DavidC

I was instantly approved for a GC today following our interview, we couldn't have done it without all the helpful people on this website. It's amazing that we applied for I-130 and I-485 concurrently on March 1st and as soon as June 9th i've got my GC coming in the mail, I never would have believed the process could be this quick - I count myself very lucky. To everyone on this website who takes time out of their day to answer questions, thank you, it's VERY appreciated.

the I-485A is very limited in scope & usage... I have not heard of a situation here on VJ where someone actually needed it

Okay, thank you. I was just going through the checklist on the guide and got to that one and I just needed to be positive.

Hi guys,

I'm going through the guide to concurrently file the I-130 with the I-485 and under the I-485 package I see I need to send off an I-485 Supplement A as well. There's a penalty fee associated with the I-485 Supplement A of $1000 if you fall under certain categories and i'm not sure if I fall into that ....

I entered the US on 08/01/2008 and got married 09/27/2008 - I entered the US as a Visitor from Canada without an I-94 and since we've been married i've been in the US. Do I need to pay this penalty fee?

Thank you for reading.

Thank you for the advice payxibka. .. I think with what you've said i'll just go through normally as planned.

Oh I see, i'm not sure how the USCIS functions or goes through the packages when they receive them, I thought maybe if I made it known somehow in my package it could possibly help me out.

edit: I wasn't planning on filing an EAD to join the US military, it's just an idea I had when I heard that a letter from the employer could help speed up the EAD approval. I'm not sure if that's accurate or not, when I heard that I thought maybe if I made my plans on joining the military known it could help my case.

I'm Canadian and have been married to an American since September 2008 and i'm going to be concurrently filing my I-130 & I-485 together from within the USA. Once/if my AOS is approved and I receive my green card I plan on joining the US military to begin providing a better life for my wife and I, is there anything I can do to use this to my advantage when i'm filing the paperwork?

The reason i'm asking is because I heard that if you file an EAD with a letter from a future employer it could speed up the process in your getting your EAD approved. So I thought maybe if my plans were known it could help my situation.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read.

Hi guys, I hope you're having a good day. I wasn't sure if it was better to resurrect this thread or start a new, I decided to post here because all my information is already in this thread - I hope that's okay. I've got all of the I-130 package put together and now i'm moving on to the I-485 package, I just have a few questions about how I should fill out my I-485 form if that's okay...

1. I'm not sure what I should put in as my Current USCIS Status .. B1/B2 visa that Canadian's are just automatically granted when they enter a POE even though there's no paperwork?

2. Under Part 2 - Application Type, I don't see my situation under any of the check mark options - should I put a check under 'Other Basis of Eligibility' and explain that I entered through a POE technically as a B1/B2 and my wife and I ended up getting married so we decided i'd stay and start the process?

3. It asks me if I was inspected by an immigration officer when I came in through my last POE, is that just any customs officer that speaks to you when you're in the car lane?

4. Can I put N/A where it asks me for my non-immigrant visa number since I was never issued one?

5. The status in which I last entered I should put down Visitor right?

6. Should I be putting "N/A" under each question I can't answer or should I leave them blank?

I'm really sorry if these questions are stupid, I just don't want to make any stupid mistakes. Thank you!

Thank you so much for responding!

1) Yes

2) Yes

3) This is where i'm at right now, i'm starting off from 0, i've enter with a B1/B2 and i'd like to start my AOS after a little over a year of marriage. Without an I-94 i'm not sure what my first step should be.

I can't thank you enough for taking the time to reply HeatDeath, i'm going to be reading Bob's posts. The problem with lawyers is they cost a lot of money which I just don't have at the moment, after a lot more research hopefully i'll be able to get through this or find a lawyer that offers financing.

Thank you!

This is a little outside my direct area of experience, so what you really want to be doing is searching this forum and reading anything relating to adjusting from a tourist visa.

Lots of people successfully adjust from a tourist visa. They come here on a tourist visa, having no intent to stay at the time they cross the border. They marry, and adjust status. As long as they had no intention of staying here permanently at the time they crossed the border, that's all fine. What complicates your situation immensely is the fact that you've been back and forth over the border a significant number of times since you got married, and that you had intent to stay at each time. What will count to USCIS, in terms of adjusting status, was your intention at the time of the most recent border crossing. If, at that time, you crossed the border with the intention of staying permanently in the US and adjusting status, that would be what they would interpret as misrepresentation.

Your situation is really really complicated. I strongly recommend that you hire a good immigration lawyer. You may have a fight on your hands. The good news is you may not have accumulated significant out of status time, and may not have a ten year bar on admission, since you have been admitted for 6 month periods as a Canadian tourist at least once every 6 months (hopefully!). Those multiple tourist admissions may end up saving your butt, as your lawyer may be able to represent that you have not been here illegally for 3.5 years, but have instead been a serial tourist, who simply happens to have a USC spouse, who's existence has simply happened to not have come up during any of the border crossings.

