sorchaine

I am currently unemployed as I'm a full time student right now. My mother was the co-sponsor for my husband and we had no problems. I submitted both I-134 (one for myself and one for my mother). On mine I put that I was a full time student and attached a not explaining why I had no tax returns to submit or income to show of. For my mother I submitted print outs of her tax returns (she filed all online so I just printed what she had), a letter from her employer showing how long she has worked there, her job, salary, etc., and her birth certificate. I did not include any bank information since my mother's income was above the income required. My husband submitted all that information at his interview in Rio and had absolutely no problems at all. Not to say that they might want something more, but for us what I sent was fine.

My husband had the same issue. We waited about 5 days from the time he entered, went and applied. They said that we needed to wait because he wasn't in the system yet and they scanned his passport and I-94 just in case they needed to send that in (in case he didn't show up after the weekend). We received the letter that you described, with the reference number. We waited about a week and gave them a call to check on it. At that time they said it would take another week and to check back then. We waited another week, called back and they said it was fine and that they issued him his number and we would receive the card in about 2 weeks. Actual time to receive it from the time we heard he was issued a number on the phone was about 1 week.

We also had a slight problem (or so we thought) as the person we called to find out if he was issued a number had told us that his name was listed with his first and middle together as one name. But upon contacting the CBP at my local airport and faxing them the passport/visa/I-94, they informed us that his name was first/middle/last in their records. So I'm not sure what the SSA person was talking about.

I filled out and submitted everything on my own, with my fiancé's help of course. I double and triple checked everything I was submitting to make sure forms were filled out correctly, I was sending in everything that was necessary and that it was as organized as I could make it. I used the guides on this site (as well as others to just double check that I wasn't missing anything) and asked questions when I wasn't sure and I had no problems at all throughout the entire process from submitting the I-129F to receiving the visa. I know that every case is different, but for me it was much easier and better for me to do it all myself. My case was very straightforward. Two single people, both had never been married, no children, no overstay of visas as my fiancé had never been out of his country, had co-sponsor and had met twice in the just over a year we had known each other. I received no RFE and everything moved along smoothly and quickly for us. We were lucky, very lucky I believe to have such an easy time with no problems and a somewhat quick turnaround of a little over 4 months from petition submitted to visa received.

I think that if you feel that you can do it all on your own, study up on everything, go over the forms and check them over until you feel confident and comfortable. If you have questions, ask. The people here are great at giving you good answers to help. The guides are also an excellent source of information and help. But if it all seems like too much, then go with a service or attorney, but I would suggest checking them over very well to make sure what they are saying or offering is legit. I've read more times of services or attorneys causing more problems than helping. People losing time and money for simple mistakes that a service guaranteed wouldn't happen.

My husband almost went through Miami as a POE. After reading reviews about the POE there we decided to go through Chicago instead, which seemed to be better. For what it's worth, my husband was extremely harassed going through Chicago. The officer he went through tried anything they could to turn down his K-1 and send him back. I wonder if going through Miami might have been better.

When I got my visa I just used my fiancé's information for my contact address. I didn't want to buy the tickets until I knew I'd get the visa so I just went to the airline website, put all the information in as if I was purchasing the tickets right then, printed off the screen that has the summary (before you actually purchase) and sent that in. I had no problems with that and then just purchased the real tickets after I got the visa.

I would say that a warning is a good thing. I have a friend who has a 6 month old daughter who has been in and out of the hospital on monitors and breathing tubes since August for pertussis and the apnea. She lives near Des Moines. I haven't heard of anyone else around here getting it, but I'm sure there are others.

I got the vaccine after I was born and had an extreme allergic reaction to it. What my mother told me recently was that the vaccine is more dangerous to me personally than the whopping cough itself.

The OP actually stated that they were the US citizen and were inquiring about obtaining UK citizenship. I believe it takes 3 years of residence to obtain the citizenship, not sure about the other details though.

