Ask the resident alien

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

If you want the immigration office to be welcoming, you’d better push the government to lessen the restrictions, because there are very few scenarios where someone can petition for residency status. For a country that stylizes itself as ‘the land of immigrants’ you sure make it damn hard to get in! And the fees for applications jumped monstrously just after we sent ours in. Do you want to encourage people to skirt the system?

Fortunately, I have only good experiences to report–well, really, I hardly dealt with the office at all directly, so there’s little opportunity for a bad experience. Most of the time between application and interview was spent waiting, with a little bit of gathering extra documents (I initially only had the short form of my birth certificate, for example) and a trip to get my fingerprints taken. I was a little disappointed with how long it took, because we were hoping to have it finished by the holidays, that that’s about all I can report. The few agents we did deal with were very friendly though–on the other hand, in Nebraska, I suppose they’re probably not as stressed out as they might be elsewhere. I mean, this isn’t exactly a state where you’re going to get a lot of fence jumpers and the like.

22

Spectre of Pithecanthropus, I’ve run into that too, when on my way back from a weekend trip to Niagara Falls in college. Crossing into Canada? May I see your IDs, going for business or pleasure, and how long are you staying? Have a nice trip. Coming back into NY? Surly bastard staring at our Ohio and Colorado licenses. Why don’t we both have NY IDs? We’re college students. How long have you been out of the country? Did you purchase anything in Canada? Why is there a bike in the back of this van if you’ve only been gone for 4 days? :rolleyes: Where were you born? What’s your birthday? What’s your relationship to each other? Where did you say you’re going again? Well…Ok. giving us the stinkeye

Ugh.

23

I suppose I was fortunate then. When I came to the US, I flew out of Halifax, which has a customs pre-clearing for certain destinations. So I never dealt with a US customs agent–I was cleared before I ever left Canada (which was doubly good since I had a lay-over in Newark)

24

How much did the lawyer cost? Once you filed, what was your immediate status at that time? Were you able to work while waiting for the adjustment of status?

25

And they seem very appreciative of all the fish!

26

I’d have to check how much we paid the lawyer. Somewhere between $500 and $1k I’m guessing–he was initially on a $500 retainer but we went through that. He was well worth it though. And I have no idea what my status was after filing–limbo is the best was to put it. I came in on a 6-month tourist visa, but obviously that ran out in November. But I never got harassed about still being here either–I couldn’t leave the country or my application would get thrown out and I’d have to file for residency again from Canada.

As for being able to work–no, I couldn’t, since I was here on a tourist visa. I could have applied for a work permit (and a travel permit) if I’d wanted to to be able to work (or travel) in the interim. It’s a bit chancy though, as adjustment of status can take as little as four months nowadays (I suspect there’s currently a bit of a backlog of people trying to get in before the rate hikes–that’s why I didn’t expect this to take nearly as long as it did) so it’s possible that you’d only have the permit for a few weeks before your adjustment interview, and the process is expensive enough as is. If I’d known how long it would be before I had mine I would have applied for the work permit.

There a couple other costs I should probably mention while I’m on the subject–there’s a fee for having your fingerprints taken, and you also need to have a medical exam done (and possibly vaccinations I’m guessing, as they needed my records) so you’ll get charged for that as well, and only certain doctors are qualified to give them. Fingerprinting was actually the bigger hassle, as I had to go to Omaha for that, while I was able to have the medical exam done here in town.

27

Congratulations! I guess between you joining and me leaving, the US broke even.

I’m confused by this. Was this because you weren’t working? I ask because when I got my PR, I was the wage-earner and my wife (the citizen) was a SAHM. If we’d had to prove that she had enough of an income to support me, we’d have been up the creek.

28

Are you saying that you got a tourist Visa with the intent on coming here to get married and then change your status?

Good thing you got the lawyer.

29

Did you get your PR in Japan?

