How it all started

Ok, ok. I am doing it.
Friends of mine urged me to start this blog as some kind of journal on the way of being able to live legally with my husband in his home country. They know that I am prone to fall between the cracks as they say. If there is a pitfall in the bureaucratic process - I am sure to run into it. Must be some kind of talent.

They think, my adventures might be useful for some other folks out there who face the same kind of challenges, so here is the preface:

I am born in Eastgermany or GDR as it was called then and had the great opportunity to spend one and a half year of my studies on a scholarship in San Francisco, USA. It was a great time. I came back home from that experience with a deep love for that city and a crush on one guy I met there.

Fast forward to 1 year later, said guy moved to Germany to live with me and eventually we got married. Life was good where we were, but then we came back to San Francisco for a visit and with one thing and another, we decided to stay there. After all it was just fair - he lived a couple of years in Germany to be with me so I can now return the favor.

That being decided, now we had to apply to the government for permission. As a European I can stay in the US for up to 3 months without a real visa. They just ask you to fill out a form at the Airport (i.e. where are you staying, what is the nature of your visit, have you ever been in jail, do you intend to overthrow the US government etc.), staple that form into your passport and expect you to leave the country within 3 months after that (and of course not to overthrow the government in the meantime). That form is called a "Nonimmigrant Visa Waiver" or Form I-94W (green).

Since we decided that I will not leave after three months, we had to tell the authorities that I would like to exchange my waver form for a real visa. The US immigration Office (or INS) allows a couple of things being the reason that a foreigner can apply for permission to stay. The one that applies to me is that I am married to a american citizen. On those grounds we started researching as to what the best type of visa would be for me.

My husband had to go through a similar process in Germany of course - there we spend approx. 50 Euros, I signed a paper saying that I will support him in case he is unemployed (so he doesn't live off social welfare), showed them our marriage certificate and swore that we live in the same appartment. It took 2 trips to the bureau there and then he had a neat little paper, saying he can work an live in Germany for the next three years (after that he gets a permanent permission - if we are still married).

So we thought something similar here in the US would be nice. Turns out, in the US you are either in or out. You either apply for a visa that leads straight up the road to citizenship or you go back to wherever you came from.

In principle I don't really mind, if the BIG visa wouldn't be so fracking expensive and require so much paperwork (and take so much time).

I intend to write down every step in the process as they happen, but since some things have already been done, here a (not so) quick summary of past events:

First one needs to go to the INS-website: http://www.uscis.gov Luckely my english is good enough since they offer no other language version of the site (I expected at least Spanish ). There one finds eventually all the information and can download all the forms including instructions on how to fill them out. In my case it was:
I-485: application to register permanent residency or adjust status and
I-130: petition for alien relative (to be filled out by my husband) plus
I-134: affidavit of support (where my husband states that he is gladly responsible for my food, clothes etc. and tries to prove that he has the income to do so)

The INS-website kindly informs you right away about the fees related to each document. We paid 930$ for I-485 plus 80$ for the biometrics (I get to that later) and 355$ for the I-130. Overall a staggering 1365$$ (payable to Homeland Security?!). I couldn't help but compare that to 50 Euros.

The I-485 is basically me (enclose birth certificate and passport copy) asking for permission to stay in the US, because I like to live with my husband (enclose marriage certificate).

The I-130 is my husband (enclose birth certificate and passport copy plus marriage certificate) asking for permission that his wife can stay with him in the US

The I-134 is my husband vowing that he will prevent me from burdening the US government and promising he will feed and cloth and house me. Here he would normally include his IRS-taxforms from the last three years to proof he can do so, but since he has lived with me the last three years in Germany and worked there too, there is no IRS-taxform. So he writes a paper explaining that and giving them an exact report of our income during that time.

Everything in heathen tongue must be translated by an official translator and notarized by an official notarizer. That will be 50$ per page, which is cheap. I still have the adress of that office if anyone is interested. I was lucky that I only needed four pages translated. So by now we have paid 1565 $$.

That whole package went in the mail (I am skipping the countless calls to the INS-hotline 1-800-375-5283 in order to make sure we send the right things. All very nice and helpful people at the other end, by the way) and we settled down to wait.

Meanwhile, one may ask where the work permit comes in. I didn't apply for it (form I-765, 340$), because I got a Social Security Number the first time I lived in San Francisco and one of the helpful Hotline people told me, that it is valid. Plus I still work for a German company so only the Germans can ask me for my work permit.

Then the LETTER arrived. It deserves the capitals, because it kept us busy for almost two months. The Letter (pink paper ?!) allowed me three months to complete my "initial evidence" that I deserve to be considered to stay. The first two requests where no surprise, I already knew from reading the instructions on I-485 that I had to undergo a medical examination and vaccinations. The third one was a bit of a puzzler. Essentially they told my husband, that his statement of income wasn't sufficient and that they needed to see some IRS-papers, otherwise they would think him as below the poverty guideline and therefore not fit to support me.

