Kathryn41

When you apply you need to:
- have been a permanent resident for 3 years
- have been married to (and living with) your US citizen spouse for 3 years
and your spouse needs to have been a citizen for 3 years.
If you meet all of these criteria, you can apply 90 days before the three year anniversary of your permanent residence.

You can actually file the N-400 at 2 years 9 months from the date you became a conditional/permanent resident based on marriage. You must still be married to the original petitioner when you file at 2 years 9 months. However, even if you file at 2 years 9 months, you can not take the actual oath until the 3 year date. This is usually not an issue because it takes at least 3 months for the biometrics, interview, and scheduling of the oath ceremony. It took 4 moths total in our case and ours moved fairly quickly.

I suppose I see your point. It just seems that she is in denial about way too many things, it is not good for anyone - besides....I am sorry but not realizing there is a problem if the wife moves next door seems slightly beyond your usual denial.
It is kind of funny as she had never asked me directly anything....she asked ex hubs and FIL (like he would know..) but she would not come up to me probably because, as you say, she did not want to know the truth and on some level she must have known I won't make up stories.
Anyways...life goes on.

I'm glad it helped .
Yes, you need to be able to prove you have at least 125% of the poverty level in income, or through a combination of income and assets, for both a fiance visa and a spousal visa. If you do not meet that requirement on your own, you are allowed to use a co-sponsor - someone who does meet that requirement when adding the intending immigrant to the size of family they already support financially.
The K-1 is slightly different, though, because it uses a different form for the Affidavit of Support during the K-1 process than the CR-1 spousal process does. The form is I-134. It is not considered a legally binding form but is used by the Consulate to determine that if they allow your fiancee into the US you are in a financial position to make sure she doesn't become a liability on the US government. Since her status in the US will only be valid for 90 days after her arrival, the I-134 basically expires at the same time, and is not enforceable.
Part 2 of the immigration process for a Fiancee, however, is that after they are married, they need to apply for permission to remain in the US permanently (known as getting their green card). Part of this application includes a new Affidavit of Support document - I-864. This is the form you would have provided for a spousal visa as it is a legally binding document that continues until one of several circumstances occur, but can 'generally' be expected to be in place and enforceable for 5 to 10 years.
So, for all visa situations where you are requesting permission for a fiancee or family member to come to the US you are the sponsor and they are the beneficiary. All sponsors must be able to prove that they are able to support or arrange for the support of the beneficiary so they do not become a liability on the US tax payer.

Welcome to Visa Journey. You are in good company here because so many of us have experienced similar types of confusion and frustration. You are smart to look into the immigration aspects of an international relationship now because you will have the time necessary to discover your options and determine which ones are best for you before you are in the position to move to the next level.
You basically have two options and two different processes available. The first is a fiance visa. The second is a spousal visa. If you wish to get engaged now knowing that you intend to marry some time in the future, go ahead. It will be fine for whatever option you choose. You can get engaged in whatever way works for you - in Canada, in the US, over the phone (ok, maybe not the best option ). You can be as formal or as informal as you like. Just start keeping records of your time together because one of the things you will need to do for immigration is prove you have a valid relationship and it is easier to collect the documentation (plane tickets, hotel receipts, etc.) when you create them rather than scrambling afterwards to try and find them.
The two most important things you need to know right now are:
1) that your girlfriend/fiancee/wife is not going to be allowed to move to the US until she has the appropriate visa from US Immigration. She can't just move down a year and a half from now when she finishes school. You can start the paperwork rolling, however, so that when she is ready to move, the paperwork is also completed and she has the visas.
2) the paperwork takes a long time regardless of what process you use so your time frame will be about 1 year give or take a few months, and you do have some flexibility about when she 'uses' the visa as it will be valid for 6 months.
If you get engaged now, you can start the first paperwork for her to get a fiance visa. It is a 2 part process. The first part is your responsibility. You file an I-129f petition with USCIS requesting permission for a fiancee to apply for a fiancee visa. All of the petitions you will file during the immigration process will also have other documents required and conditions that you must satisfy, so a good idea would be to read up on the whole process, including reading the forms and their instructions now so you can figure out what you will need to collect. You will send off the I-129f petition to the appropriate address along with all of the requested attachments and a few months later you will receive a decision - yes or no - from USCIS. Part 2 comes next. Your petition is forwarded to the US Consulate in either Montreal or Vancouver depending on where your fiancee lives in Canada (east of Manitoba or Manitoba and west). They will notify her that they have received an approved request for her to apply for a K-1 visa. She will be given instructions on what she needs to do and how she needs to do it, but it will involve getting a Canada wide security check, undergoing an immigration medical and attending an interview in either Montreal or Vancouver. When she gets the Visa she will have 6 months in which to use it. It will be good for a one time entry into the US for her and her belongings for the purpose of getting married to you in the US within 90 days. She then applies for permission to remain in the US and become a permanent resident. If you start this process in the near future, it will probably all be in place for her to move to the US around the time she finishes school.
If you decide to get married, you can get married either in Canada or the US or anywhere you wish, but again, she is not allowed to remain or live in the US until she gets a spousal visa. The spousal visa has 3 parts. You start the process by filing an I-130 form with US immigration - to sponsor a family member. Once you receive a decision, the process moves to a central visa processing center which requests further information from you. It then forwards all of the information to the US Consulate in Montreal, Canada. Your wife again needs to provide an immigration medical, a security check, and attend an interview in Montreal. She will receive an CR-1 spousal visa in her passport and once she enters the US, she automatically becomes a permanent resident. Since you need to be married to apply for the CR-1 visa and the processing takes about a year (give or take a few months), if you got married within the near future, she would again be able to move to the US about the time she finishes school.
One thing you also need to keep in mind with the fiancee visa . . one of the requirements is that you have physically met in person within the 2 year time period immediately prior to filing the I-129f petition. So, if you have not yet met in person you do need to do that before you can file any petition. If you have met in person, then you can go ahead as soon as you wish. The more time you are able to spend together physically, the better it will be, both for your relationship and to prove to US immigration that you are both in a valid relationship and not one only for immigration benefits.
Good luck.

