Exchange a K1 Fiancé Visa for a Green Card

 

This is a transcript taken from my youtube video. The excerpt comes from a casual discussion. There will be grammatical errors and some misspellings. I tried to keep it authentic and unchanged so that you do not miss the details included in the message. 

Sit down, make a cup of coffee, get your snacks ready and take notes.

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Hello, everyone. My name is Angelo, and I am a Passport Brother who brought his fiancé from Vietnam to the United States. We got married, and she's been here for about a while now. I know that there are a lot of other passport brothers out there. I think that it's not wise to bring your wife from overseas to live in the United States because there are so many influences surrounding her that could possibly affect her.

But the long-distance romance thing is not for me. And I made the decision to bring her here, and I think that it was a good one. So, today, what I want to talk to you about is the K-1 visa process. Because, you know, you know that my roots are in the K-1 visa process because my wife, me and I, we went through it twice.

And if you want to know the whole story behind that, you can watch some of the other videos that we put together explaining the details of why you wouldn't do it twice, why we had two interviews at the U.S. consulate, and ultimately how we survived a bunch of, pitfalls and mistakes and, and, and we were able to be together and get married,

So now that we are married, our priorities have changed because, obviously, we're not involved in the K-1 visa process. We've gone through that. That's why 129, therefore, we've gone through the, I thought 85 form, which is the change of status form. We've had our marriage interview and gone through all of those things, but as I mentioned, my roots are in the K-1 visa process.

This channel was built around that process several years ago. So I wanted to make another video just to kind of take you from A to Z. not necessarily following my journey, but following the general process, the general procedures from starting with the K-1 visa process and ending with the change of status. So here we go.

We're going to get started right now. The whole process K-1 visa to change the status A to Z 1 to 50. Let's get started.

So the K-1 visa process starts very simply for us. Obviously you have to meet someone that you fall in love with and you decide that you want to get married. You don't just want to have some kind of long distance relationship. and you ultimately decide that you're going to get married and you do all of the traditional things that people normally do before they get married.

with both cultures, not just yours, but hers as well. So that, and there's a reason behind that, but you work out both cultures. What you want to do to get married. And then you download the, 129 F form from the website, uscis.gov and the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service backed up. it used to be called, I believe I.n.s..

That was a few years ago. More than a few years ago, probably about it over a decade or two ago. But now it's called the USCIS. And that's where you download your form for the I 129 app. And it's really important that you go ahead and bookmark that website location. Now bookmark it on your laptop or on your desktop or on your mobile phone.

Anyway, you get access to the internet. Make sure you bookmark that because you will need to refer to it many, many, many times. And you should get into the habit of only referring to that website for your directions and for your questions.

So the next thing you have to do for the I-129 form is complete it. You have to complete two sides of it. One is for the petitioner, who is a United States citizen, and the other is for the beneficiary, who is the person who is overseas, the foreigner who wants to come to the United States so that they can marry their beloved beneficiary, the petitioner.

So once you have completed that, or as you say, as you are completing the USCIS form, there is a checklist for required additional evidence that you have to follow to ensure that you provide them with the correct evidence and the right amounts in the right format so that they can assist you in getting your application or your petition approved.

So follow that checklist. And of course, that checklist is located at the uscis.gov website. So now at that point, what you also need to do is attach supporting documents indicating employment, family, school affiliations and residence for the last ten years. Now I'm assuming that this video is based on the fact that you don't have any extreme secure choices that would affect your petition, and your fiancé doesn't have any extreme situations that would affect her approval, in coming to the United States.

And by that, I mean there's no criminal history. there's no history of extremist political, associations or affiliations. Nothing weird like that. The most we're looking for at this stage of the game is maybe you've been married before and you have a divorce. You are legally divorced, and maybe he has some children, or she has some children that need to be included or factored into this petition process to bring her and her children to the United States so that you can get married.

Anything beyond that, you probably need some definite legal help. I'll tell you that right now. So you're going to test your supporting documents, and you're going to add proof of each of those documents, particularly, for example, your residence for the last ten years. proof of old mail or mailing addresses. just whatever you can find.

it's always better to overproduce than it is to assume that they're going to understand if you have to provide more. Go ahead and provide more. So the next step would be to attach those documents, indicating proof of relationship visitation and family events. Now, what does that mean? That means that if you are involved in a standard or a general courtship process with your fiancé who's overseas, then you most likely and probably have gone through certain visits.

Certain connections. You've handled certain events together. Maybe you were able to meet certain members of her family and things like that. And you need proof of that. The proof has to be indicative of the fact that you are now including this person into your life. So what doesn't have very much effect are these photos that I see of the petitioner and the beneficiary.

you on a vacation together or on a cruise together? They're riding bicycles together. They're doing all of these things together, but there's no one else from either of their lives involved in this process. And the thinking behind this is as far as the USCIS is concerned, is if you are planning to marry somebody, that you are integrating them into your life, and that means they meet your children.

