Hello everyone,
I apologise for the lack of updates recently (again!). Life seems to be very busy and times moves too fast, and before I know it, it's the end of July and I haven't made any posts recently! Not that there is a lot to post about, sadly.
I had good intentions of posting a 4th entry, since this was the first year I was married to my American husband, which sort of in my mind made the holiday more "real" to me. As always though, it slipped my mind!
In my update from the 24th June I said that all our forms had been submitted and that we were now waiting to hear further details about my medical and interview. Since then we received some rather nondescript letters that, according to our lawyers, are standard mail-outs from the the government.
The first was a letter to say that they had "updated" my application. That's pretty much all it said, but at least they received all our documents and there were no issues. The next letter was one that I received, which was basically a printout of my details and our case number, which again, is just some standard thing they seem to do. It doesn't necessarily get us any further along, but it's some small consolation at least that someone, somewhere in the government, has looked at our file in order to generate these automatic letters.
We spoke to our lawyer yesterday, as we are growing increasingly frustrated with this epically long process, and as far as anyone knows, we should hear from the government regarding my interview "soon"... How soon that is is anybody's guess, but let's hope it's at least in the next month or two.
Once I have more, I'll be sure to update you all.
Dan.
Showing posts with label Application. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Application. Show all posts
Thursday, 24 July 2014
Tuesday, 24 June 2014
Update on our progress
Hello everyone,
Two weeks ago I sent off for my police certificate using the premium service (£80). Documents I needed for the police certificate were a copy of my passport, two letter addressed to me and a recent passport photo endorsed by a friend I've known for more than 2 years. The certificate came back within the week and I then sent it to our lawyers in Los Angeles.
Once the lawyers received it they then forwarded it to the National Visa Center (NVC). However, I didn't know until after the fact that I'd also need a copy to take to my medical interview eventually, so the lawyers scanned a copy and sent it to me, which I printed out.
Around the same time Jon had to fill out all the forms for the I-864 Affidavit of Support and send those along with the supporting documents to the lawyers also. Documents he needed for this included evidence of income and federal tax returns statements and IRS transcripts.
Now that everything has been submitted to the NVC, our lawyers tell us that it's literally a case of waiting for the embassy in London to contact me now with interview details!
After all we've been though in this long process, I cannot believe we are finally at the stage where I am just waiting for my medical and interview!
Once we hear any more I'll of course update here.
Dan.
Two weeks ago I sent off for my police certificate using the premium service (£80). Documents I needed for the police certificate were a copy of my passport, two letter addressed to me and a recent passport photo endorsed by a friend I've known for more than 2 years. The certificate came back within the week and I then sent it to our lawyers in Los Angeles.
Once the lawyers received it they then forwarded it to the National Visa Center (NVC). However, I didn't know until after the fact that I'd also need a copy to take to my medical interview eventually, so the lawyers scanned a copy and sent it to me, which I printed out.
Around the same time Jon had to fill out all the forms for the I-864 Affidavit of Support and send those along with the supporting documents to the lawyers also. Documents he needed for this included evidence of income and federal tax returns statements and IRS transcripts.
Now that everything has been submitted to the NVC, our lawyers tell us that it's literally a case of waiting for the embassy in London to contact me now with interview details!
After all we've been though in this long process, I cannot believe we are finally at the stage where I am just waiting for my medical and interview!
Once we hear any more I'll of course update here.
Dan.
Thursday, 5 June 2014
DS-260 submitted! Welcome to June!
Hello everyone,
Well it's now June and I can't believe how the time has flown by! I started this blog late last June when DOMA got thrown out, so it's been nearly a year now!
In that year you've seen me planning for our wedding, getting married, submit our initial petition, wait forever to get approved, followed by finally get approved and now here we are at what is nearly the end of this part of my journey!
The week before last, our lawyers filled out the DS-260 for us based on the information we had provided to them previously. We went through it and amended as necessary, and last night our lawyers informed us that it had been submitted to the government on our behalf!