Correct me if I'm wrong but your new marriage isn't legal and cannot be recognised as being so as your divorce wasn't final.

Welcome to Visa Journey. You are in good company here because so many of us have experienced similar types of confusion and frustration. You are smart to look into the immigration aspects of an international relationship now because you will have the time necessary to discover your options and determine which ones are best for you before you are in the position to move to the next level.
You basically have two options and two different processes available. The first is a fiance visa. The second is a spousal visa. If you wish to get engaged now knowing that you intend to marry some time in the future, go ahead. It will be fine for whatever option you choose. You can get engaged in whatever way works for you - in Canada, in the US, over the phone (ok, maybe not the best option ). You can be as formal or as informal as you like. Just start keeping records of your time together because one of the things you will need to do for immigration is prove you have a valid relationship and it is easier to collect the documentation (plane tickets, hotel receipts, etc.) when you create them rather than scrambling afterwards to try and find them.
The two most important things you need to know right now are:
1) that your girlfriend/fiancee/wife is not going to be allowed to move to the US until she has the appropriate visa from US Immigration. She can't just move down a year and a half from now when she finishes school. You can start the paperwork rolling, however, so that when she is ready to move, the paperwork is also completed and she has the visas.
2) the paperwork takes a long time regardless of what process you use so your time frame will be about 1 year give or take a few months, and you do have some flexibility about when she 'uses' the visa as it will be valid for 6 months.
If you get engaged now, you can start the first paperwork for her to get a fiance visa. It is a 2 part process. The first part is your responsibility. You file an I-129f petition with USCIS requesting permission for a fiancee to apply for a fiancee visa. All of the petitions you will file during the immigration process will also have other documents required and conditions that you must satisfy, so a good idea would be to read up on the whole process, including reading the forms and their instructions now so you can figure out what you will need to collect. You will send off the I-129f petition to the appropriate address along with all of the requested attachments and a few months later you will receive a decision - yes or no - from USCIS. Part 2 comes next. Your petition is forwarded to the US Consulate in either Montreal or Vancouver depending on where your fiancee lives in Canada (east of Manitoba or Manitoba and west). They will notify her that they have received an approved request for her to apply for a K-1 visa. She will be given instructions on what she needs to do and how she needs to do it, but it will involve getting a Canada wide security check, undergoing an immigration medical and attending an interview in either Montreal or Vancouver. When she gets the Visa she will have 6 months in which to use it. It will be good for a one time entry into the US for her and her belongings for the purpose of getting married to you in the US within 90 days. She then applies for permission to remain in the US and become a permanent resident. If you start this process in the near future, it will probably all be in place for her to move to the US around the time she finishes school.
If you decide to get married, you can get married either in Canada or the US or anywhere you wish, but again, she is not allowed to remain or live in the US until she gets a spousal visa. The spousal visa has 3 parts. You start the process by filing an I-130 form with US immigration - to sponsor a family member. Once you receive a decision, the process moves to a central visa processing center which requests further information from you. It then forwards all of the information to the US Consulate in Montreal, Canada. Your wife again needs to provide an immigration medical, a security check, and attend an interview in Montreal. She will receive an CR-1 spousal visa in her passport and once she enters the US, she automatically becomes a permanent resident. Since you need to be married to apply for the CR-1 visa and the processing takes about a year (give or take a few months), if you got married within the near future, she would again be able to move to the US about the time she finishes school.
One thing you also need to keep in mind with the fiancee visa . . one of the requirements is that you have physically met in person within the 2 year time period immediately prior to filing the I-129f petition. So, if you have not yet met in person you do need to do that before you can file any petition. If you have met in person, then you can go ahead as soon as you wish. The more time you are able to spend together physically, the better it will be, both for your relationship and to prove to US immigration that you are both in a valid relationship and not one only for immigration benefits.
Good luck.