They meet your family members, they may even meet your boss. They may come to your place of work. They may meet your coworkers. All of these things have much more impact than these photographs of you and her together. That literally means nothing, because those can be staged. So, next is, as you assemble your proof, your documentation, your evidence, your, they also call the exhibits.

You need to create a cover letter or a cover sheet for each of them. So, a cover sheet is just the same size sheet of paper. eight and a half by 11. Or if you leave using legal, then, eight and a half by 14. And it just has the description, a small description of what's included in that packet.

So your cover sheet will be hole punched, but not traditionally, like here. It'll be hole punched here like this because that's how they maintain their documents at the USCIS. So you need to punch it here. Here. And this is standard size. You can go to any office supply store. store or depot or whatever, and they can do that for you, but you're going to, label that cover sheet and feel free to hand write it if you like.

It's okay. It doesn't have to be perfect. Or you can print out some labels on your computer and it fits into the cover sheet. Then hole punch it and then attach the documents to that cover sheet. The next thing you want to do is to make sure that you have signed all your documents. That is very, very, very important because you can literally lose up to three months, three months of time by not signing your documents.

Because what will happen is the person at the USCIS will review all of your documents. You assemble all your materials. They'll start putting things together and then they'll look and see this person hasn't signed. So then you have to take all that stuff, pack it up again, put it into a package, send it to that mailroom, and then send instructions for it to be mailed.

Regular mail. Snail mail to you. That takes probably a week to ten days. Then you receive it. You open it up, you look at it, you go, wow, what is this? And then you have to go back and sign all your documents, pack everything up again, pay another, courier service or delivery service or Fedex and UPS to snail mail to send it back to them, and you send it back to a lockbox.

That means that when it goes, the lockbox is there with hundreds, if not thousands of other pieces of material, which then have to be cataloged as a, input it, receive it, and then that could take another, 15 days to a month. Then it gets routed to the right person, and then they have to go through all the documents again and whatever.

So you get to the meaning, you need to make sure you signed your documents. Because the worst thing, the worst feeling is knowing that because you make that simple error, you have delayed your process by up to three months. That is a horrible feeling. so next. So, you make sure you've signed your documents, you attach all your paperwork, you put together your check or your credit card statement or your money order or your credit card authorization, and you package it all up and get it ready.

Now, if you send a check, understand that there are some delays in processing of the check. So we all have different financial backers of different financial situations. If you submit a check, make sure that that balance, that amount stays in your account for the time until it's cashed. don't start having your checking account balance dip below that or anything like that.

You don't want to go through that because again, you will delay the processing of your petition by up to three months if that check does not get processed. One of the smartest things to do is this, And they have a form for this. Include your credit card information with the credit card authorization form. Sign it, for whatever amount for the three years, I believe it's still 535 or maybe 550 now.

And send that. That way, as soon as that money gets processed on your credit card, your bank will more than likely notify you. And then, you know, okay, so the process is moving along. Otherwise, you have to wait until that check is deposited in cash. You also want to do this other thing, which is called email notification.

And that's another form. It's called the G1145. And what it does is you fill out your information, telephone number, mobile number, and email address. And, basically when that packet, that petition and all of the exhibits, all of the documents that are included with it gets processed, they see that form on the top of your pile, and then they notify you that it has entered their system.

So that's a good way of having a secondary or with some redundancy in your notification process. I did that and it was very reassuring to know that my petition had, you know, gone through the proper channels and was in someone's hands at that moment. so, now you've got all your packages, you've got your notification, and you want to mail your package with the United States Postal Service delivery notification, to the appropriate lockbox.

Now, depending on where you are in the United States, there are different lock boxes that are routed to the different offices or corporate offices that handle the processing of, or I should say, the intake of the different locations to handle the intake of these, of the, of your petition. So you have to send it to the appropriate lockbox.

So if you're on the East Coast, don't think about sending it to a lockbox on the West Coast, because you're going to delay the processing of your petition because they'll need to write it back to whatever local office or office closest to you is handling petitions for that region of the United States. next. so you've sent everything off, and now you're ready to go.

Almost. What you want to do now is create an account on uscis.gov and make sure the email address that you register with is an actual, even larger one that you're going to be using and checking because once you submit that email address, it's kind of locked in. Obviously you can change it if something happens in the future, but that's the last thing I want to do.

I don't want to submit any changes or anything. As a matter of fact, when I submitted my very first petition, I stayed the same. I was living with a roommate at the time. I stayed at that place. Although I wanted to move, I stayed there until all of the processing of my petition had gone through, had elapsed, because I didn't want to have a problem of losing some information or not receiving some information because it was sent to the wrong address.

and staying at the same place, not changing your email, things like that is still no guarantee that the documents that I sent to you are actually going to reach you. And I know that from personal experience, because some very important paperwork is supposed to be sent to my fiancé in Vietnam. She never got it. and it wasn't until, 30 days later that we said, hey, something's wrong.