The USCIS requires the Affidavit of Support to ensure that the immigrant will not become a public burden. They want to see proof from the sponsor that there is enough money to support each other. They figure that if a poor person tries to bring in an immigrant, the added mouth to feed and cloth could put them both on the street.

30

Yay for you on getting your resident status!

I’m still a lowly temporary alien, on my one-year-but-ever-renewable TN work visa. I’d like to make it more permanent, because I hate the idea of them ever deciding to deny my renewal. I know they have no reason to, but you know those homeland security guys - they don’t like the look of you or they’re having a bad day, and you’re screwed. I just get paranoid.

My boyfriend (the reason for me moving down here in the first place) and I are starting to casually talk about the possibility of getting married one of these days, but the process is daunting. Did you look into it all first, or just get hitched and then get a lawyer and hope for the best? I’m curious about whether it would be easier to get married in Canada and then come back, or get married here, in terms of the paperwork and legal messes required. Were there periods when you had to leave the country to file stuff? Or periods when you couldn’t leave the country while things were pending?

It took me over 8 months to get my TN stuff straightened out so I could come over here and work as a medical technologist, and that’s supposed to be the easiest type of work visa to get. So the thought of all the hoops I’ll have to jump through to try and get permanent residency… it’s a little discouraging. Did you have a support group here, of friends or other ex-pats who’d gone through the same thing?

31

I went through this process recently as well (filed in November 2007 and approved end of February 2008, almost exactly four months). I am a South African who married a U.S. citizen.

My situation was probably a little easier: I had been living in the US on an H1-B work visa for three years already, which allows immigrant intent. We did not bother with a lawyer and filed all the paperwork ourselves. Fees were $1365 with a few hundred for ancillary costs (the medical report, photos, etc), and the process went pretty smoothly. I personally have no complaints.

32

Oh yeah, forgot to add the point of the post, which was that I am also available to answer questions for people who are interested in the process!

33

Actually I came here on a tourist visa with the intent on seeing a lawyer to figure out my options for coming down here that didn’t involve getting married yet. Since I pretty much had none, we decided that instead of spending a few more months apart to get a fiancé visa, it would be better for us to do adjustment of status. The initial trip was only intended to last three weeks. It was only after I got here that we decided to make it a lot, lot longer.
Sublight, as Bear already said, it was to prove that I wouldn’t become a public burden. This was actually one area we were a bit worried about, because when I first came down my husband didn’t have the income level in 2006 that we needed. Fortunately, he does now for 2007, and we were fine (Good thing too–we couldn’t find a co-sponsor to help us out.)
Antigen, I suggest finding a lawyer, but here’s how it worked on our end. We saw the lawyer first, because it was not our intent to get married just yet. As it turned out, we needed to anyways (we did ask about a work visa, but that would’ve been hard to get and I’d still be in Canada now if we’d tried that route.). The adjustment of status switched me from being here on a non-immigrant visa (in this case, tourist) to an immigrant visa (green card). I didn’t have to go back to Canada–actually, I’d have been screwed if I did, barring getting a travel permit. Since it’s illegal to come into the US with the intent to immigrate, I would have had to start the process over again on the north side of the border. I could travel freely within the US–in fact, we went to Vegas last fall, no not to get married–but not internationally without getting a travel permit, which I didn’t.

Unfortunately, no I didn’t have any sort of support group, and for a while I was going a little batty–not only did I have no one, my husband hardly knows anyone in town, and we don’t live close enough to downtown that I could go shopping on my own or anything.

Anyways, hie thee to a lawyer! Since you’re already here, I’d suggest adjustment of status, but I really appreciated having someone who knew what the hell we were doing on our side. Rather than trying to figure it out on our own, he was able to spell everything out for us in plain terms.

Driver8, congrats! I’d like to point out how the costs have jumped though–you paid about a grand more than we did for this process (ignoring lawyer fees, which would put us about even). It’s a bit insane just how much the costs for some of those forms have risen.

34

From one Maritimer to another, welcome to America, Jayn_Newell!

