Anyone with immigration experience?

[waywardreefer]

Fellow Reefers...just an AD Military guy with a Canadian wife getting her converted to the stars & stripes. Looking for any info someone out there may have. I'm sponsoring her and my 3 step kiddos into the US.

Curious if there is anyone experienced in the process or that has been through the process to bounce infomraiton off of. Please don't just reply with a link to USCIS, or Citizenpath, or Boundless...etc...

We're currently going through everything with an immigration attorney right now...just curious how others experiences may have been...their timelines...things they wish they knew...etc...

So far, since she's abroad:
Filed i-130/i-130a for her and i-130s for all the kiddos
It'll have to go the consular route because they're all still in Canada, so once USCIS has done their part, it'll be past to the embassy in Montreal (closest one to her) for the DS-260/261, etc...

So we're thinking it'll be like 11-17 monts before that's all done, the interview is scheduled, and she can get her conditional permanent residency (green card good for 2 yrs). Then filing the 485, removal of conditions to extend the green card to 10 yrs...and at the 3 yr mark just file for citizenship...

Any of that sound right to anyone w/experience?

 

[tehmadreefer]

Yep, that sounds right. Went through it with my wife from the Bahamas. 2 yr. conditional greencard is just about up. Dong move as that will mess things up. We moved from VA to FL halfway through the process and it made it take way longer and multiple calls and appts to a processing center to straighten things out.

It's an easy process. Just follow the instructions and pay all that money!

 

[tehmadreefer]

We did it on our own as well, no need for an attorney.

 

[tehmadreefer]

We also kinda cheated lol. She just moved here instead of doing a marriage visa or whatever and did the marriage after she was 90 days in US.

 

[waywardreefer]

@tehmadreefer thanks! The move part for me is a mandatory thing. I'm being reassigned to Tampa FL in Jan, so that's a guaranteed thing we have to do... She'll be staying in Ontario and we'll just be visiting eachother back and forth until it's all done. How long did it take y'all to get the 2-yr?

 

[tehmadreefer]

Not too long. She moved here Dec 2015, got married April 2016 at the courthouse, filed all the paperwork and got conditional green card in 2018. Even with the delay from moving and having to redo the medical clearance since the original expired as it took longer than normal. One thing is she was required to get a FL drivers license within like 90 days after the greencard interview as well. So its helps if the other person has a drivers license in whatever state prior to the green card interview.

 

[tehmadreefer]

The move really threw everything off and made it way longer

 

[Tamberav]

Went through all that with my husband. He had to get a physical and such (he was from Netherlands) and the Doctor used an old form so we had to pay a filing fee again which was expensive!! Doctor did not give two ***** they messed up. We brought our own form for them to fill out the second time.

 

[waywardreefer]

@tehmadreefer @Tamberav Thank you all for the inputs! It's great to see fellow reefers out there who've been through some of the same struggles...even outside of the hobby.

 

[AngryMike2016]

Not sure if I can provide much input, but I did get my US citizenship just about one year ago and would be glad to answer any questions I can about that.