We made a phone call, and found out that they had sent it, but it was pretty easy to get a copy emailed to us after that. okay. So what's next? Next is, Oh, the next thing that you do is you wait. You wait. You wait until you get notified that your visa petition was received, and then Gypsy was paid, and then your paperwork is in process.

and, this is very important because this is when you're in that limbo called processing times. so you can check the processing times for your location. the headquarters is processing your petition. You can check the processing times or the estimate of the processing times at USCIS that go, and they will give you a ballpark estimation of when your petition will start actively being processed.

Because right now it's just being kind of tabulated and coordinated and getting ready, getting prepared for an actual person to sit down with it and look through it. So, all you can do at that point is wait. There's nothing else that you can do. There's the one thing that you can call. There's no lawyer that can expedite the situation.

You have to wait for the appropriate processing times. When your petition has been approved, or rather, they have said, okay, you have provided us with all of the information that we need to say, okay, this is a green light, right? Your petition or your application will then be forwarded or routed to the National Visa Center.

So let's say you submitted your paperwork on January 1st. They received it, and you got a notification by January 30th. And then you enter processing times. Processing times say, oh, that it is 7 to 9 months. So now, somewhere around October or November, you should hear something. And after October or November, you can actually make a phone call to ask for an update.

After the estimated processing time. That's when you can make a, that's when you can make a phone call and try to find out what's going on.

So then your petition goes to the National Visa Center. and they just essentially, they just inform you that it's been routed to the National Visa Center. There's really nothing that you can do except continue to wait. But at least now you know that you know that your petition is moving through the process. Now, once it gets to the National Visa Center.

I'm actually actually, I'm really not sure what happens there, but I know the National Visa Center says, okay, this person has met the requirements for us to approve her petition to go through for her visa. She still has to meet the visa requirements and blah, blah, blah. But yes, we're moving on. And, then they forward that information or everything that was included with the petition to the consulate in the nation, the country that your fiancé lives.

so that takes about 30 to 60 days. What will happen is the US consulate in that location or in that country, and in my case, my fiancé lives in Vietnam. The Vietnam consulate. and I chose which consulate to submit my petition to. because I chose the consulate closest to her, which was Ho Chi Minh City, also known as Saigon.

because the other consulate was way up north, in Hanoi. And, obviously I was going to be too far. so the National Visa Center to the US consulate in your fiance's home country and, you will get notified that, actually, you won't get notified, but your fiance will get notified by the US consulate, usually by mail, or email or both.

They will say, hey, your stuff is here. We're now working on it. and again, that's just a courtesy. there's not a whole lot you could do at that point. You have to let them go and do their thing.

once you get, once the US consulate nullifies your, if your, fiance, then they tell you that there are some steps that she needs to do. So up until this point, you've done everything. Now it's her turn or his turn, and they have to do a few things, in order to make sure that this petition continues through the process.

So, one of the things that you'll need to do is fill out the DDS 160, not the immigrant visa form and pay a processing fee for that. So that's associated with the visa, and that's associated with the fee for the visa. So the reason it's a nonimmigrant visa is because. The US government looks at it this way.

They say you are coming to the United States, not necessarily for immigration, but to marry one of our citizens. So at this point, that's all we're looking at. We're looking at a visa for you to come to the United States to marry one of our citizens. anything after that? Is it something different? It's a different process. So, technically speaking, the K-1 visa or K2, K3, all of those are nonimmigrant visas, which means that they are not looking at your fiancé as an immigrant at the time.

Although somehow, somewhere it's assumed that if they marry you, immigration will factor into the equation somehow. so your beneficiary, she fills out the DS 160 form. It's all online. She's got to take some fingerprints. So you got to send a photograph. and there are some other vendors in these, but it's all in that form that they give to her.

And then once she completes that, they give her, she gets to choose an interview date. The interview date is interesting because you have to factor in a couple of things, okay. Because she gets to choose her interview date. But she also has now this laundry list of things of paperwork that she needs to provide to the US consulate. At the time of that interview. There are some medical issues. There's family things.

There's some family background information. There's marriage certificates and divorce decrees or all of these things that she's got to go out and find or put together or make an appointment with the appropriate government agency to make it happen. To obtain a copy of her records. So you don't want to set the interview date so close because you are so excited that you don't give her enough time, or him or no time to complete all of those requests. To gather all those documents, you need to push the time out.

and give her adequate time to do that. Now, one of the things that you have going for you is that a lot of the nearby dates are going to be taken. So you probably won't be able to choose anything in like, you know, two weeks, three weeks, a month, you'll probably most likely have to go out, at least two months or so.