If you still had a home in Canada (unlikely), I would ordinarily recommend that the best, long term solution would probably be to move back up there temporarily and begin the process of applying for a spousal visa. Be aware though, you would have to remain in Canada for 8 months to a year to do this, but this would normalize your status and make everything nice and legal going forward. The problem with this plan is that if you have accumulated over 6 months of out of status days (which determination should be made by a lawyer, preferably with a second opinion) then leaving the US triggers a 3 year or 10 year ban on reentry. DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, LEAVE THE US AGAIN until you have found out FOR SURE about your out of status days. Each exit and reentry to the US carries the risk that your USC spouse will be mentioned, and they may just lock you out for an extended period of time (years to permanently).

At the moment you may effectively be an illegal immigrant, exactly as much as someone who walks in from Mexico through a PoE and disappears into the crowds, depending on how long it's been since your last border crossing, and how long you were admitted for.

I would strongly recommend against AOSing without talking to a (or several) lawyer(s). If you misrepresented yourself at the border, AOSing may be impossible. Because you were married to a USC, it will be very difficult for you to claim that you had no immigrant intention at your last border crossing. Furthermore, if you have significant out of status time, you may have a ten year bar on reentry coming if they become aware of you. If you do not have a bar against you, sneaking back out and staying in Canada while you do a proper IR-1 spousal visa would be the best bet, but do not try that until you are certain you do not have a bar against you.

You may also wish to begin the process of researching how to obtain Canadian PR status for your wife, Since you two live right on the border it may not make that big a difference to her which side of it you live on, and it may come to that. Your situation with US Immigration is, at the moment, VERY tangled, and untangling it could be a very long and difficult process.

That is really scary, I guess the only thing I can hope on is that fact that I haven't been to Canada since we've been married. It sounds like that makes a major difference...

I am Canadin and I married an american citizen. I am filing for a K-3 from within the USA. Because Canada and the USA are part of the visa waiver program I did not get a I-94 when I entered the USA. On a few of the forms it asks for an I-94 number, what do I write? N/A, none, or not issued? Is this going to be an issue?

Looks like we're in the same boat. http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=236936

Canadians don't get an I-94 unless they enter on some sort of visa. When you enter the US as a Canadian citizen, and allow CBP to assume that you're just in on a day trip or short vacation and intend to return to Canada within (max) a few months, they don't stamp your passport or give you an I-94, but you are effectively in the country on an informally granted B-2 tourist visa.

If you recall, on the time you entered the US immediately prior to your wedding, what, if anything did you tell CBP? Did you give them any reason to think you were intending to stay in the US? Had you obtained a visa of any kind prior to that?

You see, you may have made life very difficult for yourself. Entering the US on a tourist visa, when you are the spouse of a US citizen and intending to adjust status, may be seen as material misrepresentation. This could make adjusting status very difficult.

When I entered before my wedding I didn't let them know that I intended on staying in the US and I didn't have any sort of visa, I just crossed over like I had done many times. In retrospect I obviously should have looked into what should have properly been done before I married an American but I didn't (idiot!). I understand how on paper this could be seen as material misrepresentation, however living close to the border and having crossed many times in my life without needing much paperwork (until recently a passport) I just figured it didn't matter how I entered the US to go marry a woman i'm in love with.

Do I need to provide some sort of substitute for the I-94 or do I file without it? I do want to do everything right but now it seems like without knowing i've already doomed myself ...

I'm new to this forum so here's a little background before I ask a few questions...

I'm Canadian and i've been living in the USA for the past 3 and half years, in September 2008 my wife and I were married (in the USA, she's an American citizen). I've been to and back from Canada many times since for a little over a year we lived in Vermont 2 miles away from the border.

We've been married for over a year now and I still haven't started the whole process towards getting my AOS since it seemed overwhelming at first and we've been trying to save money for a lawyer. Finances aren't great at the moment since obviously i'm unable to work a regular job in the USA, so we've decided that instead of spending a fortune on a lawyer we would jump head first and figure out how to go through this process ourselves (this forum seems like a great resource), I plan on being able to work as soon as possible.

My plans are to file the I-130 and the I-485 at the same time with everything else that's required, i'm following this checklist.. http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...page=i130guide2

Everything is great until I reach the point where I see this .. Copy of the non US Citizen Spouses valid I-94 (front and back copies) ... At the Canadian borders I was never given an I-94 or even ever told about it, is this something that's absolutely required? If so, how do I go about getting one right now?

Thank you for any help you can provide, if there's any advice you can give me please help!