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Is it possible to apply for a green card while on a B1/B2 visa? My wife and I have been together for more than three years and married for almost one, so our marriage isn't fraudulent. We got married in China and the only visa they would give her when she applied was B1/B2. The attorney I just talked to on the phone says we should use a Family Petition and I have no idea how that is different from what we're already doing.
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Jan 16, 2014 17:01
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| # ¿ May 5, 2024 04:10 |
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Ashcans posted:Short answer: Yes, but it's a little tricky. Thanks for the answer. We've been here a few months, we haven't submitted the application yet because we've been working on compiling all the stuff we need. We're already doing an I-130 which I guess makes it into a family petition. I'm thinking we should get a lawyer if we can afford it though I'm not sure what they'd really do that we couldn't. Edit - Does anyone know of a reliable attorney that won't break the bank? The best price we found was 2,000 for everything。 Edit edit - Just posted this on the visa forum you recommended （great idea, by the way): 1. My wife does not have an a-number yet, what should we do when forms require an a-number? 2. I was out of the country and not working for the last four years, on part 6. of the I-864 it asks for my tax returns for the past three years, I don't have any and I think they'd be blank anyway, no idea what to do with that. I do have two jobs now at the Hilton and GNC but no idea how to calculate my income or prove it, I'm guessing it'd be like 20,000ish a year just on the minimum wage I'd be getting, then considerably more once you added in the commissions from GNC and the tips at the Hilton. 3. Also on form I-864, if I'm only sponsoring my wife, on section five "Sponsor's Household Size," do I put a 1 in the first box "Enter the number you entered on line 7 of part 3," and then another 1 under "If you are currently married, enter '1' for your spouse?" It says not to count anyone twice, so I'm thinking I just put a 1 in the first box and leave the other one blank, but it's confusing since it says Persons NOT sponsored in this affidavit and it's talking about my spouse. 4. Dumb question, but on the G-325A for me in ”Complete this box" at the bottom it asks for an A-number. I'm a US citizen and don't have one, do I just leave it blank? Cuatal fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Jan 17, 2014 |
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Jan 16, 2014 20:14
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Yeah I've been using VisaJourney lately, thanks for all the help here too. I just found out we can't translate the documents ourselves, is this true? I called the general information hotline and they said that as long as evidence is provided that the translator is competent to translate (I speak fluent Mandarin and I have the test results to prove it), it does not matter who translates the documents, but then they decided it was best to transfer me to an immigration officer (I guess they weren't 100% sure) who unfortunately I don't have the time to wait for since I have to go to work and the wait time was 169 minutes. I had them schedule a callback and I told my wife who speaks decent English what to ask but I don't think it's going to go well. I-130 rules don't state we cannot translate ourselves, I-485 rules also don't, I-864 also does not. They all say the same thing which includes nothing about us translating stuff ourselves. I guess I can just call back Thursday if my wife doesn't understand what's going on. Cuatal fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Jan 21, 2014 |
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Jan 21, 2014 20:12
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Immigration officer says we can translate stuff ourselves and nowhere in any of the directions states otherwise, I also have nobody that can translate stuff here. Her birth certificate comes with an English copy though, so it would only be our marriage licenses and her bank account statement that we'd be translating, off the top of my head. I also thought the requirements stated somewhere you must provide evidence that the translator is competent to translate, which if that's the case pretty much narrows it down to me out of everyone I know. If I wanted to just get some random person that knows how to say ni hao to say they translated stuff that I already translated, would they just write that "I <name> certify that I am fluent in English and etcetcetc" and then stick that on there? Do we need an actual handwritten signature? Could they sign it and scan it or something? What if we I translated it and we got it notarized? Can we just notarize everything? Cuatal fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Jan 22, 2014 |
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Jan 22, 2014 15:38
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Are we supposed to staple additional papers for questions that we did not have enough space to complete or use paperclips or something else? Are we supposed to staple the forms themselves together since they're all multiple pages? I can't get to the bottom of this since Google and various forums have people saying they stapled them, some saying paperclips, some who just threw everything in labeled folders (which we're planning on doing anyway, even if we staple them), and a bunch of other stuff. Also for the passport style pictures, we're planning on just paperclipping them to the proper forms, is that a good idea? I feel so ridiculous asking questions like this but this whole process has a lot of ridiculous stuff anyway.
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Jan 29, 2014 15:52
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So we submitted all the stuff a while ago and first we got an appointment for biometrics on the 14th of April, then about a week after that we got a Request for Initial Evidence (I-485) asking us to "Submit a completed and signed form I-864 Affidavit of Support for the petitioner/sponsor listed on Form I-130 or Form I-129F. Even if a joint sponsor will be used the petitioner/sponsor must submit Form I-864. (The Form I-134 is not acceptable to use for Adjustment of Status.) Also provide copies of the petitioner/sponsor's most recent Federal Income tax returns. If you have submitted Form I-864, the version you submitted is no longer accepted. You must submit Form I-864 with a revision date of 3/22/13. All pages of Form I-864 must be present and of the same revision date. If the applicant qualifies for one of the exemptions on Form I-864W, please submit a completed and signed I-864W." I submitted three years of Verification of Nonfiling from when I was in Singapore/China and I went over the form around 20 times before putting it in the envelope, I have no idea what they want from us. We provided enough evidence to show we're over the poverty line and that we could also easily transfer money from China to here if we needed to.
