Brother Hesekiel

I really meant it when I said "complicated," mostly because we are now in unchartered territory. A situtation where no man has been before.

Massachussets has Romneycare, the model after which Obamacare has been coined and in fact a capitalist's and corporatist's dream: all private, for profit, mandate to buy insurance, and so on. Not that it matters much, but Romeny disassociating himself from the one and only good thing he ever created was plain stupid. He should have claimed credit for Obamacare, should have told the American people that it was HIS idea and that it works like a charm and the bad black man in the White House has stolen his idea. Guess that wasn't an option as he would not have been able to pull this through the primaries with all the religious right's and Tea Party crazies' influence. Oh well, back to the topic at hand.

Massachussets residents sign up for the ACA via www.MAhealthconnector.org. Since they work within the framework outlined by the ACA, you and your wife sign up as one household, and both of your income counts when determining whether you get subsidies when signing up for a health care plan or your combined income is so low that you'll be covered by Medicare which at this point is 100% subsidized by the US government. If your wife is covered under Medicare, so are you. You have no choice. All you can do is provide the information requested truthfully, and see what you'll end up with. Frankly, I'm not a good dancer in this dance myself. I've walked the walk, but I'm not expert in the ACA. Far from it. Again, you do not have a choice. Take it one step at a time, and see where it takes you.

Up to a few months ago, answering your question would have been very easy. Now with the ACA in full swing, it gets complicated.

The basics: "means tested benefits" are reserved for US citizens. In layman's terms: a foreigner cannot get any financial help from the United States government to take care of his bills. Therefore, Uncle Sam requested an Affidavit of Support from a viable sponsor. In your case that was your wife, and your sister-in-law became the co-sponsor. If you receive means tested benefits unlawfully, it could not only backfire into your sponsors' face, but it would make you potentially subject to deportation.

That was the easy part. Now let's complicate it, the American way!

The ACA requries every US citizen who resides in the United States and every lawful permanent resident (LPR) -- who by default resides in the United States -- to have health insurance coverage. This coverage can come from a variety of sources. Those who do not have health insurance, in most cases because it is ridiculously expensive for people who are older or have a pre-existing condition, can now sign up through the federal health insurance exchange or, in certain states, the state-run exchanges. In the Golden State where I reside, it's CoveredCalifornia.

Determination on how much of the bill is covered by Uncle Sam depends on the houshold income. Your household is your wife, a US citizen and you, a Green Card holder. You both need to have health insurance coverage and if your wife's income is so low that she qualifies for Medicare (MediCaid in California), it's certainly low enough for you to be covered under the same provider.

What all the smart lawyers haven't figured out yet is how to solve the conflict of interest here. my thoughts to you is that you and your wife sign up as a household and submit all information truthfully. I can tell you from experience that the documents you and your wife need to provide will make your head spin. That's good as it prevents document fraud, but also bad as it's a pain in the behind. If the system then directs you and your wife toward Medicare, there's a slight chance that Uncle Sam at some point in the future might ask your wife for "money back." I can't even guestimate how likely that will be, but you have no other choice, really, short of buying your policy on the free market.

Roki,

there are two ways to file for RoC:

1) happily married, living under one roof

2) divorced.

If you read this, twice, you'll see that you are neither 1 nor 2 right now. You are in the twighlightzone as you are not happily married any longer and thinking about divorce, and you are not divorced either. Admittedly, you are closer to 1 than to 2, and you could successfully argue that you are still be counted under 1, but it's a close call.

Depending on what state you live in, your divorce can take a few weeks or over a year. Find that out first.

Best case scenario would be that you notify USCIS that you wish to apply with a waiver since you are planing to file for divorce. If you can get this done quickly, it will only throw you back a few weeks or couple of months.

Worst case scenario is that it will take a year for you to get your divorce finalized. If you convert your RoC petition to a singular filed one with a waiver, you'll eventually (roughly 3 months from the time you start this) get an RFE where they ask for your divorce decree. Well, since you don't have one and can't get one for another 9 months, a few months later the USCIS system automatically will seek to get rid of you. You'll receive a letter and will have a date with an immigration judge, at which time your attorney will tell the judge what's happenin' and ask him to put the proceedings on halt 'til your divorce has been finalized and you have the decree in hand. In almost all cases the judge will sign off on this.

Once your divorce is finalized, you submit the divorce decree and USCIS can adjudicate your RoC petition.

You can become a US citizen by means of naturalization as early as the day you have become a resident, just 5 years later. At the 5-year mark your marital status becomes irrelvant.