Of course, last time I wrote here, we were waiting for a case number in order to submit the DS-260. What is strange is that our lawyers didn't actually inform us when we had gotten our case number, and the first we heard about it was when they emailed last night to simply say the forms had been sent. The department of state website says that the DS-260 can only be submitted with a case number, so we assume that's what's happened. I don't know why the lawyers failed to be forthcoming on this part, but so long as the job gets done then I guess it's all good!
So right now, based on a fairly good educated guess, we think we have a case number, which means that we are well on the way to the final stage of this infuriatingly long process.
At some point the lawyers will need to send in Jon's affidavit of support to the government, and once that is done then my application will sent to the US consulate in London where they will contact me with a date for my medical and my final interview. Phew!
There is one thing I need to do here in the meantime. You may recall a while ago I was worrying about police certificates for when I have my interview. Well, seeing as we are now in the final stages, today I printed out from the UK police website the form I need to send, wrote the cheque and prepared to send it. I need to get my passport photocopied though and enclose that, as well as a passport sized photo signed by someone I know.
I'll be sending it all early next week hopefully, and it should take about 2 weeks to come back to me.
One final thing. You may notice I've changed the address of this blog. It seemed to fit better in my mind, so if you have it saved anywhere remember to update your bookmarks.
Ok, I think that's everything. As always when there are further developments I'll post them here!
Dan.
Well it's now June and I can't believe how the time has flown by! I started this blog late last June when DOMA got thrown out, so it's been nearly a year now!
In that year you've seen me planning for our wedding, getting married, submit our initial petition, wait forever to get approved, followed by finally get approved and now here we are at what is nearly the end of this part of my journey!
The week before last, our lawyers filled out the DS-260 for us based on the information we had provided to them previously. We went through it and amended as necessary, and last night our lawyers informed us that it had been submitted to the government on our behalf!
Of course, last time I wrote here, we were waiting for a case number in order to submit the DS-260. What is strange is that our lawyers didn't actually inform us when we had gotten our case number, and the first we heard about it was when they emailed last night to simply say the forms had been sent. The department of state website says that the DS-260 can only be submitted with a case number, so we assume that's what's happened. I don't know why the lawyers failed to be forthcoming on this part, but so long as the job gets done then I guess it's all good!
So right now, based on a fairly good educated guess, we think we have a case number, which means that we are well on the way to the final stage of this infuriatingly long process.
At some point the lawyers will need to send in Jon's affidavit of support to the government, and once that is done then my application will sent to the US consulate in London where they will contact me with a date for my medical and my final interview. Phew!
There is one thing I need to do here in the meantime. You may recall a while ago I was worrying about police certificates for when I have my interview. Well, seeing as we are now in the final stages, today I printed out from the UK police website the form I need to send, wrote the cheque and prepared to send it. I need to get my passport photocopied though and enclose that, as well as a passport sized photo signed by someone I know.
I'll be sending it all early next week hopefully, and it should take about 2 weeks to come back to me.
One final thing. You may notice I've changed the address of this blog. It seemed to fit better in my mind, so if you have it saved anywhere remember to update your bookmarks.
Ok, I think that's everything. As always when there are further developments I'll post them here!
Dan.
Sunday, 30 March 2014
The nest step in the process and police certificates
Hello everyone,
Last night Jon and I spoke with our lawyer at Masliah and Soloway, and went through what will be happening next in the immigration process.
I want to document it all here so that we can have a clear outline of what to expect after an I-130 petition has been approved by USCIS.
Our lawyers had emailed us in the early hours of the morning, UK time, on Thursday to inform us that our approval had came in "moments ago". It was around 8pm California time, which seemed odd anyway, but it was an electronic notification, and not a postal one. Since then we have spoken to our lawyer, and he said that the postal one may not arrive for several weeks yet. This makes me wonder, had we not used a lawyer, would we still be none the wiser now? Or if we had done it ourselves would there have been an electronic notification option for us, too? All I can say is, I am glad they got notified before the paper version came!
So now we have our approval, and we can move on to the next stage with the National Visa Center. First of all this involves us filling out a worksheet for our lawyer, with all the relevant information, which will then be transferred on to the actual document. The document in question is the DS-260, which is all about me.