I suggest you get to healthcare.gov
then find the phone number from the site,
and call them, talk with a human, getting a quote on just yerself.

Another aspect of how health care is out of control in the US was a recent medical event I had in my life. Car accident, both daughter and wife were involved. Ambulance ride to the ER, treatment included X-rays, CT scans, and some sutures, plus pain meds and muscle relaxants. Three weeks later, I got a bill from the hospital telling me the insurance wasn't going to pay, and I had 9 days to pay the bill in full or I needed to call to schedule payments.
The bill? A few dollars shy of $45,000.
I knew something was wrong, as my insurance had never not paid (Tricare). So I called them, only to discover that they had indeed paid, someone got their wires crossed. So I asked for payment details, and was shocked to find that they had paid about $5,000 of the $45,000 bill, because that is all they were contracted to pay.
So without insurance, I would have been financially crucified, because I had no idea I could negotiate the prices medical stuff costs. Well, not me, per se, but an insurance company.
Crazy, to say the least.

"Kenyan Kare" aka Romney Care has been in Mass for almost 10 years now. With approx. 98% of Mass residents covered, no one has gone broke paying for healthcare and everyone gets the care they need. Things are going pretty well here with Kenyan Kare. The scare tactics have been proven to be just that.

Another failure in our world... marriage counseling/advice should come BEFORE the marriage.
And forcing kids to watch a looped Barney cartoon while listening to a child cry incessantly for 3 hours should be used in place of condoms in schools, too.

This being an audience of guys that are mostly married or committed, isn't this something they should have been told sooner?

My US health experiences also involve multiple weeks to months waits. Before I changed primary care providers my former doctor - who was part of a large clinic - needed at least a 4 to 6 month lead time to get an appointment to see him. For the last 3 years I was at that practice I only saw my actual doctor once. The rest of the time I took whoever was available for the next appointment which was usually about 3 or 4 days minimum (yes, this is when I was in immediate need of medical treatment) and would always involve a minimum of a 2 to 4 hour wait in the waiting room first. My first appointment with my endocrinologist took a 3 month wait until there was a vacancy. If I had an emergency or medical need, I went to the Emergency Department at the hospital because that was the only way I could see a medical provider that day.
My current medical provider is, I must admit, much better, and I should have switched out of the former practice years ago but all of the research I had done about other providers in the area indicated patients experienced similar waits and difficulties in scheduling appointments. I have since found that there is as wide a chasm between waiting times and doctors as there is between the quality of medical care available. You really need to educate yourself and do a lot of research to make sure you can find decent medical care here in the US because you are just as likely to get an atrociously bad doctor as you are an excellent one. The costs, however, yeah, they are definitely out of control and have little correlation to the quality of medical care you receive. The main difference between the US and other first world countries medical costs? The US has a big profit margin built in for the middle man - the for profit insurance companies who are more interested in making sure they get rich than in making sure patients receive the appropriate medical care they need.

