Marriage to USC while on OPT - need guidance

[ITERtheway 1]

Hello

I have been dating my girl friend (who is a US citizen) for a year and we decided to have a legal wedding in Sep/2012. I am on F1 student visa now and my OPT will start in Sep/2012. As part of the OPT processing I submitted I-765 and will receive EAD (F1 based) in Sep/2012. After the legal wedding, we are planning to start the IR-1 green card process (concurrent filing) immediately after receiving our official marriage certificate. We both are grad students. I go to school in the west coast and she goes to school in the east coast. We visited each other several times during the last year and have pictures of our trips. I have the following questions. I appreciate if someone can clarify my concerns

1) We are planning to do the concurrent filing immediately after receiving the marriage certificate. We don't have any other documents except marriage certificate to prove our relationship, i.e we don't have any joint ownership of property, lease showing joint tenancy, document showing co-mingling of financial resources, birth certificate of children born to us etc. So, is this going to be a problem?

2) By the time we submit our application, I will be on my OPT with EAD (F1 based). Do I have to submit I-765 again to get another EAD (green card based). I am not sure whether there are different kinds of EADs.

3) I have a job and will continue working. Do we still have to submit Affidavit of support (I-864)?

I appreciate your time and guidance.

Thank you

[Little_My 464]

You won't be filing for CR-1. CR-1 is a spousal visa, that allows a foreign spouse of a US citizen to enter the United States and become a permanent resident.

You do not need a visa - you're already in the US. You will be filing for AOS, i.e. Adjustment of Status, from F1 to permanent resident. This is done by filing the I-130 and I-485 concurrently, in the United States, when both the US citizen spouse and foreign spouse are already in the country.

You will beed something besides the marriage certificate. This is clearly established in the instructions for I-130. Starting from part E, there is an example list of things you can use to prove your marriage is bonafide. You need to start accumulating something - pictures are okay, so are cards addressed to both of you, but something more "hard" evidence would be beneficial - such as a bank account, joint credit cards, joint insurance. If you both have insurances through school and want to keep those, then get a life insurance policy with each others as beneficiaries. You can open joint accounts despite the fact you're on opposite coasts. Living apart because of school is not something that will prevent you from successfully completing the AOS process with an approval, but you do need to provide some evidence in addition to the marriage certificate.

You might as well apply for a new EAD. This way, should your AOS for some reason still be pending when your OPT ends, you'll have that other EAD to fall on. Filing for EAD with AOS doesn't cost anything extra.

If you read the instructions carefully, you should know that the affidavit of support is an absolutely mandatory part of this process. Your wife has to be the primary sponsor, whether or not her income is enough. If you can prove your income will continue from the same source after you receive your GC, your income can be added to her income to reach the minimum requirement, which is 125% of the poverty line.

[ITERtheway 1]

Hello

I have been dating my girl friend (who is a US citizen) for a year and we decided to have a legal wedding in Sep/2012. I am on F1 student visa now and my OPT will start in Sep/2012. As part of the OPT processing I submitted I-765 and will receive EAD (F1 based) in Sep/2012. After the legal wedding, we are planning to start the IR-1 green card process (concurrent filing) immediately after receiving our official marriage certificate. We both are grad students. I go to school in the west coast and she goes to school in the east coast. We visited each other several times during the last year and have pictures of our trips. I have the following questions. I appreciate if someone can clarify my concerns

1) We are planning to do the concurrent filing immediately after receiving the marriage certificate. We don't have any other documents except marriage certificate to prove our relationship, i.e we don't have any joint ownership of property, lease showing joint tenancy, document showing co-mingling of financial resources, birth certificate of children born to us etc. So, is this going to be a problem?

2) By the time we submit our application, I will be on my OPT with EAD (F1 based). Do I have to submit I-765 again to get another EAD (green card based). I am not sure whether there are different kinds of EADs.

3) I have a job and will continue working. Do we still have to submit Affidavit of support (I-864)?

I appreciate your time and guidance.

Thank you

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

You have already posted this here. http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/380988-marriage-to-usc-while-on-opt-need-guidance/

[ITERtheway 1]

Sorry,

I posted the same question in a wrong category and got the following reply from Little_My

You will beed something besides the marriage certificate. This is clearly established in the instructions for I-130. Starting from part E, there is an example list of things you can use to prove your marriage is bonafide. You need to start accumulating something - pictures are okay, so are cards addressed to both of you, but something more "hard" evidence would be beneficial - such as a bank account, joint credit cards, joint insurance. If you both have insurances through school and want to keep those, then get a life insurance policy with each others as beneficiaries. You can open joint accounts despite the fact you're on opposite coasts. Living apart because of school is not something that will prevent you from successfully completing the AOS process with an approval, but you do need to provide some evidence in addition to the marriage certificate.

You might as well apply for a new EAD. This way, should your AOS for some reason still be pending when your OPT ends, you'll have that other EAD to fall on. Filing for EAD with AOS doesn't cost anything extra.

If you read the instructions carefully, you should know that the affidavit of support is an absolutely mandatory part of this process. Your wife has to be the primary sponsor, whether or not her income is enough. If you can prove your income will continue from the same source after you receive your GC, your income can be added to her income to reach the minimum requirement, which is 125% of the poverty line.

[ITERtheway 1]

Thank you very much for the explanation Little_My. I found out that this is the wrong place for this question. So I am moving it to here http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/380992-marriage-to-usc-while-on-opt-need-guidance/page__gopid__5575563#entry5575563. Could you please answer my further queries to your reply there.

Thank you.

[ITERtheway 1]

I am confused a little bit now. As Little_My mentioned is it true that "Filing for EAD with AOS doesn't cost anything extra"? From the knowledge I gained by reading forums about concurrent filing, I found that to get EAD I have to submit I-765 along with I-485. But, I-765 has a filing fee of $380. So how can filing EAD with AOS doesn't cost anything? Could someone please direct me to a place where I can find more on this.

Thank you

[LindaC1990 23]

I am confused a little bit now. As Little_My mentioned is it true that "Filing for EAD with AOS doesn't cost anything extra"? From the knowledge I gained by reading forums about concurrent filing, I found that to get EAD I have to submit I-765 along with I-485. But, I-765 has a filing fee of $380. So how can filing EAD with AOS doesn't cost anything? Could someone please direct me to a place where I can find more on this.

Thank you

When you submit the EAD application(I-765) with the AOS application(I-485) at the same time, the fee is waived.

simple as that

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

OP - it says this in the instructions. That is the place to look for everything.

[ITERtheway 1]

Thank you very much for the replies. I missed that paragraph on the page 8 of I-485 instructions

[Penguin_ie 5,993]

** Two topics on the same issue merged and moved from AOS from Family Visa to AOS from Student visa as OP is on an F1/ OPT ****

[shranjan84 5]

I don't think you can use ur income as working on OPT does not count as continuous source of income. You might get RFE to present continuous source of income. If you had H1b then its ok to show your income.