And, in our case, we went out to schedule the interview at the US consulate two months out, and we were done with everything. two weeks before the date of the interview. and that happened the first time, and then it happened again the second time. So I think two months is a good time because she's going to go to the doctor, is just going to go get shots, is going to go get or just so many other things.

It's a laundry list of stuff. so give yourself time to do that. Next, for some countries, for some countries, for Vietnam, but for some countries, I believe in the Philippines, there are mandatory classes that the beneficiary or your fiancé must take as instruction before she is allowed to get a visa to travel to your country or perhaps it's before they will recognize the marriage.

and this is for safety's sake. because Obviously there are horror stories of women who get married, women overseas, sight unseen, and then they arrive and the next thing you know, they're thrown into these very horrible situations. So these classes are designed to educate women on what the warning signs are, what the red flags are, and, and what to do if you start to feel that somehow you're in danger or your safety is at risk.

no. Next, Once an appointment is confirmed for the interview, you also get a notice to schedule a medical exam. There's another fee required for the medical exam. It's probably different for every country, but the fee is based on the local governments. Fee structure. So, I think for us, it was a flat $220 U.S, that, she had to pay, and then

Oh, she also got some vaccines, so we had to pay for the vaccines as well. So, all of these things are important, and you will have to pay for these extra fees.

Then there is a separate medical facility that's associated and or endorsed by the US consulate that will have the medical examination. So she needs to bring all of her vaccine records to that location, past or present, and all of those to them.

Sometimes they will at that appointment, they will say, hey, you should go back and get this other vaccine and then you just go back and get it and then bring back the vaccine record. They'll add it to an all-inclusive record. At least that's what they did with it, so that, when they give it back to you, everything is in one form.

What? What document?

Then you have to wait for the medical office to submit the exam results to you in a sealed envelope. You cannot open that document. only the. Representatives of the U.S. consulate can open those documents. If you open those documents. You avoid everything and you'll have to start over. And you'll. Your petition will be flagged for fraud, because they will assume that you opened it in order to fake something in the documents.

so now you're getting ready for your U.S. consular interview. So you want to assemble all of the original documents that you submitted with the original K-1 visa? I want 29 that form any new evidence, any new visits, any new decisions, any new letters of recommendation, things like that. and animal pictures. You will assemble those to bring to the interview at the U.S. consulate.

So I'm going to talk to you a little bit about it. The importance of letters of recommendation. Okay. All of your letters of recommendation must be notarized. Okay. That means whomever is writing you a letter of recommendation or referral or whatever. they must have their signature notarized by, us notary who guarantees their ID in the name of the signatures, ligature and all that kind of stuff.

Having letters of recommendation, for character, for trustworthiness, for financial stability, any of those things without a notarized insigNia or stamp is useless to the US consulate because they don't have the resources to go out and check to see if that signature is valid. That's what you have to prove. So in addition to proving that, hey, I am a person of good character, you also say, hey, I am a person of good character and this person has written a letter for me and I'm proving that their name and address and likeness is real and this is not a fraud.

So you have to do all of that. So obviously there's an additional cost involved with that as well. But you must do it or your letters of referral recommendation. It is just paperweights. It's just people. It may mean something to them. okay. So what's next? time for the interview. So the petitioner joins the beneficiary at the interview at the US consulate with all required documents and all required originals.

and you should arrive very early. If your country's US consulate works in your way, like mine. Or I should say my fiancé is a vet. you should get there first thing in the morning. When they open. They're more than likely a line of a bunch of couples waiting to get in. But you need to get there early.

and I know that the US's dot gov website says it's a good idea for your beneficiary inside for your petitioner to join the beneficiary at the interview, but it's not mandatory. Well, I'll tell you, it's pretty it's pretty mandatory. because if you're going through all of this trouble to and expense to go to another country to get married, why are you not present at the time where a final decision is likely to be made?

and again, I know this from experience. Everyone around you says they don't know. Let me tell you, sir. The website says, hey, it is not mandatory, but is this a good idea? Yes, it is a really good idea. And remember I said overdeliver. Always overdeliver. So if they say, yeah, it's a good idea for you to come and stand on your head, then you go and you stand on your head with one hand, okay?

That's what you do. You always, always, always overdeliver. So if you're thinking about not going to the interview, don't be foolish. Don't make a mistake. Don't be stupid. Get your butt over to the interview.

and next, as you go in, more than likely the beneficiary is going to take a photo at the U.S. consulate, and she's going to take a thumbprint. and she'll do that alone. and then the petitioner and the beneficiary attend separately. choose to deliver paperwork to the representatives or agents of the U.S. consulate. And more than likely, the beneficiary is going to go and sit down and talk to someone who's going to give her a preliminary, question and answer session.