The process should happen something like this, providing I understood it all correctly:
Jon and I fill out the DS-260 and pay our lawyers their fee and the government fee for the National Visa Center (NVC). The current government fee is $318 (US).
In the meantime our case is being transferred by the USCIS from them to the NVC. Once it is transferred, the NVC give us a case number and requests the fee from our lawyer, and the DS-260 is submitted also.
Once the NVC has received all of this, they process it all, and in due course we will get more forms to fill out, which at this stage I understand is to do with finances for the sponsor (Jon) with an affidavit of support to say he will support me. Tax returns for the past 3 years are also required, including a tax transcript which can be obtained easily from the IRS.
When those forms have been filled out, and we have our case number, we just wait to hear from them again.
To get the case number takes up to about 8 weeks currently, according to our lawyer. Once we have the case number have submitted the second round of forms in this stage, they will let us know when they move it to the consulate. Finally, we will hear from the consulate in London, which can take from 1 to 3 months.
I know that all sounds a bit confusing, but I tried to make as clear as possible. Unfortunately, as is the nature of anything to do with the government, nothing is simple, therefore explaining it can be tricky!
At some point during all of this, though, I have to request a police certificate to take along to my interview at the end of the whole process. Getting one in the UK is simple, but last night when we spoke to the lawyer, I almost had a heart attack.
He knows that I had spent some time in Canada on a work visa, and he said that I would need a police certificate for there too, since I was there for longer than 6 months. He said it should be as simple as getting one here. Of course, it isn't. When I started looking into it, there are a number of complicated procedures involved in getting a police certificate from Canada.
First off, you have to be fingerprinted. This can be done by local police in the country where you live, and fees can be high, although they are fairly easy to get. You then have to submit them electronically with you application to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. However, they only accept electronic fingerprints! They do not accept paper prints, which is what any police station would give you. Or at least if you get digital ones you must get a print out of them, which effectively makes them paper.
So, in order to get them digitised, you have to use a company authorised to scan the print out, who are based in Canada. Thankfully, they cover all costs, except the visit to the police in your home country of course, and submit your application with the digitised prints, and send the confirmation back to you. One company we looked at charged around $200 (US) total for this service.
Of course, whilst I was having a mini stroke about all this I found myself on the US Embassy in London website, looking at the police certificate requirements.
"Police certificates are required for all countries you have lived in for more than 12 months over the age of 16 years."
Basically, I do not have to get one after all!
I emailed our lawyer back, and he said that it is indeed 12 months. Of course, that was not what Jon and I heard on our call with him, otherwise why would we have put ourselves through this stress?!
My advice here is that, if you have lived in any other country continuously for exactly 12 months or more, be prepared to have to get police certificates for all those countries, and sometimes they are not easy to get. Our lawyer told us of a case where a man had lived in the Caribbean on business for a while, and had to get one from the country he was based in. Of course, being a developing nation they had no other means of doing it except in the country itself! Yes, the man had to travel to the Caribbean to get this document! Thankfully, had I needed one from Canada, I would have just used this authorised company, and paid the $200 for them to do it for me. Not ideal, but better than flying back to Toronto!
If you have any questions, I am more than happy to try and answer them.
Have a great Sunday everyone,
Dan.
Last night Jon and I spoke with our lawyer at Masliah and Soloway, and went through what will be happening next in the immigration process.
I want to document it all here so that we can have a clear outline of what to expect after an I-130 petition has been approved by USCIS.
Our lawyers had emailed us in the early hours of the morning, UK time, on Thursday to inform us that our approval had came in "moments ago". It was around 8pm California time, which seemed odd anyway, but it was an electronic notification, and not a postal one. Since then we have spoken to our lawyer, and he said that the postal one may not arrive for several weeks yet. This makes me wonder, had we not used a lawyer, would we still be none the wiser now? Or if we had done it ourselves would there have been an electronic notification option for us, too? All I can say is, I am glad they got notified before the paper version came!
So now we have our approval, and we can move on to the next stage with the National Visa Center. First of all this involves us filling out a worksheet for our lawyer, with all the relevant information, which will then be transferred on to the actual document. The document in question is the DS-260, which is all about me.
