The I-130 - Petition for Alien Relative.. Great name, right? Petition for Alien Relative... I mean, not that I have a green oval head or anything ;p
The I-130 is a form that needs to be used by a US citizen or lawful permanent resident (LPR) of the United States who needs to establish their relationship to an eligible relative who wishes to immigrate to the United States. Since I am T's wife living outside of the US and wishing to immigrate to the US, this form was for us! Filing a Form I-130 was only the first step in helping me, as an eligible relative, immigrate to the US. This page: https://www.uscis.gov/i-130 is where you can find the most recent version of the form. It is important that you note the date when the form was last reviewed, so that you do not use an old form or one that is about to expire. The form is long but straightforward. If in doubt, refer to the guidance notes/ instructions. TIP: Be sure to complete all sections. Even if a section does not apply to you then I'd suggest writing in N/A in those lines/ sections. If you leave sections/ lines completely blank, the USCIS officer might assume that you missed certain sections (unintentional omission) and may ask you to go back through the form and complete all sections. You certainly do not want that - waste of everyone's time. Without a doubt, the most time consuming (and arguably, stressful) part of the I-130 application was gathering of the necessary evidence to show that the marriage is bona fide. This means a marriage in which the two people intend, from the start, to establish a life together as husband and wife ( or husband and husband / wife and wife). If, like T and I, you and your other half live in separate countries and do not have a child together, the list provided on the USCIS website can be quite daunting (i.e. documentation showing joint ownership of property, or a lease showing joint tenancy, or documentation showing that you and your spouse have combined financial resources....). I remember asking myself, how on Earth am I supposed to have those documents that you'd normally acquire whilst living in the country if I am applying to immigrate in the first place (and do not have a Social Security Number)?! I spent a few days researching/ googling and speaking with individuals who have gone through this process before and gathered evidence that was our best chance at proving that our marriage was bona fide. We provided the following evidence: - five affidavits of bona fide marriage, affirmed by third parties having personal knowledge of us and our relationship - recent joint credit card account bill - evidence that T has made me a beneficiary on his 401(k)/ pension - wire transfer history showing transfers of money between T and I - evidence of previous trips I have taken to visit T and vice versa - evidence of trips T and I took together - evidence of correspondence between us, including an extract from our What’s App conversations and Facebook posts. Fun fact: when pasted into Word in Times New Roman size 10, the transcript of our What's App convo was in excess of 7,400 pages long (!) - print out of Facebook photographs that show both T and I together, spanning throughout our relationship. We filed the completed I-130 form together with the evidence we gathered, photos and all the other docs as outlined in the I-130 Checklist on the USCIS page. We sent it to the address listed on the page in August 2018 and got a confirmation from the USCIS that they received the package approx 2 weeks later. TIP: Make sure you put in your email address into the I-130 form in the relevant section so you can get notifications from the USCIS. Make sure you check the mail regularly too as you will get a hard copy confirmation of the USCIS receiving your petition and giving you a case number and a Priority Date. This page will then become your regular go-to so you can monitor your case status: https://egov.uscis.gov/casestatus/landing.do Your I-130 petition will be routed to one of the five processing centres (or, centers) depending on where the US citizen lives - Nebraska, Potomac, California, Vermont or Texas. T lives in Los Angeles and our petition was routed to Texas (I-130s filed by US citizens who live in California seem to be routed to Texas). When we filed our I-130, the USCIS website indicated the average processing times for the Texas centre to be between 5-7 months. As our petition was received, those brackets were upped to 6-8 months, then 6.5 - 8.5 months then 8-10 months and finally 10-12 months. If you file I-130, you must be prepared to wait... For example, as of the day I am writing this post (9th September 2019), USCIS are busy processing forms received in November 2018 (!). The long wait is very, very difficult as there is very little you can do to speed things up. USCIS does allow requests to expedite, but to qualify, you'd have to meet very strict criteria that are unlikely to apply to most UK-US couples. Here is a page that explains the expedite process: https://www.uscis.gov/forms/how-make-expedite-request Now on to a looooooong wait.....
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About this Blog...I decided to write this blog to capture memories of my immigration journey and perhaps to give other Brits an insight into what they might expect if they find themselves in a similar position. ArchivesCategories |