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Mar 31, 2014 16:01
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Ashcans posted:My immediate reaction to that is that you may have filed the previous version of the form, which was outdated. When did you file, and where did you get the form? If you started putting stuff together well in advance, or pulled the form from somewhere besides the official site, it's possible you had an older version. Do you have a copy? If so, pull that out and check to make sure it matches this one. Yeah the form is the right date, same as the one I have filled out on my computer. I was gone for three years and submitted three years of verification of nonfiling(s). I have two jobs and submitted letters stating when I was hired and how much I make, along with an account statement from my bank and an account statement from my wife's bank and a series of printouts showing how easily we could transfer money from China to America (maybe this is what confused them?) I wrote explanations on the back of all of the paperwork though. I've been Googling and it looks like other people have had more specific responses, like requests for proof of income or tax forms, and I just get this crap, which makes me even more confused. Powerlurker posted:The Verification of Nonfiling letter doesn't prove that you weren't required to file an income tax return, it only proves that you didn't file one. You will also need to cite for them the specific grounds under which you weren't required to file a return (e.g. your income during the year was below the threshold for filing). Oh wow, I didn't even know that. Do I need some sort of documentation for that or just my own explanation? Cuatal fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Mar 31, 2014 |
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Mar 31, 2014 16:46
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Spoke to an immigration officer on the phone and they said the problem is I had no income last year which makes me ineligible to sponsor anybody despite having an income now. He said we need to find a joint sponsor that had an income last year along with their W-2 and forms proving they filed taxes and when we submit the form I-864 with the co-sponsor they have to add my wife to their household size.
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Mar 31, 2014 17:16
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Pretty soon here my wife and I will have been married for three years and we've been in the states since 10/06/2013. She has had her green card since 08/12/2014. We own a house with no debt and she has a car with no debt and she's going to school, in case any of this is relevant to our question. I'm also a U.S. citizen by birth. She really wants to get U.S. Citizenship as soon as possible but it looks to me like she won't be eligible to apply yet since she has not been in the country with a green card for three years. Is there any chance that she would be able to get it if we applied? If we can't get it alone would a lawyer be able to help or would it just be a waste of money?
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Sep 29, 2015 01:54
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Thanks for the fast responses. I guess we're just going to extend her green card for now then, which looks a lot easier than applying for it for the first time.
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Sep 29, 2015 03:05
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Powerlurker posted:I'm assuming by this that your wife has her conditional (2-year) green card? If so, she still needs to undergo removal of conditions before naturalizing (there are occasionally circumstances where a spouse may find themselves filing both applications simultaneously), see http://www.uscis.gov/policymanual/HTML/PolicyManual-Volume12-PartG-Chapter5.html Oh wow, didn't know about this, thanks. So would we file this along with the I-90 and send it all in one envelope or do the I-90 online and mail the I-751? From what I could find it looks like the I-751 can only be done three months out from the green card expiring but the lady who did our interview and I think I saw it somewhere on the USCIS website recommended that we submit the I-90 six months from the green card's expiration date. Can we submit the I-90 and the I-751 together six months before the expiration date or is that three month period set in stone? Or is this all completely wrong and we need to file the I-751 first before filing the extension? If so three months to file the I-751 and the I-90 seems like cutting it short. Cuatal fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Sep 29, 2015 |
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Sep 29, 2015 22:17
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It's a bit of a ways off but I might need the time to get some of the documents prepared, so my next question for you helpful and knowledgeable guys is what kind of documents are they looking for for the I-751? Both of our names are on our house title, so that's a big one we're going to submit, but despite me asking when we signed up for electricity/internet (water is included in our HOA fees) the accounts can only have one name on them. Both of our names are on our car insurance so we're going to submit that. Do we need to resubmit all the same pictures and stuff from the initial green card application? Can my parents do the two affidavits or is that considered a conflict of interest and looked down upon? I don't really know who else could do them if my parents can't, I'm not exactly a social person with tons of friends. What are the chances of the people actually getting interviewed? One of my good friends who would do one is basically a criminal and I don't know if that even gets checked and if it would reflect badly on us. Can we reuse the affidavits from the original application (I'm guessing no)?
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Oct 6, 2015 13:38
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| # ¿ May 5, 2024 04:10 |
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Are pictures a requirement? We don't really take pictures, which in hindsight has been pretty dumb of us, but we're just not really into it. I don't even know if we have any pictures since the first time we applied, but I guess we still have time to take some. We've been living together the whole time we've been in the States, and even though we're not really close to our neighbors they could at least vouch for that, so I could try to ask them to write affidavits for us. Edit - Is there a document or good way to prove that all our mail comes to the same address? Cuatal fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Oct 6, 2015 |
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Oct 6, 2015 16:08
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