And the petition is just going to go and sit on his butt and wait. and the purpose there, I believe, is to understand what condition the beneficiaries petition is. And at that time, they want to know, do you have all these documents? Is your fiancé present outside? Do they have all of their documents? And it is, are we ready to go?

They want to know all of these things. Excuse me. They want to know all of these things because they want to prepare the interviewer ahead of time. And I'll get back to that a little bit later on when it comes time for you to meet the interviewer. So what's next? So after all these things are done, you reassemble, and then you sit down and you wait.

And, in my experience, there's not a hell of a lot of privacy. So if you're the kind of person who gets nervous or you're embarrassed or things like that, get over it. Everybody's going to hear your conversation. it was going to hear what kind of questions you're asked. So just get over it and just understand that that's a small price to pay to be with the person that you love.

for the rest of your life, it's a small price to pay. Now the interview begins. If there is some sort of a language imbalance, then a translator will attend to assist your fiancé. Now, here's what my perception of that is. Let's say, for example, you're in Italy, okay? And you're marrying an Italian, and you're at the US consulate in Italy, and your fiancé requests a translator.

Okay. The first question that's going to arise in the interview is mine is if this person needs a translator because you can't speak Italian and she barely speaks English. How did you guys have a relationship? And you can bet that most of those questions are going to be about that. In our case, the interview came and I'm sorry the interview came, and so did the translator and the interviewer asked my fiancé to take an oath, and it was translated into the race by the translator and then by the fiancé.

They responded in English and the interviewer said, oh, you speak English? She said, yes, I can. I can speak and understand English. And he said, oh, great, you speak very well. And then the translator said, off to the side and what that did for us was establish credibility, that at the very least, we were able to communicate like normal people who are trying to have a relationship.

So we did. We were asked one more question about her ability to speak English, and he just asked how long she had been studying. And then that led to how we got together, and that was it. And so that that question or any of those doubts were done. So long story short, my suggestion is if you are able to have that interview without a translator, do it because it's going to take a lot off your plate.

However, if you really can't. Having the interview without a translator, it's just going to show how difficult it must have been for you to have to develop a romantic relationship when you can't speak the same language. Okay, so, at the end of the interview, typically speaking, the beneficiary will learn if a visa is granted. If so, her passport will be collected.

Now, in my experience, The interviewer has a very good idea before the interview happens, whether or not your fiancé, the beneficiary, is going to get a visa. They have a very strong idea. Yes or no. And they have a very strong idea because they've already done most of the hard legwork, most of the homework to make that decision, and now they just need to verify a few things.

So, for example, we bought a ton of additional paperwork and pictures and things like that, and they didn't ask for any of it. However, if they had doubts, if they had questions, I'm sure they would ask for all of it. But they didn't. And, in our case, there were some extreme examples going on. There's already a video about it.

you know, our our petition had been flagged the first time around, and you can go watch the last video to find that out, but, we typically would have gotten our visa at the end of that interview, because the interviewer said to me, hey, sir, I have good news and not so great news. And he said, the good news was, I have every intention of issuing you a visa.

And the bad news was he couldn't do it at that moment because there were some other things that you needed to do. So all things being equal, at the end of your session, you will get a visa at the end of your interview.

so what that means is at the end of an interview, they are going to collect your finances. passport, and they're going to collect it, so that they can issue a visa to her. and, it takes like 5 to 10 days, and the beneficiary has to retrieve it through some designer, any third party or delivery service.

and then the visa is already going to be in her passport when she goes to pick it up. for us. They work through the Postal service because that is a government agency. And, she just had to make an appointment to actually know an appointment. We told them to deliver it to her house. And then a query came.

any. It was a long story. He did come. He came to a house where she was at work, and then he couldn't drive to work because it was too far. So she got a day later, but they had the visa and everything in it. So what's next for you is, once you get that past your or her passport with the visa test is good for six months for a single entry into the US.

Now, once the beneficiary enters the US, she has 90 days to get married. So that means, technically speaking, you have six months. Or 50? Man. Six months. You get six months or put. I'm sorry. Technically speaking, it means yes, six months plus 89 days to get married. Because you can wait until six months is 180 days. You can wait for day number 175 and then fly to the US.

And then your 90 days start. So it really depends on what your personal circumstances are. You have time to plan, to coordinate, to arrange. My suggestion to you is that you don't make any plans until after you have the visa and the passport in your hand. Don't do what we did. We have already booked our return flight and all these other things.

and then we had to cancel all of those plans. So don't do anything until after that visa is in your hands. So if you have to fly in from another from the United States to another country. My suggestion is to try it for the interview. Have the interview fly out. If you got to go back home or whatever, maybe you, your big baller and you can be a digital nomad and you can work from home and everywhere else.

but then just come back after that passport is in your hands, and then you can make plans on how the two of you are going to go to the United States. Now, that being said, it is not unheard of for the fiancee to fly to the U.S alone. That wasn't my choice for my fiance.

