mugumogu

My wife and I filed the application on November 14, 2016 and just had her interview this past Friday. It took 5 months to go from "your case is in line for an interview" to "your interview has been scheduled."

We also went through Houston. When you get to immigration, they will call an officer up and escort your fiance to a back room while stamping your passport and allowing you to go through. You can wait outside the room near the escalator prior to going down to baggage claim. After about 30 minutes, he'll come out and all is good! You can go down, collect your bags, and continue with the rest of your journey. Welcome to the USA!

I left a detailed review of this experience afterwards:

I am the US citizen and traveled with my fiancee from Mexico into Houston. We both went into the visitors line. There wasn't that many people there when we got in line, but people from other arriving flights were arriving in line quickly and steadily. We stepped up to the podium together and were asked if we were related. I stated that this is my fiancee and she is here on a fiancee visa. My passport was checked and cleared. The woman told me to wait at the end of the hall. At the end of the hall, there are escalators that go down to baggage claim. If you go down, you can't get back up so I waited at the escalators. I watched and my fiancee was escorted from the podium to an office. I waited about 40 minutes, she came out and was done! All in all the whole thing took about an hour from when we got off the plane to when she came out. She said that there were other people in the office ahead of her so that was a majority of the reason for the wait. Once they got to her, it didn't take long. They asked her when we were getting married, inquired about her previous visa cancellation, and a few other questions. We had a connecting flight, but when we booked this one, we made sure we had at least a 3 hour layover so we still had 2 more hours in Houston before going home. We took the escalators down and our bags were there waiting for us. From there, we went through customs, which only took a few minutes. The bag recheck is right after that so you don't have to wait in line or anything to recheck them. The process was pretty efficient in Houston. Aside from a slight weather delay when leaving Houston, it was a smooth process.

Lots of people have had this experience from your country. In this website, you can go to the "Portals" tab at the top of the screen and choose which country to follow. Select Saudi Arabia and you'll be connected to all others who are from there.

I proposed to my wife a month after filing the K-1 petition. You can propose all you want. As long as you don't actually get married before it's approved then it doesn't matter.

Change your address.

You can get the SSN before the marriage or after. For women who want the SSN to be in their married name, wait until after the marriage to apply for it and you can bring the marriage certificate to the Social Security Office to get the card in your married name. For men, it doesn't matter as the name doesn't change. You can also study and apply for a driver's license in your state.

There's not a whole lot you need to do or can do other than wait. Some people might already start planning a wedding already, but you wouldn't want to go through all that and then run into complications with the process and end up disappointed or adjusting plans. I really didn't start doing anything until I got the NOA 2 petition approval. I sent in our K-1 petition and essentially forgot about it. Back then, it seemed like a loooong wait. Now almost 3 years later, it was nothing - just under 3 months from the time I mailed it to the time out K-1 petition was approved. Once we got the petition approval, I started researching the next steps here on Visa Journey. I had to complete the visa application, schedule our interview appointment and medical screening, and help my now wife prepare for the interview. That might be the best thing you can do is to look into what you need to do next and get an idea for how long the next steps take. Each country has their own process so my timeframes and the things I had to do might be different than what you will need to do. It's good to read everyone's experiences on here and you may answer some additional questions you have in the process. This initial waiting period is the worst part. After your petition is approved, it goes pretty fast!

My wife didn't have any record of her vaccinations from Mexico so we just got the required ones again. There weren't that many. Children are required to have more vaccinations than adults.

My wife had received all of the required vaccinations in Mexico when she was little, but she did not have record of it. She also had the physical that is given in Ciudad Juarez prior to the K-1 interview. Once she arrived in the US, we did have a difficult time finding a civil surgeon that would give the vaccinations without also doing a physical. I wanted to get this done ASAP so we could apply for AOS, so we ended up paying for another physical just so we could get it all done and over with. It was expensive, but there was some piece of mind in knowing that it was all done quickly and properly. Quotes varied by as much as $150.00 from one civil surgeon to the next so it is good to call a bunch and see how much they charge for this service.

We have the same problem. My wife is from Mexico and they do not change the passport name for women who get married; it will always be in her maiden name. Her green card is in her married name. When traveling internationally, we book the airline tickets in her maiden name, which matches the passport. When traveling domestically, we book the airline tickets in her married name since all of her other documentation (driver's license and green card) is in her married name and no passport is required. We got the green card in March 2012 and have since traveled back to Mexico and within the US & did not have any issues.

My wife and I went through the same discussion when we were deciding what route to take, though she was in Mexico and I was here. She did not have a visa to come here so the options were to file a K-1 or get married in Mexico. When I found out what the requirements were to get married in Mexico (medicals, permission from government, translating all of my documents into Spanish, planning a wedding, etc.) it would have taken about 6 months before we would have been able to have a wedding and THEN we would start the paperwork to bring her here. It was faster for us to go the K-1 route & in the end, it took 5 months from the time we mailed the petition to approval. I made a trip down there every 3 months to be with her for a week. We then got married her within the 90 days as the K-1 requires and then planned a nice big wedding in Mexico for her family.

It's hard to say what to do. Given how long you've known each other, it might be best to go the K-1 route. Let him go back to his family & you could plan a trip out there to meet them. I think you should meet at least his parents before getting married & make sure that they're OK with him moving his life to the US to be with you. Is he OK with being away from his family and Spain? If you get married and there are issues with the family, it could be a real strain on the marriage. We've all had to endure the wait and thinking back on it, it was nothing!

Good luck! It's frustrating to know what is required and allowed with so much mixed information out there.