It took me two years to get my Green Card. Granted, the first year or so was spent trying to do the paperwork all ourselves - what an utter disaster that was. The process went much faster after we found an immigration lawyer.

I still get fish, since I moved all the way over to the west coast… but I sure do miss haddock.

No real questions from me, since as someone who went through it, I am sick and tired of it and don’t want to think much about it anymore. :wink: But a hearty congratulations!

35

How often to you leave the country? Do you travel often? Can you afford to be away from work for a little while? These are all things to consider when planning your strategy.

You can work under your TN though while pursuing your permanent residence through marriage and never have to leave. But, you wont be allowed to leave at all during that time, because you would be reentering under your TN with the implication that you are not intending to stay permanently. If the officer notices you currently have an I-130 pending, then obviously you have intent to stay permanently and you can be denied entrance.
Also, if you renew your TN and then get married too soon, it will show a perceived intent to stay permantly. They could see the close dates and decide you knew what you were going to do when you filed your last TN and that you actually filed for the visa with intent to stay.
Those are the things to be careful of.

Have you looked into having your employer file for a PERM? How many years have you been working under your TN? What kind of degree is required for your profession? You may be eligible.

36

When I was first hired they told me they don’t generally sponsor people (whatever that means), but I’ll ask them again. I’m only just starting year 2 of my TN status, and I have a bachelor’s degree and certification as an MT (medical technologist). I wish the immigration processes were easier to understand.

37

Since they are the ones who need to file the form requesting your PERM, they would be your “sponsor”. If a bachelor’s degree is required for your certification, that helps. Either way, they would need to obtain a Labor Certification from the Dept of Labor that basically says there are not enough workers with your necessary training, skills, education, certification, and employing you will not effect salaries of Americans in your profession. Like if you were working for minimum wage, but Americans usually get paid 10 times that or something, they wouldn’t allow it.

The thing is, it would be your employer (the sponsor) who is petitioning. You can’t petition on your own behalf unless you discovered cold fusion or something and wanted to continue developing it in the US.

One good thing about the PERM request, is that while you are trying to get your Labor Certification, your eligibilty to renew your TN Visa is not effected. So if your Labor Cert is denied or while it is pending, you can still renew your VISA and you can still travel back and forth while it is pending. But once it is approved and your employer goes ahead with the PERM petition, you have shown your intent to immigrate.
So, just like filing for the residency through marriage, you would want to initiate it right after you renew your TN so that you have the maximum amount of leeway and flexibility. You might need that entire year for all your stuff to be processed and get finalized. You might run out of time though, and you’d be screwed because you wouldn’t be able to renew the TN.

Since you have the Bachelor’s Degree, your employer could sponsor you on a H-1B Visa. The process is similar to the PERM but it is a nonimmigrant Visa, so it wouldn’t effect your TN Visa. There are limited ones issued every year, but they are good for like 5 years. Much longer than your TN Visa. That would give you pleanty of time to have some romance, get married, file your I-130 petition and immigrate with your new wife sponsoring you.

That might all be irrelevant since your employer doesn’t sponsor people.

So… find yourself a nice nonprofit organization that is in need of your special medical tech skills and is willing to sponsor you under an H1-B Visa. (The annual limit to those Visas does not apply to nonprofits) Then, while working under that Visa, get married and submit your I-130 for permanent residence. You will have pleanty of time under that Visa.

I believe you can hold both the TN and H1-B. Applying for or renewing one shouldn’t effect the other because they are both nonimmigrant. So start looking around for an H1-B sponsor. You have a good chance with your education, certification, experience and profession. That’s my nonofficial 2 cents anyway.

38

It probably has to do with her being on a tourist visa and wasn’t allowed to work while she was applying for legal residency. You already has a visa which allowed you to work (spouse visa, IIRC) when you applied, as I did, so that wasn’t an issue for us.

My first wife did what you did, but switched from a student visa to a marriage visa. This was back in the dark ages, and we were able to get it done without an attorney. It helped that she was Japanese, and I had lived in Japan and spoke Japanese.