And, it's not a choice for a lot of people, but, you know, paintings are expensive. So, whatever works, just do whatever works for the two of you. Just understand that, you don't have to follow anybody else's footsteps. You can make your own path. Okay. So now you fly, and you arrive in the United States. once.

Once you land, once she goes through the immigration and they check or paperwork and they take whatever they need to take, and she's going to be going through immigration and flying with a sealed package that she cannot open. And the immigration officer is going to open it and verify that it hasn't been opened or tampered with. But once that's done, a day or two later, you have to go online and download a copy of the I-94.

And I-94 is just proof that she entered the country legally. Even if you don't have a 994, that means you have no proof that you entered this country by legal means. That's an airport. doc, on the ship. Plane or a roadway? if you don't have that, you're in big trouble, so make sure. 2 to 3 days after she lands, you go online and you download a copy of I-94 if it's not available online.

You have to formally request it, and the website for that. There's a link to it at the USCIS that governs. website, when you start looking to prepare your I for 85 chance additional status for. Now once she arrives, you've got 90 days to get married. Also, the beneficiary cannot leave the country after she arrives. If she leaves the country, the USCIS will look at that as she is abandoning the K-1 visa because it's a single entry only.

So if you leave, you can't come back in. And since you came there for the purpose of getting married. Anything else that happens that would draw you away? They say that shouldn't be a priority, that your marriage should be a priority. So if you leave, just no, it's all done. You just put the kibosh on everything and you'll have to start all over.

okay. So you arrive at the next step, which is getting married. Getting married in the United States is fairly simple. County clerk's office. Do the forms fill out the forms? have an ordained minister, sign off that he perform the ceremony, and you ship it there, and you get a copy of your marriage license to,

No big deal. You get that? Or you can have a big, elaborate, expensive wedding. And still you have to have the ordained minister to fill it out and submit the information. And, you know, whatever. so you have to get certified copies of the marriage license or the marriage certificate. Now, when you filed that, I 485 it says in the status, because it takes some time to get that official marriage certificate or license.

It takes time. But you can use, however, is the form that you submitted back to the county clerk's office or the registrar recorder that says, hey, I'm applying for rights for a marriage license, and that'll have your information and I have your fiance's information, your address, passport numbers and IDs, all kinds of other stuff. You can use that to submit with your I 85, and we'll talk more about that later.

Once you guys have gotten married, it's important that you do what's necessary to integrate your wife. Into your life on paper. And that means you need to have documentation that says, now, John Smith and Jane Doe are now together as man and wife and husband and wife, and they are living a life together. And so they are putting their joint names on all of these accounts and all of these situations because they are essentially one entity.

You need to do that as much as possible. So you need joint bank accounts, a joint lease or mortgage, and medical insurance. And you need evidence of gatherings of family and friends, wedding photos if you have them, engagement photos if you have them, but something that showcases your spouse around members of your family.

Do that as soon as possible. Now, one of the things that's difficult to do is to get a joint bank account without a social security number. So you just have to do other things, like it was really easy for me to get, for my apartment to get, apartment insurance or renter's insurance. But my wife's name is down on it.

I got a new copy of my lease. I put my wife's name on it. I had added her to my medical insurance, so she had her own car, and, then, of course, she was spending all this time with my, my children. So there were all these pictures of her and my children. So those things are very, very important because you need those things when it comes time to sit down and have a meeting for your adjustment of status.

And speaking of adjustment status, that's the very next form that we have to fill out. So the adjustment, it says, is the application to register permanent residence or just status. There is another fee required. I believe it is something like $1,200. so you need to prepare all those documents, similar documents as you filed for the petition.

But then any upgraded new documents that all contracts that have come about after your recent marriage, in addition to form I 485, you need to fill out form I 765, which is the application for employment authorization, and that allows your foreign spouse to work via an employee employment authorization document. Or he had and with that form shall then receive a Social Security number.

If you file that form with the I 485, there is no additional fee. However, if you file the I've 85 and then later on you say, hey, let's get you authorized to work. And then you file, 765, then there will be a fee. So you might as well do the two of them together, because you'll need it together.

And it'll help, when you have to sit down in front of the interviewer for the adjustment of status.

In addition, there's another form. Is the I 131 application for travel document, which allows your foreign born spouse to travel outside of the US to our home country for family or work emergencies only, and that an additional fee is required. So I understand you want your spouse or, we understand once your fiance arrives and you get married and she still has no visa to leave and come back, that is a single entry visa.

So she can't even after you get married, she cannot leave the country. You have to stay there until you have your interview with them, for the adjustment of status. And until she receives her temporary or conditional green card or the green card. so this document, the form, I 131 application for travel document allows your spouse to travel outside the US to her home country for a family work emergency.