When I went to Brazil last year with the intent to marry there I had my birth certificate sent to the Brazilian consulate in Chicago for them to authenticate it then had it sent to me in Brazil. Once it arrived I had it translated in Brazil to Portuguese. Unfortunately due to the extra long wait time the cartório required we would not have time for the marriage by the time I had to return the US. We tried 2 different cartórios in the state of RJ and one quoted us 60 days wait before they'd issue the license, another was 90 days. The other forms required like the evidence of single marital status only took a week or so to get, just had to make an appointment at the US Consulate in Rio to get that, very easy.

Thank you everyone for your opinions and suggestions! They are very helpful to us and we will be sure to make some sort of complaint so hopefully others won't have to deal with the same type of treatment from this individual.

Wow, what a lovely welcome to the US. I'm sorry your fiance was treated so badly. I doubt that what he wrote on the I-94 will be a problem. USCIS knows the rules, even if the CBP agent doesn't.

Any chance your fiance got the guy's name? I'd be burning to get disciplinary action for such an a-hole.

Yes, my fiancé got the officers name and also remembers what station the guy was at. He wasn't taken into any special room just did everything right at the little station.

Not sure if this is the right place, but my fiancé entered the US yesterday on his K-1 in Chicago. The cbp agent he was dealing with was very rude to him making him feel embarrassed. The officer opened up the brown package and started to read everything inside. He told my fiancé that since I am still a student he should not be allowed to enter the US until I had graduated and was working. Said my co-sponser made ###### money. Read our emails to himself and then proceeded to take them around and rea them to other officers. Asked my fiancé how much my family was being paid to marry him, all sorts of rude and insulting questions. He even went to other officers trying to get my fiancé denied entry into the US. Luckily another officer told this rude one that the USCIS decides who can enter on the visa and if they issued it then he can't be denied at the POE. The officer finally filled out his I-94 reluctantly. On the back though under Record of Changes he wrote "admitted solely to marry". After filling out the date (90th day) he told my fiancé, "see this date? Not married by then we'll send you back to your country." Then laughed as he handed the passport back to him.

Will what he wrote on the I-94 be a problem? Not sure if it's a normal thing. Also will the officer be a problem come time for AOS? Is it possible that he could have written something in my fiancés file that will hurt us when we go to change his status? I told my parents about what happened and my mother was so upset that she left work early yesterday and has been working on a letter to send to our congressman about the whole incident. Not sure if it'll do any good or not, but it's really the only thing we can do at this point. And at least if we report the awful harrassment we can feel that we tried to do something I stead of just letting it go.

Ant opinions or suggestions on what we can do will so will be much appreciated. I'm just so glad to have my fiancé here with me and so ashamed of being a US citizen for the way he was treated. Having to deal with a CBP officer trying to deny a K-1 entry based on his personal opinion. I don't wish this situation on anyone and I can honestly say that this will be most definitely the last time I ever step foot anywhere near Chicago again.

Sorry if there are mispelled words and such. Writing this on my cell phone as we are still traveling.

Response from my fiancé:

I'd say all the replies above are very good and I can repeat the same tips, they indeed work.

I'm Brazilian and studied English besides the school/high school in English courses like Yázigi (which I think is a very good one, they have intensive classes, focused for people that will travel or focused on conversation). I remember it was a bit expensive I must admit, but that was back in the 90s.

After years without studying English, I had poor grammar and terrible conversation. I got some extra credit courses at the university and I can remember the first tips my teacher gave me in that time were:

- Listen to a lot of music in English, choose your favorite band, listen to those, you can read the lyrics (not translated) and try to keep listening to the album. Music works.

- Movies / Shows: Even 1 year ago, in some movies I would need to put English subtitles just to make sure I would know what was going on, but in a few months I didn't need anymore subtitles in English at all. By the way, I'm addicted to American television shows, like The Office and others.

- Talk with people that speak English, even if it can be hard at the beginning go ahead and try it.