I went onto my phone company's website and printed every bill I could from as far back as it would let me. It just so happened that I was able to go back to when we met and so I had record of the first phone call. We corresponded mostly through email and online chat so while it sounds like a lot of paper, it wasn't too much. I only printed the bills from the months where we made calls to each other and highlighted those calls on the bills. For emails, I read through all of them and picked out ones that I thought were good to show our love and plans for the future. I chose about 10-15 emails spanning a period of the time we have known each other.

You should be able to find that info. on the Internet by researching state marriage license requirements. In any case, after you arrive, I know it is recommended that you wait about 10 days before applying for a Social Security Number so that your I-94 can be entered into the system. After that, you go to the Social Security office to apply and you'll have the card within 2 weeks.

What stage of the process are you in? For the initial petition approval, you only need to prove that you have met once within the last two years. A lot of people typically print chat logs at the interview stage. Even then, pick portions of 10 or so chats covering different dates to show ongoing communication over a period of time.

Hello,

We have just finished our final interview for the K-1 visa and it has been approved!! Yay! So my question is...

What are the next steps we take here in the states? Do we get married immediately and then file for the Social Security card? Can we file for that and a permit to work before the marriage? I think I might remember reading something about all that stuff included in the AOS? Just need a little direction here. Thanks!

We got married about a week after my (now) wife got here. We then ordered our marriage license so we could include it with the AOS paperwork and waited to get the marriage license so we could take it to the Social Security Office and apply for a SSN card in her married name. We got the card in a couple of weeks and by this point had already sent off the AOS paperwork, which included the green card app, the work authorization, and the travel document application. The SSN card did have the language on it that said she could only work if she had the appropriate authorization, but now that we had a number and card, I was able to add her to my medical insurance. One difficulty we ran into with having the SSN card in her married name was that all of her picture IDs (passport, Mexican driver's license, etc.) were in her maiden name. When we tried to open a bank account, they wanted to see a picture ID that matched the name on the SSN card and we didn't have one. We then went to apply for a CA driver's license (which was by far the most frustrating part of the post-arrival process) and waited for the green card. The green card was approved first so we finally had a picture ID in her married name. With that, we opened up a bank account and ordered a new SSN card without the work authorization language on it. Then my wife took and passed the written and behind-the-wheel driving tests and got her CA driver's license. It was difficult to find a car insurance company that would insure her to drive when she first got here and did not have a US driver's license. There are a few, but your choices are limited. Once we got the CA driver's license, we switched companies. The green card was approved before the work authorization and travel document were approved so we never used or received those. Lots to do! Take it in stride.

Ok... thanks for sharing.

Is it taking that long now? Once we completed the DS-260 in September 2011 and went online to schedule the interview, the next available was only a few days. We scheduled it a month out to give ourselves time to prepare and so I could fly down to be with my wife in Juarez.

1st off brand new to this so please help.

1. I live in Maine and i am wondering if i need to send i-129f to dallas tx or vermont. I read that if u live in maine u send to vt but the main website only gives tx address?

2. My fiance signed and scanned and emailed the g-325 form but didnt date it i added w ink, also it printed poorly but you can see that it was signed. Same goes for letter or intent he only signed it and i added his name in print on the bottom. Again not a real nice scan job, but i wonder if this will do or should i ask him to re-do all documents over and send them over the mail with original signature?

3. Does my fiance in Jamaica need to send a letter of a story of how we met to add to the i-129f form as i briefly explained met at the house i was vacationing, spend all the time together, went back 2ce since then and spend a vacation in negril together, 3rd time i stayed in his family home. Is that sufficient?

4. Pictures: can i send more than 5 pics? Is pics w glasses ok? Pics with swim suit at the river ok? Pics of us kissing? Or only pics of our faces will do? I mean we r so cute in our glasses w our swimsuits kissing lol

5. I filled out form g-325 online and printed, only thing i did in pen was my signature. Is that okay or should i print it and fill it out by hand?

6. The places where you are supposed to write your alien #, i became us citizen in 2008 and i have naturalization certificate, is that where i find the # i found a # there that starts with A437473 is that my alien # and should i write it in the form or just leave it blank since im sending copies of my certificate and all pages of passport?

Please please someone help answer those questions if you can i really appreciate it. I know is simple things but those are the simple things that can pro long the time it takes t bring ur loved one home.

Thanks

The instructions included with the petition clearly state where to send it. If you read that, you will have your answer.

You can type or handwrite the forms. Many forms don't have enough room anyway for the address so you end up having to write it in or type beyond the space provided.

Any pictures you have of the two of you together will do.

You don't need all of that stuff for the petition. You only need to have met in person sometime within the last 2 years and you need photos of the two of you together. All the receipts and everything else you can bring to the visa interview. If you don't have any, make another trip out there prior to the inteview and save everything from that trip. If you have photos together and you've met within the last 2 years then that will suffice for the petition.

Look at a map of the US and pick one.

It must be translated into English or to the language of the country in which the interview is taking place.

In our case, it was slightly less than 5 months from the date I mailed the petition to the approval of the visa in Mexico. Seemed like a long time then, but thinking back it went very fast!

No, you should not continue with the K-1 process. This would mean that you have to get married and this relationship you describe sounds horrible. You may as well end it now or just plan on getting divorced if you go through with it.

Im seeing lot of people getting their NOA2 from CSC in less than 5 months!! Im really happy for them but im sad for me and my fiance... i have a 2 month old and i really want him to be with us!! They got my application on 3/1/12 and was updated on 3/5/12!! i know its early to be frustrated about it but it is haaaard i have to go to mexico with my baby girl to see him and y'all know that its not that safe to go to mexico these days... Whats happening with VSC???

From the time I mailed the petition to the time my wife was approved at the interview was a few days shy of 5 months. It went pretty fast! Your update will come soon enough. Mexico is safer than people think it is. Ciudad Juarez wasn't that bad.