Our journey...

[shiri 0]

We all have wound up here on visa journey because we met and fell in love with someone from another nationality. My husband and I met while playing Final Fantasy XI online. He and I were friends that ended up falling in love. He is from Canada and I am from the United States of America. About a year to year and a half into our relationship, we knew we wanted to grow old together. We were both completely ignorant as to what it would entail by marrying someone from another country. At first, we didn't know what country we wanted to live in. We decided to get married by the justice of the peace while he was visiting. We knew if we got married we would have to choose a country. We searched, but didn't find the correct information... eventually on a trip over the border, one of the border patrol people told us that we had to start the journey either way for him to be able to come back into the United States. We were told that since he and I were married, he was no longer considered a visitor to the United States. They printed up the forms we would need for him to get either and IR-1/CR-1 and or K3 visa. He remained in Canada while I drove back home pregnant with my three children from a previous marriage. That was March 29, 2008. So technically error 1 for us was being ignorant of the K-1 visa... I didn't even know it existed until we started this process.

Once I got the G325A and the photos from him in the mail, I was able to submit our I130. I had an older copy of the instructions, I guess, lol and I sent it to the Nebraska office. About a week later, I got a package from them sending everything back telling me that I sent it to the wrong office and I needed to send it along with the later they sent to the Chicago Lock box and we ended up going through the California Service Center. So... that was Error 2! lol...

We got our NOA-1 on May 23, 2008 and our NOA-2 on September 12. We had no hitches there... no RFEs. So, our case number was assigned and we were sent our letter from the NVC on Sept 24. I paid the fees online and the support information through the NVC went through fine. (They didn't notify us that the joint sponsor's spouse needed to submit and affidavit of support also.) Now our error 3 would be that. Error 4 was that I sent copies of my husband's birth certificate, our marriage certificate and the PCC. They needed originals. I called the NVC about whether or not we would need his birth certificate translated. They informed me that even though it was in French, since the embassy was in Canada and that was the country he was born in, it didn't need to be translated.... they were wrong! lol So, there is error 5!

Error 6 for us was that I had my husband get another PCC from the RCMP instead of the one he sent me at first and I sent it in with a printed out copy of the barcode, instead of waiting to receive the RFE by mail... I thought that would save us time. It didn't... instead I got our first completion date at the NVC on 11-20-08 and when I called in on Dec 1 to see if we had an interview date, I was informed that they moved out our completion date to Dec 1, 2008. I finally found out our interview date in February 2008 and our interview date was March 24, 2009.

We didn't learn that error 3 was even an error until the interview when they couldn't issue the visa without it. We didn't learn the NVC advised us incorrectly about the translation of the birth certificate until we submitted what they asked for at the interview. My husband received a letter stating the only thing they were missing was the translated birth certificate. He has an appointment to get it translated tomorrow afternoon and then plans to take it to the Embassy in person... so we will finally see if he is approved sometime this month. I hope our series of mistakes can help someone to have a more smooth journey. Visa journey is a great place and if you found this... then you also found a lot of very educated people on the process. Good luck!

[12345678 1]

Congratulation FINALLY...

Never forget the famous saying " TO ERR IS A HUMAN" and u guys proved urself to be perfact HUMAN............

Good Luck ....

Sonia

Edited April 7, 2009 by soniasharmin

[Terca 6]

And thanks for posting! I am getting ready to start my journey and everything helps

[shiri 0]

Congratulation FINALLY...

Never forget the famous saying " TO ERR IS A HUMAN" and u guys proved urself to be perfact HUMAN............

Good Luck ....

Sonia

Thanks!

And thanks for posting! I am getting ready to start my journey and everything helps

Good luck with everything and I hope this did help some!

[LondonLad 0]

thanks for sharing

[childress_london 3]

Thanks for the information!

[Huong and Phung 0]

thank you for sharing. So glad everything work out. How was the interview?

[Michael and Joyce 0]

We all have wound up here on visa journey because we met and fell in love with someone from another nationality. My husband and I met while playing Final Fantasy XI online. He and I were friends that ended up falling in love. He is from Canada and I am from the United States of America. About a year to year and a half into our relationship, we knew we wanted to grow old together. We were both completely ignorant as to what it would entail by marrying someone from another country. At first, we didn't know what country we wanted to live in. We decided to get married by the justice of the peace while he was visiting. We knew if we got married we would have to choose a country. We searched, but didn't find the correct information... eventually on a trip over the border, one of the border patrol people told us that we had to start the journey either way for him to be able to come back into the United States. We were told that since he and I were married, he was no longer considered a visitor to the United States. They printed up the forms we would need for him to get either and IR-1/CR-1 and or K3 visa. He remained in Canada while I drove back home pregnant with my three children from a previous marriage. That was March 29, 2008. So technically error 1 for us was being ignorant of the K-1 visa... I didn't even know it existed until we started this process.

Once I got the G325A and the photos from him in the mail, I was able to submit our I130. I had an older copy of the instructions, I guess, lol and I sent it to the Nebraska office. About a week later, I got a package from them sending everything back telling me that I sent it to the wrong office and I needed to send it along with the later they sent to the Chicago Lock box and we ended up going through the California Service Center. So... that was Error 2! lol...

We got our NOA-1 on May 23, 2008 and our NOA-2 on September 12. We had no hitches there... no RFEs. So, our case number was assigned and we were sent our letter from the NVC on Sept 24. I paid the fees online and the support information through the NVC went through fine. (They didn't notify us that the joint sponsor's spouse needed to submit and affidavit of support also.) Now our error 3 would be that. Error 4 was that I sent copies of my husband's birth certificate, our marriage certificate and the PCC. They needed originals. I called the NVC about whether or not we would need his birth certificate translated. They informed me that even though it was in French, since the embassy was in Canada and that was the country he was born in, it didn't need to be translated.... they were wrong! lol So, there is error 5!

Error 6 for us was that I had my husband get another PCC from the RCMP instead of the one he sent me at first and I sent it in with a printed out copy of the barcode, instead of waiting to receive the RFE by mail... I thought that would save us time. It didn't... instead I got our first completion date at the NVC on 11-20-08 and when I called in on Dec 1 to see if we had an interview date, I was informed that they moved out our completion date to Dec 1, 2008. I finally found out our interview date in February 2008 and our interview date was March 24, 2009.

We didn't learn that error 3 was even an error until the interview when they couldn't issue the visa without it. We didn't learn the NVC advised us incorrectly about the translation of the birth certificate until we submitted what they asked for at the interview. My husband received a letter stating the only thing they were missing was the translated birth certificate. He has an appointment to get it translated tomorrow afternoon and then plans to take it to the Embassy in person... so we will finally see if he is approved sometime this month. I hope our series of mistakes can help someone to have a more smooth journey. Visa journey is a great place and if you found this... then you also found a lot of very educated people on the process. Good luck!

This serves as enlightenment to me..

Ill be very careful..thanks for the info..

[CanadiaGirl 10]

Thank you so very much for the tips on this! I know it obviously didn't save you the headaches but I'm sure many can attest you have saved others from experiencing what you did.

I was always in a bit of confusion when it came to 'sending documentation'. When you submitted your I-130 what documents could you send copies of and which ones did you send originals of (I ask this because you said you had no problems with this step in the process.) I have read the guidelines but would rather double check.

Also with your Husband being Canadian was he still able to 'visit' you during the entire process?

Edited February 21, 2010 by CanadiaGirl