In my case, I would assume what helped me get back to a better English was playing online games (World of Warcraft mainly, where by the way I met my fiancée). Talking through Ventrilo (similar software to Skype but designed for gamers where like 10 or more people can talk at the same time, was a bit challenging at the beginning, but helped me a lot.

- Rosetta Stone: I just bought the 5 levels of American English for my mother, as she wants to learn English and I gave it a try, basically the full level 1 and the majority of the level 5 (to test the differences) and yes, the software is amazing. At first I thought that was a "BS" software, but after doing all those lessons and training her how to use the software and watching her do the first lessons, it was just impressive. It was worth the price. I didn't like the companion thing much, some people do like it, to have on their iPods or any MP3 players. Doing the Rosetta Stone Full Year Curriculum, by their estimated time, if the person spends about 4 hours a day, I would say it can be finished in about 30-45 days. I might be wrong... I'm terrible at math.

So yes, music, movies, and shows (Portuguese subtitles, English subtitles, no subtitles). Trying to talk in English as often as possible, even if the vocabulary is still small and the software Rosetta Stone would be a good help! About English courses, they vary about how much the person would be willing to spend and I have no idea how much a good English School would cost nowadays.

Thanks for the replies!!

My fiancé will be entering the US for the first time via the K1 visa and we were wondering what to do in regards to the Customs Declaration form and what he should declare or not declare. He is bringing everything with him in his luggage (checked/carry-on) and will be shipping nothing. The items he is bringing include: clothing, a computer hard-drive, a computer memory card, a computer keyboard (all computer items are a year old or more and used), as well as medications, and maybe some other personal items such as books and papers.

Should he list these items on the form?

And if so, what would be the suggestion as far as value for these items?

Nothing will be brought to be sold and nothing will be gifts. They are all personal belongings.

I traveled out of the country twice last year and my passport was not stamped by the US immigration at any point on either trip. I'm a US citizen. They just looked at it and then let me go. Two different airports, Houston and Atlanta.

Does it matter if the visa does not have an alien number listed?

I listed a small description in the box and then attached another sheet that had details and the evolution of our relationship.

My fiancé and I waited until his petition was received at his consulate. I had started to get together a list of the documents we still needed to get after the NOA2 and then made plans to do everything after the petition was received at his consulate. That gave us enough time to get things together since he had about a month and a half before his interview. I would suggest though that if your consulate schedules interviews rather quickly then I would start getting them after the NOA2, at least for us the police certificates took the longest as for one my fiancé had to travel 18 hours by bus to obtain it in person. I didn't send him the affidavit of support or the rest of the documents that I needed to send until much closer to the interview, about 2-3 weeks prior so that the pay stubs that I had printed were more recent.

You can get one-way or round trip, it doesn't matter I believe with a K1. Round trip is usually cheaper I think, but if you can find a one-way cheaper then I'd go for it!

Then since you are filing for AOS, you will file the I-864, both one for you and one for your co-sponsor. You will be the main sponsor, even if you have not been working, you will still be the main one and then other person will be your co-sponsor. You might also want to finish filling in your timeline so that others will know what step you are in the process.

I sent mine Priority and it arrived in about 2 days.

I'm assuming this is for K1?

For the K1 interview you only need to submit the I-134 affidavits. The I-864 forms are for when you do the AOS.

Both you and your co-sponsor need to fill out the form (one form per each) and evidence for both you and your co-sponsor (tax returns, pay stubs, etc.)

I guess from what I read you need to make sure you apply for your adjustment of status before your 90 days. Though what forms you need to file I'm not sure about, just make sure they are filed before the 90 days are up for the VWP. And I would suggest that after you file not to leave the country until you get the AP or green card.

Are you preparing to file for the CR-1? I'm just curious as to why you say I-130 and I-485. I could be confused, but aren't those for two different things? I-130 for the CR-1 and the I-485 for AOS?