If you or a loved one has relations to a foreign national, you may want to sponsor them to reside in the United States for an extended period of time.
Having just recently done the process of sponsoring my spouse for a Permanent Resident (Green Card), I hope my experience can help others going through the process in the future.
Overview
If this is your first experience with anything related to a green card, the process is rather simple, as long as you know what to look for!
My experience is of a marriage with no criminal history or medical issues that would provide any issues on either side. Your experience may differ and I would like to hear your stories in the comments!
I am not an expert, please take the following as advice only
Total Cost: $1,975.00
Required Paperwork (Sponsoring A Permanent Resident [Spouse] into the United States)
MAKE SURE TO MAKE COPIES OF EVERY SUBMITTED DOCUMENT!
We needed:
USCIS Forms and Fees Specifics:
Forms:
- I-485 (Spouse) Adjustment of status $1,140.00
- I-130 (Sponsor) Petition for Alien Relative $535.00
- I-130A (Spouse) Supplemental Information $0.00
- I-131 (Spouse) Application for Travel Document $0.00
- I-765 (Spouse) Employment of Status $0.00
- I-864 (Sponsor’s taxes) Affidavit of support $0.00
- I-864A (Sponsor/Spouse) Contract $0.00
- I-693 (Spouse) Report of Medical Examination $0.00
- G-1145 (Sponsor/Spouse) E-Notification $0.00
- I-751 (Spouse/Sponsor) (Spouse/Sponsor) Conditions on Residence $595.00 (90 Days before Expiration of Green Card)
- Biometric Services Fee (Spouse) Biometric Fee $85.00 (Our experience cost us $300 Total)
- G-325A (Spouse) (Spouse) Biological Information $0.00
- G-325A (Sponsor) (Sponsor) Biological Information $0.00
Total Overall Cost $1,975.00
PAYMENTS: All payments are made to “U.S Department of Homeland Security”
DOCUMENTS: (Copies. NOT Originals)
- Spouse’s birth certificate
- Certified Translation of Spouse’s Birth Certificate
- Sponsor’s Birth Certificate
- Copy of Spouse’s Passport:
a. Bio Info Page
b. Visa Page - Copy of Spouse’s DS-2019
- Copy of Spouse’s recent I-94
- Copy of Sponsor’s Passport
- Passport photos (2×2)
- Certified copy of Marriage Certificate
- Sponsor’s Employment Letter
- Sponsor’s Paystubs (Last 4)
- Sponsor’s Federal Tax Return (last 3)
- Sponsor’s W-2 (last 3)
OTHER:
- Pictures together as a couple
- Wedding Invitations or any proof of relationship
- Letter from family or friends saying they know about your relationship and that it’s true
- Joint Bank Account Letter
- Apartment Contract Together
- Utilities Bill with names on it
Total Time
Total Time: 11 Months From Marriage to Green Card (4 months after form submission date)
To Get Started
Each form that applies to your situation will tell the most up to date requirements in what supplemental information to provide. To find your forms:
- Go to https://www.uscis.gov and navigate to what applies to you. This is your one resource. You do not need an immigration lawyer unless you have an extra $5,000 for peace of mind.
- For marriage to those that have a J or K Visa, first look at form “I-485 Adjustment of Status”. Amount required for filing: $1,140.00.
- Instructions in the packet will tell you to provide additional forms. PAY ATTENTION TO THESE FORMS. Read very carefully and simply take it step-by-step.
- Forms submitted as a packet require a money order at their exact price, otherwise, the packet will be sent back. You may submit all packets at once in a single document, with separate packets and their respective money orders.
- Once your information is collected into a packet, it should be submitted either directly to a USCIS brick-and-mortar location or via mail. Get this envelope insured, tracked, and everything you can to make sure you know when it arrives at the location, if at all.
Once submitted, you have no choice but to wait for your documents in the mail. If your packet is rejected, USCIS will give you a deadline (usually 60 days after notice of rejection) to fix any issues and re-submit the forms. If your forms are rejected after the filing fee was already processed, you may have to re-submit for an additional filing fee. So please be sure to save up double the amount that each form costs.
MAKE COPIES!!! Copies allow you to verify your information even after submission and can be used to make sure no forms were tampered with.
Our Experience
Everything went rather smoothly for us, all things considered. Neither of us were criminals, neither of us had any medical issues, I was a member of the armed forces, and we were financially stable.
“You must show that your household income is equal to or higher than 125% of the U.S. poverty level for your household size”
as shown in the Affidavit of Support page.
When we were getting married, we had no idea what the process was for getting a green card. We were being told different things by a lot of people, and our situation was a little different than most.
Nobody in the local area had any insight to assist us. We had gone to the on-base legal office, we had called local immigration lawyers, and we had gone to every sort of official leadership we could to find an answer to help us. Normally, everybody in the military had gotten married while stationed overseas, and were able to have a streamlined process in bringing their spouses into the United States with them. This is much easier than meeting your spouse and getting married all while they were a temporary resident that is already in the United States.
We read around, found the right list of forms we needed, an estimated cost, and made our own appointments. We filed all the documents on our own, and simply submitted every form that applied to us. If it wasn’t needed, it would get rejected to sent back.
Better to be over-prepared than under-prepared.
