guess they wouldn't be very helpful anyway!

I'm not that technically savvy either, so can't help you with that.

Nothing new here but a baby kitten.

I am really missing our foster kittens these days. They are sooo cute! But we have just been busy. Dad is going to move (hopefully today, maybe this weekend or Monday) to the rehab facility where they will really start to focus on building his strength. He's extremely deconditioned from being in bed for 8 weeks. Since he seems to be doing well, Mother is going to go on her Vietnam tour trip with some lady friends of hers which was planned before this whole thing came up. She deserves a break, she's been doing quite a lot of the hospital sitting, so I'll be taking some more vacation time to do that while she's gone. I have to admit that I'm sort of getting my hopes up that he'll be home for Christmas. I'm trying really hard not to set expectations, but it's difficult.

The Dr. Nik has for the K-1 Medical only put "K1" in the boxes for the required vaccines, and then checked the waiver box. I think Nik was only short one vaccine, but since she didn't put dates for them the IO wouldn't accept it because it was too ambiguous.

*shrug*