Obviously, she's going to have to prove the family work emergency through, notarized letters or documents from the hospital, from the doctor, or from her employer. and for that with the I 31 form.

With that, you also need to include the I-94 proof of legal entry into the United States. because if you can't prove that you legally entered the United States, that is your legal port, then they will not consider your application for international status, because they will assume that somehow, somehow, you got in the United States without going through a traditional port of entry, and that spells illegal.

And so they won't do it. So the I 94 that I mentioned earlier that you should file and go online and get it, you know, a few days after, she arrives. just understand that if you wait too long, it will not be available online, and, and then you'll have to go through some other means and some other measures to get a copy of it.

Okay. So now you grab all these forms, put together all your proof or your evidence or your exhibits, and with another copy of the electronic notification form, the G1145 with your email address and your mobile text number so you can get notified when they receive these documents. for intake. And you prepare to ship them off, to the respective office.

And you will receive notification that your application and forms have been received. and then your spouse will receive an appointment for biometrics and, by that, they will take some fingerprints, and a visa conference and, in our case, it was really close to the house, but it was at such a small venue, I couldn't go inside.

They're only taking the people who were actually there to get them for the biometric appointment. so it's really helpful if your spouse speaks reasonable English. here's the thing that we, we face,

He. It was. It was more than six months between the time that my Nghia and I had her appointment with the medical doctor in her home country. And when I filed the I 485, it was more than four. so more than six months. So that medical exam or the results of that medical exam would no longer be valid.

So we had to go back and have another exam for her by a civil surgeon. During that exam, I called around and got different prices. And the lowest price I found was $350 and the highest price for exactly the same service, which is literally up the block from my house, was over $700. So obviously, I didn't go to that one.

And the one that we did go to actually turned out to be a very good facility. but if there's that six months that have elapsed between her last medical exam and their home country and the filing of their i45 when they start the process, it.

You will have to take another medical exam.

Once you take the medical exam with the civil surgeon, they'll give you a sealed envelope with the results of your exam. They also provide you with a copy. So you'll know what it says anyway. But they have a sealed version that you have to bring with you for the interview. then you received notice of the interview date to register at the permit residence or just stand.

So for the same thing you did with the I what, 29 hours you need to assemble all your documents for the I 45 and the I 765 and the I 131 if that's what you filled out. all your proof, all your exhibits or interpretation, all of the notarized signatures from families and friends and character references and people who attest that you guys have been living together as husband, as work and wife, and all of the contracts and documents that have your joint name on them, you need to bring all that stuff with you, for the meeting.

Also, any additional photographs of your fiancé being integrated into your life, your family, your work culture here in the United States? Once you have that interview, more than likely you will know at the end of that interview whether or not you get approved for the adjustment of status. In our case, we were approved, but we needed to provide just some technical documentation which we sent the very next day.

and we got the form I 797, which is the notice of action, which is really, form number of whenever they have moved from one stage to the next, they send it I 797 to you so that you know what's going on and what they plan to do. So we got it. I 7.7 Notice of action regarding her employment authorization document, which she was now ready able to work.

We just needed to get the EDI, hard copy, you know, in the mail. And then we actually, before we got that, we got a copy of her social Security card. So she got Social Security card first before we got to it. Now, one of the things that that happens, when you're out there is that when you're here in the countries that, you know, you start thinking about, getting around and being mobile and, you know, having your own car and there is, a form to, driver's license, I think it's called the EB 60.

and it allows you to get a driver's license without proving legal residence. so we decided to go that route because we didn't know how long it was going to take to get her employment authorization back. And it's really just a card. bad decision. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. The DMV is horrible. well, let me change to chase that, the DMV was extremely helpful.

What is the third party that's in charge of doing a triple check of the credentials of the person applying? That caused a massive delay of over six months and counting for me to be able to get her driver's license, or at least her permit. She's already passed the test. She's ready to start taking lessons.

But, you know, you can't take lessons with everyone as we can't get to lessons for me until we go through the secondary screening process. if we had waited, we would have gotten a Social Security card. But you are her normalization document. Right. Conditional green card. And we would have been ready to go, but now we're still waiting on this DMV crap.

and we can't cancel it and get a regular license. We gotta let this one go through and get, you know, all the way through until we actually have it, and then take that back and get a renewal. So it's a complete mess. Don't ever do it. Just wait until you get your Social Security card, employment authorization document and your conditional green card.