Now . . . assuming you are rolling the dice and do nothing, and you not only get divorced before your RoC has been adjudicated, but FILE for divorce while your I-751 is pending, you are setting yourself up for serious problems at the N-400 stage. Even if you file after 5 or 6 years, the I.O. will have a look at your divorce decree, and guess what . . . if he finds out that you filed for divorce while your RoC petition implied that you were still happily married (see 1), he'll interpret this as fraud, and I don't have to tell you what that could do to your American dream.

So right now you are at a cross roads, and which way you decide to take, it's going to suck big time. The very first thing you need to find out before you do anything is how long it would take in your state to get a divorce done. Only then you can decide if you want to roll the dice and be the nicest spouse the world has ever seen for a bit longer.

Hugo,

if you filed for Adjustment of Status, and it was denied based on assumed fraud, then that's not a time where the USCIS closes the file and walks away. Almost automatically the next step would be to have you ordered removed from the United States, and based on your means of entry (VWP or B2) this can be done by the I.O. or requires a judge to sign off on.

If you have been ordered removed, and somehow this process has escaped your attention, you'll be arrested the moment you show your face at the USCIS interview. You'll be put in detention and you'll be faster on your way home than you can imagine, again, because the paperwork for you has already all been taken care of years ago.

But even if that's not the case, if you apply for a job somewhere, and the guy who's doing the hiring tells you that he believes you are a liar and makes a note in your resume, and a few years later you apply for a job there again, and the next interviewer reads his collegues notes, what do you think are your chances of being hired?

Same here.

What you need to do is retain an AILA attorney and have him look into your USCIS file based on the Freedom of Information Act. If you have been ordered deported way back when, plan on spending many thousands of dollars with very little hope of success. If you have not been ordered deported, I suggest you and your newly wed wife spend considerable time together and gather a truck load of substantial evidence before you file for AoS.

The United States and Canada share immigration and residency information freely. What that means is that you can't establish residency in Canada again before you have become a US citizen, which happens once you have taken the Oath of Allegiance and have picked up your Certificate of Naturalization. If you take formal steps to become a Canadian resident again as long as you are still a US resident, you automatically were to voluntarily abandon your US residency and your Green Card would become invalid after the fact.

I do not know the first thing about Canadian immigration, so I don't know if you can petition for your wife's immigration without being a resident there, as it's the case with the United States where you can submit an I-130 from the farthest corner of the world, as long as you intent to establish residency in the US not later than the petitioner.

That's something you'll have to find out before doing anything else. The United States once had a residency requirement, where the American-to-be had to reside at least another 3 years after the date of naturalization in the United States. That's long gone. I still would not bring this up at the N-400 interview, for obvious reasons.

First, semantics.

There's a difference between misplaced, lost, stolen, or robbed.

If you were the victim of a robbery, you will have a police report stating this. In that case you may as well roll the dice and see if you get away with it. The worst thing that can happen is that you get an RFE for the missing Green Card. If so, you'll file the I-90 (possibly with an I-912 fee waiver) and about 10 days later you'll have the NOA1 in your mail box. That's all you need, as it's not about having the Green Card, but about you paying Uncle Sam money. If you have the NOA1, wich is the receipt for the I-90 in your hand, it's as good as the actual Green Card for naturalization purposes.

You are not the first person who is smarter than the morons who created those forms.

The question is to be understood as "the past 5 years or from the time you became a resident." So if you had your Green Card for 35 years, you'd only have to list the past 5 years, as you probably wouldn't remember when you traveled back in 1979 anyway. So look at your Green Card and check out the date you become a resident. That's the date that counts and that's the point in time from which you need to list your absence from the United States.

The "new" citizenship test is designed so that a retarded monkey can pass it, easily. That may sound like an exageration, but it's in fact not that far from the truth. You'll order the 100 cards and take 'em with you to your bathroom. You then try to answer all 100 in one run. Unless you are . . . um . . . special, you'll probably get close to half of those questions right, the very first time, without having even looked at them first. Put them on one stack and put that stack away.

The remaining cards you will put in another stack and try to answer them every time you are in your bathroom again, sitting down and doing your thing. If you make a mistake, read the correct answers and put the card back in the stack. If you get the question right, put it in the "other" stack of questions you already answered correctly.

Within a few days you'll have answered probably 90+ questions correctly. The remaining ones you have to memorize, because the correct answers are wrong. So they were made by retards for retards, which is why intelligent people can't answer them correcly unless they study the incorrect answers and memorize them as being what they need to hear.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_minute/2011/02/the_problem_with_question_36.html

So don't worry, you'll pass easily. I know that purely based on your post alone. That being said, it's a good thing to understand the basics of American history. The fight against the Brits, the Declaration of Independence, the 13 colonies, and all the stuff conneted to it. There are some great DVD sets out there that you can rent. Knowing this stuff goes beyond becoming an American. It's something you need to know if you are an American living in America.

