Leah’s Cafe

The big boy finally mailed the first set of migration papers to the relevant department for processing. The postal tracking system indicated that the package has been delivered to the destination.

We should be getting our first notice of action in about 10 days and then we can start filing the second set of papers. In fact, we have been busy preparing documents and making arrangement for some documents to be translated.

Some said the application process operates like a black box, you don’t hear much from them after you file the papers, until they send you an approval and the notice for an interview. Thus, the waiting game has just started.

We have decided that it was best for me to move to IL and reunited with him last November. While I have already liquidize almost 70% of our earthly possessions including the business here, he hasn’t sent out the first set of migration paperwork yet!

There are three major steps of paperwork to file, and we couldn’t do the second set until the processing of the first set starts. Currently it takes an average of six to eighteen months to process all three sets of them. That mean there won’t be green card before that and there would be no work authorization for that long!

He has been gathering documents for the longest time!! In fact, he hasn’t done anything! Nearly four months later, he said he couldn’t find our marriage certificate and need to find a suitable envelope to mail the forms!!

Fed up is an understatement right now, more like is it worth leaving my comfort zone to live so far away from the support system that I have here? Would it be better to just end a meaningless marriage with such an irresponsible person?

Many people have asked me this question: why does it take so long to get the PR status or commonly known as Greencard though I am married to a US citizen. My friends who migrated to Australia and New Zealand told me it only took them about 2 months to get approved for their migrant visas and the PR status subsequently. I don’t know exactly why, but I think red tapes and bureaucracy have a lot to do with it.

In fact, thousands of couples and many young families were kept apart for years under the current immigration system in the States. It’s just not efficient enough to process the amount of applications they get each year.

Finally mailed out the package of filled and signed forms so the big boy can go forward to file the I-130 petition for immediate relative. This whole process is going to take much longer than we initially thought. The current waiting time is at least 9 months and some people have been waiting for 2 years!!

Looks like the approval may not come through for another year! We may have to change our plan i.e. have me visit as a visitor first and then come home to attend the interview. That’s our plan B and hopefully that coincides with my plan to come home during CNY 2009.

Don’t you think it’s strange? Apparently I can’t apply to adjust my status when I am in US as a visitor, the process and the final interview still has to be done in my home country. Red tapes and bureaucracy do not just happen in third world. :-)

Have been busy surfing online and reading on the migration process. Headache, headache !

It looks like there is a huge back-up of filings that built up before the fees hike in July 2007. It is rather common to take more than a year or even two years to complete the process currently. So we have to come up with plan B. I may have to go as a visitor while the migration in progress. We were trying to determine whether it’s possible or advisable to  do so. It stressed me that there is so much conflicting information, even on the official website!!

I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.  - Jimmy Dean

Life has thrown me into this unpredictable choppy sea and am adjusting the sails. Once we have decided that it’s better for me to move than for him to come back here, there are so many things to do. I am slowly getting rid of things and tidying up the loose ends.

It’s not as simple as just packing up and leave. The business and earthly possessions need to be disposed or taken care, the taxes and fees to be paid, the house need to be leased out, etc.

I thank God that the boat is sailing smoothly so far.

Have been busy trying to research and figure out the paperwork required for the visa process. We are not sure if we start to process the immigrant visa now, would it be done by next spring. There is always a slight possibility that it cannot be completed by next spring. That means we may be stuck and I cannot visit with the visitor visa (which I already have) when the immigrant visa is pending. We are also trying to make sure visiting hubby with the visitor visa won’t jeopardize the application/processing for the immigrant visa.

We found out that sometime it takes years for some people, but so far from what we gathered from the internet, people from here have shared good experience and shorter waiting period. We didn’t know that hubby could have done the application and filing with the embassy here directly when we were living here, and that route is usually the fastest compare to do the filing with the Department of Homeland Security within the States.

It takes a lot of leg work and cost money to do all the filings, we just pray and hope that it won’t be too painful process.