Based on my interpretation of the webpage presented, it is my understanding that I have to be above the poverty line for the household size in question (which I am) and ADDITIONAL years (as in, more than 1) should be supplied for further proof of income/sustainability. That said, is it likely for them to accept last year’s W-2 (which was a full year of income) or do we have a long wait ahead of us?
Taking the co-sponsor route, my father is now retired but still pulls in ~3,600 a month from his pension. I know that co-sponsoring means he would be legally responsible for her financial well-being, but obviously it would primarily be means of just getting her here. I’m fairly certain I can support her until she finds work.
Good news: She told her mom about the upcoming visit and she was “perfectly okay with it” (to quote my fiance). What is this I don’t even…
Such a sudden change of tone. I mean, I’m thrilled, but so weird. She didn’t tell her about the engagement (and per the advice here, I’ll definitely want to share that news as a couple), but now this looks as if meeting might be a practical lead-in.
My advice is that you choose to view this as the cultural difference that it represents and nothing more, time is on your side. Think about cultures that hire professional mourners, to come and wail and weep for hours at the grave side. Or of Muslim brides weeping through their wedding celebrations, she’s leaving her mother and home, but it also represents purity and innocence and is expected. In Asian cultures hosts often start by apologizing for the humble accommodations, no matter how opulent, it’s expected. Do these cultural differences weave into normal familial dysfunctions? Absolutely!
That her father is somewhat more reasonable and accepting, to me, says he expected his wife’s histrionics, it is, very likely a part of their culture. It sounds like you should get the girl to lure the mother, out of the house, so you can meet with her father, ask for her hand, shake his hand, and leave. (Keep that no grandchildren talk to yourselves, regardless!) Then get on with your plan as you’ve laid it out here.
Give her mother time, the length of her misery, may indicate depth of love for her daughter, in some twisted cultural way.
I’ve always entertained the idea that a lot of the cultural influences might be playing a role here. She has never mentioned anything specifically that differs in regards to this, but who knows what underlying reasons might be there. I’m sure you’ve touched on all of them to some degree.
This… is true. Mr. hunter and I were in a medium-distance relationship (saw each other on weekends) for a number of years. He declined to become engaged to me when I moved to the town he lived in, on the theory that we should figure out if we could coexist in the same town without killing each other. He was right. It did take a long time to figure this out. Don’t expect this part to be easy. It is a shame that you have the time limit, because it would REALLY be worth feeling this out before you take the much more serious step of marriage.
For example… we talked on the phone for hours every night. Literally. But it turns out that this is a really poor simulation for actually having someone in your space, sitting in your chair, negotiating when dinner is and who’s going to cook it, one person wanting to do something and the other person not wanting to… it was a shock to me how different it was.
I have parents who sound about ten percent as bad as hers, and who are awesome in a great many ways, and I understand this completely. It’s really hard to understand what this is like if one doesn’t have the family background. I once kept a relationship from them for years because I was afraid of the fallout. Had I married that person, I knew full well that I would probably be choosing to never talk to my parents again. And had I done so, I would have chosen that willingly and (although it obviously would have been hard) would have followed through with it. (That relationship broke up, but not because of my parents.)
They won’t accept one years w-2 unfortunately, I know that from personal experience. We misread the affidavit of support form and only sent in one years and it was rejected. In our case they requested three years.
Here’s another reason you want to meet her parents: To actually meet them. I know, shocking right? But for two years now you’ve not talked to them, e-mailed them, or met them face to face. In fact, you’ve had no communications whatsoever except with your fiancee as an intermediary. In short, all you know of the entire situation is what she’s told you, as interpreted by her.
Look, I’m not saying she’s lying. I’m just saying, well…I love my wife dearly, but I can listen to her tell stories that I myself have experienced and know that her retellings have no bearing on reality. She gives herself license to dramatically reinterpret facts so as to make it a better tale in the retelling.
So maybe your fiancee is understating this whole thing and they’ll come out with shotguns and tell you to get yer ugly no good face outta there before they pump it full of lead. Or maybe they’re completely normal and your fiancee is prone to just making shit up for drama’s sake or for shits and giggles. Fact is you don’t really know, now do you?
Only one way to find out. Go there with your a smile on your face and your hand extended.
Okay, that’s fine. My dad will have no problem co-sponsoring. I’m glad I have that information, though, as I would’ve likely sent in the support form in the same way you did.
Honestly, one or both of you should pick up the phone and speak to someone in Immigration. As knowledgeable as people are here, they are not acting in an official capacity. There are undoubtedly forms to fill out and proof of citizenship requirements, etc.
No. It can literally be anyone who meets the other criteria.
Also, IME the officer adjudicating the case has a fair amount of discretion regarding a situation like yours in which right noww, you clearly meet the income requirement, but haven’t necessarily for all fo the past 3 years. You can also use assets to make up for any deficiency in income. You should read the I-864 instructions very carefully.
Thanks. We’re doing light preparations (investigating some background, asking questions like I’m doing here, asking for personal experience, etc.) in order to become familiar with the process. We’ll probably end up hiring an attorney. How much of the process does an attorney actually handle? I’m sure it still requires quite a bit of participation from both ends, but I think we’re both in agreement that we’d rather not mess this up.
My firm handles it from soup to nuts: you would provide the biographic information and supporting documentation requested, and we would prepare all the forms, coach you on what to expect in terms of processing time, follow up on everything to make sure it’s processed in a timely manner, coach you for/accompany you to the interview, etc. Any decent firm would do similar. Of course, there are lots of skeezy and/or incompetent firms, too.
When you get ready to hire a lawyer, a) you want someone who specializes in immigration law, particularly family based immigration law; b) you probably prefer someone who is a member of AILA; and c) you want to check with your state’s bar association to make sure there are no valid complaints against him/her, at a minimum. If you want, PM me and I’ll see if I can get you a local rec.
Great, thanks so much! Two paragraphs of concise information from an actual immigration attorney is much more than Google could ever hope to accomplish.
I’ll add you to my “watched” list and definitely send a PM your way once things are concrete. Do you know of approximate costs by going the attorney route? I know (roughly) what the actual process itself will cost, but I’m just curious. I know this will likely vary wildly, but a ballpack figure would be cool.
In our case the price quoted was about $2200 for attorney’s fees, this didn’t include any of the filing fees. This attorney wouldn’t have handled anything with the Visa either but he would have accompanied us to the final immigration interview.
We ended up not hiring an attorney but we did have the very helpful people through our base legal who would look over any forms we wanted for free.
The reason we didn’t hire an immigration attorney is that he was very upfront with us that he didn’t know much about how the process for Canadians worked. We came in with a few specific questions which he didn’t know the answer too and tried unsuccessfully with us sitting right there to find the answer by typing our questions into google. Which we had tried at home but still charged us a few hundred just for his time.
As an aside when we went in for our interview he was there with another couple and they were denied. We were actually the first people approved since the previous week according to our interviewer and they had to go get the stamp out of the safe.