All your green cards from the resident card. okay. So now you have to get ready for it. Adjustment of status interview. And it's important that you understand that the adjustment of status interview is an interview for the safety and security of the U. S citizen. And by that I mean that person who's sitting opposite you on the table.

although you may be a Swede person from Vietnam or from the Philippines, or from Thailand or from Korea, or from some South Africa or whatever, you can be a Swedish person. Their goal is to make sure you are not trying to manipulate a U.S. citizen into bringing you to the country for nefarious reasons. So essentially, they don't trust you.

and they sided with the US citizen, petitioner. So you have to keep that in mind when you sit down and you have this interview that they are on the side of the petitioner. if you are a bit soft in the gut, you know, you wear your heart in the sleeve, you might get offended by some of the questions that they ask.

But again, it's a small price to pay to be with the person for the rest of your life. And they are trying to make sure that the US citizen is not being taken care of. and that became clear to me during our interview because we ended up doing a Stokes interview, which is where they separated the two of you.

Again, another long story. Go back and watch some of the other videos. Does that tell you why they did the Stokes interview, how we passed, and how we were just blessed to have good experiences with the people who are opposite us? You need to prepare for that interview, and you can practice. But please don't memorize your answers.

It needs to be spontaneous. It needs to be real. just look at any lists on the internet of the top questions that they ask. at the just for the status interview. And, just prepare to know those. And if you don't know, they'll just say, oh, well, we don't really talk about that. For example, one of the things that, you know, my wife and I had to have a conversation about was I said, hey, listen, you know, I'm not really close with my family back in New York.

So, you know, don't try to make up something like, I talk about them all the time because I don't. So if they ask you about any of my brothers, particularly if they're already deceased, tell them you don't know, because that's true. Don't try to make anything up. and that's what we did. so we attended interviews.

We arrived early. We answered truthfully, and if we needed the interviewer to explain their question better, we did. We ask them to do that. We were never guests. When they asked me questions that I knew, I said confidently and boldly and loudly, and proudly and, by the end of our interview, the guy was telling us that he had more people like us, so that was really good.

But watch my other video for that. so you will receive an interview. I'm sorry. You will receive a decision at the end of the interview. from the interviewer. so you can just ask them for clarification of any next steps that you need to take. Are there any other documents that he needs from you? Just make sure you understand if there's something else that they need so that you can provide that to them as quickly as possible.

At the end of my interview, there was something that the doctor said we needed to provide. And when I got to the very next day, it took me two days to get a copy of the lease. but I said, then I sent it, you know, a priority mail with the signature guaranteed, blah, blah, blah.

And he gave me his direct, he gave me his direct, mailing information. So then it didn't go to a lockbox or a general mailbox. It went right to him. So always ask for the direct mailing information. If they ask you to send a new document to them asking, can you can I send this directly to you? What's your mailing address?

That's a very good way to avoid the whole lockbox situation, which could take an extra 30 days to your situation. yeah. If you receive an RFP, which is a request for evidence at the end of your address in the status interview. Again, ask for cleared directions about what you need to provide and submit everything within 90 days, preferably within 30 days, but certainly within 90 days.

Submitted. Submit your documentation. Keep copies of it, copies of the original or the originals, and then send them information. And, you can try to do another G-1145, in notification form and can attach a letter to a deceased. Please send me a text message or call me when you receive these or send them. But delivery confirmation or sending requires something that you can have evidence that you submitted, paperwork.

I also take a photograph of everything that I submit, and then my cover sheet for my petition has an itemized list of every document that I'm submitting. So when they open up the envelope and they look, they can see items one through 26 and exactly what they're called. That can only help you because then they can tell, oh yeah, this guy sent me a lot of stuff.

Okay. Or if it says items one through 26 and they say three pieces of paper in the envelope, they know that something's wrong. was you submit your, you know, RFI request for evidence and it's accepted. You should be celebrating because you are about to get your conditional green card. Yes. You sure. And when you do, all things will be handled beautifully.

And, you won't have to worry about so many other things, but understand this. The last two years, at least, you and your now spouse have been hitting it hard trying to get all of this paperwork done, all of these documents signed and all these exams taken and all of these signatures notarized. And now it's done and it's behind you and it's like, oh my God, what do we do now?

It's like coming down from a major, major stressful, tense situation. And every fiber of your being has been geared towards handling that. And then it's gone. It's like, what do I do? so you just have to work on the next thing. For us, it was finding work for my fiancé, and then, ultimately, getting her to a point where she can drive and then getting her by her car.

but anyway, those are the 53 steps for the K-1 visa to the, for 85 adjustment of status. Takes you from the fiancé to the wife to the permanent resident green card holder. That was my journey. I wish you good luck on your journey. I wish you and your future spouse eternal happiness. And just make sure to treat each other well.

be respectful, respect boundaries and show love at any and every opportunity you get. Thank you for staying with me this long. I know this was a long one, but I needed to do this because I've got a lot of faithful K-1 visa folks out there. And I want you guys to know I'm rooting for you. I'm rooting for you.

So when you start, making milestones or reaching milestones, please send me a comment or something so I can give you guys a thumbs up. Thanks again. Peace out.