The information on this page is aimed primarily at those who have already married a U.S. citizen and wish now to reside in the United States with their spouse. If (like me) you have had to leave the US after your marriage you must remain outside the US until your application for immigration is approved. If however you married in the US and remained in the country the paperwork is much the same.

CONTINUED ...

Upon my return to Sydney I set out on the quest to obtain all the items necessary for my immigrant visa application. First came the fingerprints at my local police station, so they could run a check on me and give me a little certificate to prove that I'm not an axe murderer or war criminal or somesuch. I hadn't realised that when they said "fingerprints" they really meant "entire hand prints". I haven't had so much goop on my hands since I did fingerpainting in kindergarten. Nevertheless, a few weeks later the Police Certificate arrived and declared that my nose is clean.

Passport, Birth Certificate and Divorce Decree I already had, however Grey's Petition for Alien Relative also required copies of my Birth Certificate and Divorce Decree, so I had to get fresh copies to include with my application. My Passport had to be changed into my married name and I needed to have the new Passport before I could have the medical (it's the only proof of your identity they will accept for the medical.) I hadn't intended changing my surname on anything else, since I thought I'd only be there a few months and it wouldn't matter. But as time crawled on it became necessary to change my name on my bank account and other things, so I changed it across the board. Interesting experience, that.

I also began to issue fairly regular "update newsletters" to family and friends, because I was being asked the same questions over and over again about the status of "the immigration thing". It kept everyone in the picture, and in fact I still issue the updates to everyone back in Australia (about 50 newsletters), though now I only do it once every three months.

We had believed it would take two, perhaps three months for Grey's Petition to be approved. It took longer than that just for me to gather all the necessary documents.

And one of the first things you learn when dealing with the BCIS, at least if you live in areas of the United States where the volume of immigrants is massive (such as Los Angeles), don't expect to be able to merely pick up the phone and have your questions answered. Depending on which office of the BCIS you live closest to (this dictates which office you must submit your applications to), you can expect to have nothing but trouble even getting through on the phone. The BCIS, like most government institutions, has no real concept of customer service - and what's more, they really don't give a damn about you.

Form I-130: Petition for Alien Relative
(View/print this form with Adobe Acrobat)

For this application you need two photos of yourself and two of your U.S. citizen spouse, taken to the following specifications:

Three-quarter profile angle showing the right side of the face and the right ear (no earrings), and the left eye must also be visible. The size of the head from the top of the hair to the bottom of the chin must be 1" x 1¼", the outer dimensions of the photo must not exceed 1 3/8" x 1 5/8". The photos must be in colour with a white background, printed on glossy paper, they must be clear, unretouched, correctly exposed, and you cannot wear anything on your head (unless your headdress is required by religion.)

There are many studios in the United States who are practised at taking these photos and are familiar with the measurements and angles. I suggest that, if possible, you have them taken at one such studio. You can find them easily in the Yellow Pages.

Also required for the Petition are birth certificates for you and your U.S. citizen spouse, any and all divorce decrees, and your marriage certificate. We refused to send our original marriage certificate to the BCIS and applied for two official copies to send instead -- one for Grey's paperwork, and one for my paperwork. Those two copies took 3-4 months to arrive -- according to the County Clark's Office in Nevada our cheque got "lost in the pile". Grey eventually had to cancel it and send another.

Once the Petition has been approved by the BCIS it will be sent to your local U.S. Consulate for processing. Your Consulate will not interview you until they receive the approved Petition.

In our case, Grey sent his Petition on 16 March 1998, and on 20 July 1998 it came back. They had not even looked at it, hadn't cashed the cheque for the fee, hadn't done a thing with it. Someone had attached a Post-It note to it which gave an alternate P.O. Box number with the suggestion that "it will be expedited at this address." This made absolutely no sense to us. It seemed that if they were genuine they should have passed the documents to the other office internally, not shipped it back to Grey! They were washing their hands of it, accepting no responsibility for it and telling us to start again from scratch. The fact that we'd already waited four months was irrelevant - Grey might just as well not have submitted the Petition at all.

So Grey called the office of his local congressman for help. They have a person designated to handle BCIS complaints, which in itself should tell you something. This person called the BCIS, then called Grey back with yet another P.O. Box number and told him it would be "taken care of there." So, helpless at the hands of bureaucracy, Grey packed up the Petition again and sent it off to the address provided by his congressman's office. And, again, we waited.

The Petition was approved within just five weeks of resubmission -- on 28 August 1998. It pays to call your local congressman - if they think they can get your vote by helping you out, they will.

Form I-864: Affidavit of Support
(View/print this form with Adobe Acrobat)

As part of my application Grey had to send me an Affidavit of Support, which provides details of his financial situation. Part of the supporting paperwork included copies of his tax returns for the past three tax years. He requested them three times and got nothing back from the IRS. We eventually found out that actual photocopies of tax returns cost $25 for each year, and after many phone calls and faxes we learned that the BCIS will accept a simple printout of your tax return details. And the IRS sends those out for free.

Your U.S. citizen spouse must be able to prove he/she can afford to support you when you arrive in the U.S.A., regardless of whether or not you get a job. He/she must be earning 125% above the poverty line (stated in the Affidavit of Support), or be able to show that he/she has assets (such as real estate) which will support his/her claim of financial capability. Other examples of supporting documents include bank statements, a letter from your spouse's employer stating wage details (or a recent wage slip), and, of course, income tax returns for the three most recent tax years. If your spouse's income is not sufficient and there is another household member willing to assist in sponsoring you, the Affidavit provides for them to do so.

When it's complete the Affidavit of Support must be notarised, so your spouse cannot sign it until he/she can do so in front of an authorised witness. Once it has been signed it must be sent to you, preferably by some form of secure mail, as you must include it with your paperwork.

Grey's Affidavit took almost seven months to complete -- it took that long to sort out the income tax return problem and get the paperwork to me in Sydney. I'd sent my checklist to the Consulate and they had set my interview date for Tuesday 29 September 1998. The envelope with the Affidavit arrived on Monday 28 September 1998. It doesn't get any closer than that!