My US health experiences also involve multiple weeks to months waits. Before I changed primary care providers my former doctor - who was part of a large clinic - needed at least a 4 to 6 month lead time to get an appointment to see him. For the last 3 years I was at that practice I only saw my actual doctor once. The rest of the time I took whoever was available for the next appointment which was usually about 3 or 4 days minimum (yes, this is when I was in immediate need of medical treatment) and would always involve a minimum of a 2 to 4 hour wait in the waiting room first. My first appointment with my endocrinologist took a 3 month wait until there was a vacancy. If I had an emergency or medical need, I went to the Emergency Department at the hospital because that was the only way I could see a medical provider that day.
My current medical provider is, I must admit, much better, and I should have switched out of the former practice years ago but all of the research I had done about other providers in the area indicated patients experienced similar waits and difficulties in scheduling appointments. I have since found that there is as wide a chasm between waiting times and doctors as there is between the quality of medical care available. You really need to educate yourself and do a lot of research to make sure you can find decent medical care here in the US because you are just as likely to get an atrociously bad doctor as you are an excellent one. The costs, however, yeah, they are definitely out of control and have little correlation to the quality of medical care you receive. The main difference between the US and other first world countries medical costs? The US has a big profit margin built in for the middle man - the for profit insurance companies who are more interested in making sure they get rich than in making sure patients receive the appropriate medical care they need.

Did you file, or did she file? You story just does not make sense. You cannot divorce someone without serving them notice, or having them sign the divorce papers. If there is a required hearing, then both parties should be notified. It sounds like you were never informed of a hearing, ignored it, or she sidetracked the hearing notice mailed to you.

Sasafan,
You need to be SURE if you are divorced or not... don't ask her about it, because clearly she is being sneaky about things. Like another person suggested, go to the court house and find out what is going on. Until you have a definitive answer you won't know what to do.
When you find that out, I believe you file the waiver before your GC expires...
Anyone who knows more about this, please correct me if I'm wrong.

My wife passed her interview in June, and the three months after that until her oath ceremony were the longest three months of our lives. I know hindsight is 20/20, but the best advice I can give anyone at this stage is just to hang in there. You're almost to the finish line. Congrats on your accomplishment!

It's super easy to add the documents during a walk-in visit. All they do is enter it into the system and make a copy. I was in and out in 5 minutes. You can still use the NEXUS card in the meantime. I had the same concerns so I called and they told me not to worry about it.... just to drop in the next time I'm in the area.

Classic!
And guess what - it doesn't happen in other countries with anything like the frequency that it occurs in the US.
Of course the number of guns in circulation has nothing to do with it. Of course not.

Male shooter. Apparently a guy that was fired from UPS. Good thing he had a gun to defend himself, eh?

I have had the upper respiratory crud for a week. I finally gave in and went to the Doctor. My Brother in law took me to the top private hospital in Cebu. We walked in to the office of a Internationally accredited internal medicine/pulmonologist. We were seen withing 30 mins, no appointment.
Total cost for 20 min office visit---8.00 US Then off to get 3 prescriptions filled- 18.00 US. Amazing!
In the US, it would have been a 4 month wait and the visit would have been 2 or 300

Or fill the forms in and save the money.

No. You still follow all the example forms here on VJ. Your status is 'K-1 visa holder'. http://www.visajourney.com/examples/INS-Form-I-485.pdf
It does not matter that your I-94 is expired. You file exactly the same as anyone else adjusting from a K-1.
A K-1 visa is a one-time entry visa and it does not get renewed. Not sure what you read about the AP form. For the I-131, you do not need to give any reasons or explanation statements as for why you want/need AP. You skip a lot of the form too, as it states at the bottom of Page 2 of the form itself. Also, leave the dates for the trip and length blank, then hand-write 'Unknown' after you print out the form. You do not need travel plans to get AP. It is routinely given to adjustment applicants. Alternatively, you can make up some date and length too. http://www.visajourney.com/examples/INS-Form-I-131.pdf
~ Moved from Canada regional to AOS from Family Based Visas - topic not specific to Canada and may yield more answers there ~

That time may be possible and it may not be. Normally takes 90 days to get that paperwork, but you can put "to be determined" you don't need a set date as previously mentioned.

I work in HR and calling up HR and arguing with them is not the best solution. Now the part which you would want to know is does your company use a broker to do their benefits or do they directly enroll you. If they use a broker and you have e-mailed your HR Coordinator or have any confirmation that you sent them the enrollment paperwork then they can e-mail the broker and it will be back dated. I would just stop in HR and they should be easily be able to fix this. There have been mistakes with benefits and when it's the companies fault they can call or e-mail the broker and ask for an exception and explain they made a mistake.
The one thing you do want to pay attention to is how they plan on taking the back payments out of your paycheck, if it is a lot of money you can make sure to get with HR so they don't take it all out on one check which can cause financial hardship for some people. Make sure you schedule how you will catch up the back payments on the insurance.