In the end, our forms only got rejected because I had over paid on the money orders for the forms I didn’t actually need to submit. They’re response simply stated, “Improper payment received. please read instructions”. Which is rather ambiguous. So I took out the extra money orders and re-submitted the forms, which were accepted the second time.
First came the travel card after only a couple weeks of waiting. But no Green Card. The green card needed extra documentation from the doctor, which we had to see a total of 3 times (which was a 2 hour drive away) to get the forms properly filled out. By no fault of our own, we had been delayed and almost exceeded the deadline and automatically rejected by default.
We had to bring a sealed envelope straight from the doctor to USCIS, and were unable to verify if any of the information was even correct. To which we found out the immigration doctor had forgotten a single check box. He was certified, and had probably done this a thousand times. HOW!?!?!
*ahem* little salty.
Anyway, we simply had to provide the additional form paperwork and it was accepted so in the end it wasn’t all that bad. Read on for more information of all the main parts of the coordination required with USCIS.
THE GREEN CARD INTERVIEW
A spouse living abroad will attend an interview at a U.S. embassy or consulate in their home country, after receiving an appointment notice with the exact time, date, and location.
A spouse living with their sponsor will have the sponsor attend the interview along with them. This applied to us, and we were in the same room throughout the interview. We have seen some get interviewed in separate rooms.
If the consular officer is sufficiently convinced that the marriage is not fraudulent, they may approve your green card application on the spot. In our case, we had reached this point only to be told about our situation with the Medical Examination paperwork being submitted incomplete. This was out of our control and out of our knowledge. All this required was another trip to our Immigration Doctor who performed the examination and submitted the paperwork.
MEDICAL EXAMINATION
Before attending the green card interview, the spouse seeking a green card must have a medical examination performed by an immigration certified Doctor. The U.S. consulate processing your application should send you a list of these doctors along with your interview notice. The cost of this exam varies widely by country, but $200 is not uncommon. Our experience ended up costing $300 while having to google our own doctor.
Once the exam is complete, the doctor will give you a sealed envelope containing your exam results and vaccination record, which you must take with you to the interview.
BIOMETRICS APPOINTMENT
The spouse seeking a green card must also, in most countries, sign up for a biometrics appointment at a visa application support center (Ours was supported at our local USCIS). The purpose of this appointment is for the government to take fingerprints of the spouse, in order to conduct background and security checks. These instructions are also posted on each consulate’s website.
The fingerprinting appointment is typically low-stress and can be thought of as more of a procedural step. The spouse seeking a green card will not be asked questions about the marriage or about green card eligibility at this appointment. They will simply be fingerprinted.
How long did it take?
From start to finish after our first submission to USCIS, it took us 4 months to receive all of our documents we applied for.
From starting the process right after getting married in Summer 2017, to receiving our final document in Spring 2018, we did it in 11 months. It took this long because I was paranoid that we filled something out incorrectly, so I went over all documents multiple times and hesitated in submitting them. The realistic estimated time, assuming no issues, should take approximately 6 months.
We were rejected once for over-payment, delayed once for the Doctor filling the form out incorrectly, with that being our only real issue throughout and no other rejections.
Problems We Experienced
We were in a situation where we were getting married, which then meant we had to move into our own house. Marriage was straight forward, but we then had to apply for Military Housing, which is a whole hurdle in itself. Once we had the house and marriage over with, we had to re-fill out the paperwork with the new address, and verify our new information was correct on the forms.
From there, we searched for a local certified immigration doctor for our form I-693. MAKE SURE THEY MAKE RECORDS OF YOUR VISIT AND GIVE YOU A COPY OF THEIR SUBMISSION THAT YOU CAN REVIEW. Ours had missed a check mark box. We were delayed (not rejected) and had to get properly filled out forms. Our doctor had lost our forms, so they had to make a new record to submit. There was a deadline of how recent the examination was valid, and we were almost reaching that deadline and needing to be re-examined. Luckily the doctor re-filled out the forms in their entirety, we verified that they were correct, and submitted them directly to USCIS to make sure they didn’t get lost in the mail.
You DO NOT need to get a Lawyer
Which doesn’t sound like good advice, but if you’re tight on a budget, this may just save you thousands of dollars. All they do is become a middle-man with a higher probability for error. They don’t know your entire life story, and all they want is your money. Every phone call will cost extra, every time they are involved they cost extra, and all they provide is a sense of security that you have some sort of insurance that your paperwork will be accepted. You can do everything yourself and get by just fine as they really don’t do anything but hand deliver the forms.
We had called immigration lawyers with a free consultation just to get in the right direction, but they spouted a bunch of information that made everything sound more complicated than it needed to be.
In the end, the immigration lawyer would have only been helpful in the case with the doctor. Where if we were rejected, the lawyer could have jumped in to make sure we didn’t have to restart the whole process and lose our filing fee.
However, You should get a lawyer if you have a criminal history, are separated from your spouse or children for ANY reason, and/or run into any complications that are out of your control. The extra investment could make all the difference and a little money up front could save you a long time away from your spouse or kids.
Make Copies!
Document Everything!
READ THE INSTRUCTIONS ON EACH FORM!
If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask! Though, I am not an immigration lawyer, nor am I any official informant, but through my experience I hope to be able to help others with any troubles they may run into.
Leave a Reply