The process should happen something like this, providing I understood it all correctly:
Jon and I fill out the DS-260 and pay our lawyers their fee and the government fee for the National Visa Center (NVC). The current government fee is $318 (US).
In the meantime our case is being transferred by the USCIS from them to the NVC. Once it is transferred, the NVC give us a case number and requests the fee from our lawyer, and the DS-260 is submitted also.
Once the NVC has received all of this, they process it all, and in due course we will get more forms to fill out, which at this stage I understand is to do with finances for the sponsor (Jon) with an affidavit of support to say he will support me. Tax returns for the past 3 years are also required, including a tax transcript which can be obtained easily from the IRS.
When those forms have been filled out, and we have our case number, we just wait to hear from them again.
To get the case number takes up to about 8 weeks currently, according to our lawyer. Once we have the case number have submitted the second round of forms in this stage, they will let us know when they move it to the consulate. Finally, we will hear from the consulate in London, which can take from 1 to 3 months.
I know that all sounds a bit confusing, but I tried to make as clear as possible. Unfortunately, as is the nature of anything to do with the government, nothing is simple, therefore explaining it can be tricky!
At some point during all of this, though, I have to request a police certificate to take along to my interview at the end of the whole process. Getting one in the UK is simple, but last night when we spoke to the lawyer, I almost had a heart attack.
He knows that I had spent some time in Canada on a work visa, and he said that I would need a police certificate for there too, since I was there for longer than 6 months. He said it should be as simple as getting one here. Of course, it isn't. When I started looking into it, there are a number of complicated procedures involved in getting a police certificate from Canada.
First off, you have to be fingerprinted. This can be done by local police in the country where you live, and fees can be high, although they are fairly easy to get. You then have to submit them electronically with you application to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. However, they only accept electronic fingerprints! They do not accept paper prints, which is what any police station would give you. Or at least if you get digital ones you must get a print out of them, which effectively makes them paper.
So, in order to get them digitised, you have to use a company authorised to scan the print out, who are based in Canada. Thankfully, they cover all costs, except the visit to the police in your home country of course, and submit your application with the digitised prints, and send the confirmation back to you. One company we looked at charged around $200 (US) total for this service.
Of course, whilst I was having a mini stroke about all this I found myself on the US Embassy in London website, looking at the police certificate requirements.
"Police certificates are required for all countries you have lived in for more than 12 months over the age of 16 years."
Basically, I do not have to get one after all!
I emailed our lawyer back, and he said that it is indeed 12 months. Of course, that was not what Jon and I heard on our call with him, otherwise why would we have put ourselves through this stress?!
My advice here is that, if you have lived in any other country continuously for exactly 12 months or more, be prepared to have to get police certificates for all those countries, and sometimes they are not easy to get. Our lawyer told us of a case where a man had lived in the Caribbean on business for a while, and had to get one from the country he was based in. Of course, being a developing nation they had no other means of doing it except in the country itself! Yes, the man had to travel to the Caribbean to get this document! Thankfully, had I needed one from Canada, I would have just used this authorised company, and paid the $200 for them to do it for me. Not ideal, but better than flying back to Toronto!
If you have any questions, I am more than happy to try and answer them.
Have a great Sunday everyone,
Dan.
Thursday, 27 March 2014
Approval!
Hello everyone,
At 3am UK time today, Jon and I received an email from our lawyer at Masliah and Soloway, titled' GOOD NEWS'.
As you are all aware, Jon and I have been waiting since September to be approved by the USCIS in order to move on to the next stage of the immigration process. Initially we expected this to take around 3 months, but because of a large government backlog, it has ended up taking SIX. To say we have been on edge waiting for that notification everyday would be a massive understatement!
The email we got this morning informed us that "moments ago", LA time (UK -7 hours currently), their office received our approval notice for the immigration petition! After 6 agonising months, our application has finally been accepted! Of course this doesn't mean it's all over. But it's a start...