I need to caution you.

Staying out of the country for less than a year is only half of the equation. The other half is that you did not estabish residency or resestablish residency in Norway when being there.

So if you return to the United States after 11 months, CBP WILL ask you what you did there and prove that you did not abandon your US residency while being abroad. You'll need to show them that you have a place to live, a car in the driveway, your latest income tax return, basically prove that you still live in the United States, not in Norway.

The way I understand your post, you intend to "live" in Norway for a year. Depending on what that entails in regard to registration or public assistence as a citizen and resident, you may walk a very thin line.

The O-1 is the most desirable visa to the United States anybody can hope for. It puts you in one boat with celebrities like Justin Bieber. One of the O-1's perks is that it is a dual-intent visa. Filing for AoS does not invalidate it. Thus, you can travel freely and return on that visa, even with AoS pending.

It's difficult to argue with idiots, of which this country has way too many. Unless you want to invest $350 for an attorney to write them a letter that will make 'em grasp for air, I'd say all you can do is wait for your new card to show up in the mail.

One way to avoid stress like this is to file for naturalization. If you have been a resident for 8 years, I'd say you had plenty of time to do that already. Procrastination is not a virtue.

If you kept your foreign name (ugghhhh . . . ), all you have to do is update your status with the SSA and apply for a passport book and passport card pronto. Only if you are resident of a state that treats citizens differently from LPRs, i.e., Georgia, you'd have to get yourself an updated driver's license.

http://www.newcitizen.us/after.html

*advice*

"Working without authorization" is not being made an issue of to spouses of US citizens at the AoS stage or at any point thereafter. There's no need to quit your current job; in fact it would be stupid.

Here's my thoughts to you: ask questions before jumping the gun, not afterward.

Berlin and Frankfurt are consulates, not embassies, but yes, that's where she can go for a visa.

I have a friend (in the wider sense of the term) who just traveled from Melbourne, Australia, to Moscow, Russia, in a 1913 Ford Model T, alone, and he had to get 40-some visas along the way. Imagine he would have had to book 40+ flights from Africa, the Middle East, and East Europe back to Australia to get those visitor visas!

http://melbournetomoscow.com/eng.html

Catgirl,

you need to file the I-130 for your sister as soon as possible. It's likely that the F4 family preference category will be eliminated (and F3 will be limited to age 31 or younger), but it is highly unlikely that it will have any impact on petitions that have already been filed. All you have to lose is $420.

You do not have to anticipate any problems at all.

Problems can turn up, if you "visit" for 6 months, leave for a few weeks, and then want to "visit" again. That's not the case with you.

Your EAD expired after the fact, the moment your AoS was approved.

For document purposes and in regard to the I-9 form which you will have to fill out, you can either submit a List A document or a List B and a List C document. A = B+C.

The Green Card is a List A document.

The driver's license is a List B document.

The unrestricted SS card is a List C document.

So either you show your Green Card, OR -- your decision -- you show your driver's license and SS card.

Google I-9 form to familiarize yourself with the form and the three lists of documents.

He can leave, but he will not be allowed to return to the United States without a new Green Card as the airline will simply tell him to get lost. He would thus have to visit the US consulate in SA and get an I-551 stamp in his passport. It would be better for him to wait for the receipt from the USCIS and get this stamp here in the US of A.

I would have suggested for your dad to become a US citizen during the decade (or longer) he has been a resident, especially as it would have had no impact on his current citizenship.

You cannot change your address while the N-400 is pending. If you tried that, it's like derailing a fast train that is approaching a train station. It can cost you two years of delay, during which time they will try to find your old N-400 file. Don't do it.

Instead, keep your old address as the current one. Put your mail on hold at the post office (as USCIS mail can't be forwarded), or have a friend check it for you and call you once a day with the news.

Your wife's immigration status is "other." There's no possible benefit your wife would have if you became a US citizen before she gets her IR-1 visa.

If I were you, I'd make an appointment with the closest passport agency for 9:00 tomorrow morning, drop off my paperwork, have breakfast nearby, and then return 3 hours later and pick up my son's passport. That's how I did it.

As a ruler, I would implement a very simple law: the highest employee of any given business -- which is usually the CEO -- can only earn 20 times the amount that the lowest employee of the same company earns.

That would work wonders.

Okay, fun aside . . . what I am wondering is why he isn't stripped of his US citizenship. If there is ONE perfect case where this is justified, it's this one!