The way they phrased it was this:" In order to process your application further, the petitioner/sponsor on form I-134, Affidavit of support must submit all Federal income tax documentation submitted to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for the most recent tax year ... ...The petitioner/sponsor's income on the Federal income tax return does not meet or exceed 125 % of of the poverty guideline. The petitioner/sponsor's income listed on Form I-134 is sufficient; however, no evidence has been submitted as proof of current income. In order to process your application further, submit evidence of petitioner/sponsor's income...."

All right, we were ready to provide "evidence of petitioner/sponsor's income", but what passes as evidence if there are no IRS-tax forms ('cos he lived and worked in Germany)? Since I wasn't in the mood to translate ALL related german documents (that would be another 1000$$, thank you very much), we seeked specifications on what would be acceptable by making an appointment at the local INS-office.

Meanwhile another, much more official looking letter arrived (not in pink this time), asking me to go to a certain building at a certain time in order to have my biometrics taken (the ones I paid 80 $ for earlier). So we went there and it wasn't a good moment in time, because I had a bad flu and was coughing and sneezing all over the place. The whole biometrics procedure was efficient and very quick. You come in, you draw a number. Then they give you papers to fill out, asking the same questions as in I-485, i.e. who are you , what are you doing here and who are your parents. I got as far as "Wla" on my fathers name, when they called me to be further processed. I asked two times if I can finish the form, but everybody said that is not necessary. So now my dad will be Wla in their eyes forever. The rest was not a big deal. I went behind a screen and started apologizing to the nice young lady assigned to me for looking like hell and coughing in her face. She put first my fingers then the whole hands on a scanner and soon they had like twenty different views of my fingerprints. Then the photographs (OMG, not today!). But she was like: " Move your face this way and tug your hair behind your ears... there you go" She showed me the photos on the screen and they actually where quite decent. I will be forever thankful to her. But that was it, at the end they ask you to fill out a survey on how you were treated and since I was still preoccupied with this nice lady's kindness, I gave them an A+ on everything.

Back to the appointment to specify the income evidence.
In order to make an appointment with the local office, you go to the INS-website and click on "schedule an appointment" which gets you there: http://infopass.uscis.gov/
That is important to mention, because if you don't have an appointment, they let you wait. I never felt so VIP in my life.
So we have our Infopass paper and we arrive at the building in downtown San Francisco. Of course there is security and you can already see the scanner of bags just like the ones at the airport through the window. Now, here is a tip; DO NOT bring your cellphone. Because you can't bring it into the building and the security also will not keep or can not keep it for you. In San Francisco that led to a strange business opportunity. Across the street is a Cafe which is happy to look after your cellphone for the time you are in the INS-building and they only take the small fee of 3 $. A bargain, really.
That's great and all, but we had an appointment, meaning a certain time to be IN the INS-building, so I rushed over to the Cafe, ripped the receipt out of the ladies hands and back to across the street. There awaited me a whole family crowding the entrance and the poor security officer trying to explain in poor Spanish that, no, you can't bring your cellphone into the building, not even if it is pink and shiny. Finally we are in and the first hurdle was a lady behind glass, trying to figure out if we are here for a real reason or just wasting the Immigration Officers time. That is were the infopass comes in handy, because there are two lines to her window - one is the people which have an appointment and are therefore entitled to be served first and one line with everybody else. That arrangement enabled us to quickly finishing the procedure of acquiring a number slip from her at the end of which she said "Have a great day" and her face said " May you be eaten alive by giant cockroaches - feet first".
Then we waited. Not for very long, but it felt like it, because they have in there giant TV screens everywhere showing nothing but CNN. Our number is called to a certain window which contained the upper half of a pretty woman my age with a badge tied to her chest telling us that she is an "Immigration officer". My husband started to explain the question, he showed her the pink letter and asked what evidence of income she thinks they would accept - besides IRS-taxforms. That went on for 20 minutes. He asked the question 20 different ways and she answered in 20 different ways that she doesn't really care and has no idea to start with. At the end I nudged him saying "lets get out of here, that whole thing makes me want to take a shower lasting three days". So we went away, I got my cellphone back and we still had no idea what to do.

After some contemplating and even looking into getting a lawyer (DON'T if you have an easy case like ours, DO if you are a terrorist staging a marriage just to blow up something vital within the States - since they cost around 1000$ to start with and then a lot more if it gets complicated ) we made a second appointment with the fabled Infopass in the hopes that we get another, more human immigration officer this time.

And so we did. That nice young man read the passage in our pink letter and told us immediately that "what they want is someone with IRS-taxes, so find a co-sponsor who is employed" We were baffled. Why? Answer " You can have three million in a foreign bank but still that will not suffice, because if the money is in a foreign bank, they don't have any leverage. If someone pays taxes as an employee, to the US government - they have leverage through that withhold tax money." Aha. Ok. Thanks. And deeply felt, warm thanks for being the first helpful person in that office (aside from the Hotline-people).

So now we are almost up to today. I told that story to my best friend here who instantely offered to be the co-sponsor with the IRS-taxforms to satisfy them.( Thank you.) And with the idea to trace all the current and upcoming events in a blog so my experiences may help some people.

Current status: I have proof of support, but I still need the medical examinations which will happen on Monday and Wednesday by an INS-approved physician. That will be my next entries since now we are up to date.