From here, our newly approved application is moved from the USCIS in Los Angeles to the National Visa Center (NVC) in New Hampshire where they will assign us a case number. This takes up to 8 weeks. Once we have a case number, we are required to fill out some more forms, and return them. Once the NVC receives these forms, they review our case and forward it to the consulate in the UK.
For now, we have work with our lawyer to gather all the information required by the NVC, so that once we receive our case number in about 8 weeks time, there is no delay and we can submit everything immediately.
At this moment in time that's about all the details I know. Once we start filling out these documents, I'll post more here, continuing my quest to document these procedures, in the hope that it helps someone!
Even if we still have a ways to go yet, to know that after 6 very long months we are finally able to start moving along is a huge relief.
Have a great day everyone,
Dan.
At 3am UK time today, Jon and I received an email from our lawyer at Masliah and Soloway, titled' GOOD NEWS'.
As you are all aware, Jon and I have been waiting since September to be approved by the USCIS in order to move on to the next stage of the immigration process. Initially we expected this to take around 3 months, but because of a large government backlog, it has ended up taking SIX. To say we have been on edge waiting for that notification everyday would be a massive understatement!
The email we got this morning informed us that "moments ago", LA time (UK -7 hours currently), their office received our approval notice for the immigration petition! After 6 agonising months, our application has finally been accepted! Of course this doesn't mean it's all over. But it's a start...
From here, our newly approved application is moved from the USCIS in Los Angeles to the National Visa Center (NVC) in New Hampshire where they will assign us a case number. This takes up to 8 weeks. Once we have a case number, we are required to fill out some more forms, and return them. Once the NVC receives these forms, they review our case and forward it to the consulate in the UK.
For now, we have work with our lawyer to gather all the information required by the NVC, so that once we receive our case number in about 8 weeks time, there is no delay and we can submit everything immediately.
At this moment in time that's about all the details I know. Once we start filling out these documents, I'll post more here, continuing my quest to document these procedures, in the hope that it helps someone!
Even if we still have a ways to go yet, to know that after 6 very long months we are finally able to start moving along is a huge relief.
Have a great day everyone,
Dan.
Friday, 7 March 2014
Processing Delays
Hello everyone,
Next week will be a full six months since Jon and I filed our forms with the US government for our immigration petition. Having initially been told by our lawyers that it would take about three months for our approval notice, we got to about four months wondering what was going on. When we asked our lawyers earlier this year, we were told that cases are currently taking up to six months to process. So we waited some more.
As I said above, next week will have been a full six month since our application, and today we finally got a notification from the immigration services, "Form I-797C, Notice of Action", which explained that due to a large backlog, our case was being forwarded to another processing centre as not to be further delayed. In our case, our papers are being forwarded to Los Angeles. The processing at the Los Angeles centre should take no more than sixty days from the date of the notification (which is three days ago), and should we not hear anything we have a number to call and our lawyers will able to file a follow up query form. Hopefully it won't come to that!
There are multiple sides to this. I have so far been disappointed that it has taken such an extraordinarily long time, but having gone into this knowing that the US immigration services do not rush themselves, I had low expectations. I am annoyed slightly that we have to wait a further sixty days, but on the flip side this does mean that we are now guaranteed to hear sooner rather than later. Committing themselves to sixty days gives us a finite timeframe in which to expect our approval notice and move on to the next step of this ridiculously long process. Sixty minus the three days since the form was sent means we have a maximum of fifty seven left to wait for our approval. A fifty seven days I will be counting almost to the minute, no less.
Jon and I are actually just relieved to hear something, period, and be acknowledged, and know now that we haven't been lost in the system, and that someone somewhere is still working on our case.
We spoke to our lawyers today, once we got this notification, and they have informed us that they received a large volume of them at their office this morning. There had indeed been a lot of cases that had been waiting a long time, and the transferal of our case to another office should now speed things up greatly and we should hear soon.
Fingers crossed!
Have a great weekend everyone,
Dan.
Next week will be a full six months since Jon and I filed our forms with the US government for our immigration petition. Having initially been told by our lawyers that it would take about three months for our approval notice, we got to about four months wondering what was going on. When we asked our lawyers earlier this year, we were told that cases are currently taking up to six months to process. So we waited some more.
As I said above, next week will have been a full six month since our application, and today we finally got a notification from the immigration services, "Form I-797C, Notice of Action", which explained that due to a large backlog, our case was being forwarded to another processing centre as not to be further delayed. In our case, our papers are being forwarded to Los Angeles. The processing at the Los Angeles centre should take no more than sixty days from the date of the notification (which is three days ago), and should we not hear anything we have a number to call and our lawyers will able to file a follow up query form. Hopefully it won't come to that!
There are multiple sides to this. I have so far been disappointed that it has taken such an extraordinarily long time, but having gone into this knowing that the US immigration services do not rush themselves, I had low expectations. I am annoyed slightly that we have to wait a further sixty days, but on the flip side this does mean that we are now guaranteed to hear sooner rather than later. Committing themselves to sixty days gives us a finite timeframe in which to expect our approval notice and move on to the next step of this ridiculously long process. Sixty minus the three days since the form was sent means we have a maximum of fifty seven left to wait for our approval. A fifty seven days I will be counting almost to the minute, no less.
Jon and I are actually just relieved to hear something, period, and be acknowledged, and know now that we haven't been lost in the system, and that someone somewhere is still working on our case.
We spoke to our lawyers today, once we got this notification, and they have informed us that they received a large volume of them at their office this morning. There had indeed been a lot of cases that had been waiting a long time, and the transferal of our case to another office should now speed things up greatly and we should hear soon.
Fingers crossed!
Have a great weekend everyone,
Dan.
Tuesday, 2 July 2013
Confirmation of applications being accepted
Hello everyone,
Some good news today, as US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano confirmed that with immediate effect the US immigration services were accepting same sex bi-national applications.
Although we knew this had already started, it's good to have official confirmation from the government!
It's also been confirmed (it had been suspected that this would be the case), that couples residing in States that do not recognise same sex marriages will still be able to file, providing they married in a place where the union was legal.
Attached below are two images confirming this news, courtesy of The DOMA Project.
Dan.
Some good news today, as US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano confirmed that with immediate effect the US immigration services were accepting same sex bi-national applications.
Although we knew this had already started, it's good to have official confirmation from the government!
It's also been confirmed (it had been suspected that this would be the case), that couples residing in States that do not recognise same sex marriages will still be able to file, providing they married in a place where the union was legal.
Attached below are two images confirming this news, courtesy of The DOMA Project.
Dan.
Saturday, 29 June 2013
BREAKING! Same Sex Green Cards applications have begun being approved!!
Hello everyone,
Breaking news across the internet this afternoon is that bi-national couples have already started receiving the official notifications from the immigration services that their green card applications have been approved!
This is quite remarkable since Section 3 of DOMA was only thrown out on Wednesday!
I doubt these are new applications, since that would be way too quick - these are probably ones put on hold that were filed by people before DOMA was thrown out.
It had been in the news that pending the outcome of DOMA, applications were being held, instead of being denied.
Honestly, it is amazing for those folks that this is now happening, but I would not have taken the risk of a visa denial in the event of an unfavourable DOMA ruling.
It's bad enough that Jon and I are in the present situation, let alone being banned from entering the US or something because of a bad visa application!
We've gone through too much to experience that!
So although now a happy result, those people were taking a huge risk!
Just my thoughts.
Dan.
Breaking news across the internet this afternoon is that bi-national couples have already started receiving the official notifications from the immigration services that their green card applications have been approved!
This is quite remarkable since Section 3 of DOMA was only thrown out on Wednesday!
I doubt these are new applications, since that would be way too quick - these are probably ones put on hold that were filed by people before DOMA was thrown out.
It had been in the news that pending the outcome of DOMA, applications were being held, instead of being denied.
Honestly, it is amazing for those folks that this is now happening, but I would not have taken the risk of a visa denial in the event of an unfavourable DOMA ruling.
It's bad enough that Jon and I are in the present situation, let alone being banned from entering the US or something because of a bad visa application!
We've gone through too much to experience that!
So although now a happy result, those people were taking a huge risk!
Just my thoughts.
Dan.
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