Jasskatten

Hi,

long time lurker, first time poster.

As the name of the thread implies, I am a L1 visa holder who has recently married a US citizen. British Expats has been an excellent resource throughout this journey! I am now applying for adjustment of status, and has been using this thread as a template
britishexpats.com/forum/marriage-based-visas-35/l1-visa-marrying-us-citizen-847256

It confused me a bit, since it was talking about G-325A, but did not mention I-130A which I thought I had to submit. Until I realized that the I-130A had replaced the G-325A.

So I figured I would post this here, both as information to others that the previous thread is outdated on that point, and also to check with you guys that neither I nor my wife need to submit G-325A, but I need to submit I-130A.

Thanks in advance!

Noorah101

That is correct.

Rene

Jack8602

Welcome, also in same boat as you. I was on an L1 and married a US citizen.

14 months in and still waiting on my interview though! hopefully your paperwork will be one of the 'new' processes which are turning around much faster.

TheKingOfHearts

7 months in and I'm still waiting on my EAD/AP - think yourself lucky!

Thankfully I don't "need" it, sounds like the OP wouldn't either.

Jack8602

Ooff.

I'm going through EAD/AP renewal right now. Have had to get congressman's office to follow it up as work need to fly me abroad a few times later this year. Hopeful i'll get an interview date prior to that though.

Jasskatten

Thank you everybody!

Wow, did not realise that wait times had increased that much. Following English88's threads, he got his green card in four months, and that was just three years ago!

Jasskatten

Getting closer to file, don't know how it has taken this long time, we married almost two months ago now Moving to a new country , starting a new job, and getting married keeps you busy I guess. Realized today though that pdf forms I filled out in Microsoft Edge, lose the data in some fields when I open them in Adobe Acrobat Reader. :/

One question I had to you guys who have done this recently, did you send in affidavits from friend and family that you marriage is bona fide? We have plane tickets showing we have visited each other, we met last summer, I spent one week in USA, then she spent one week in Sweden. After that we met in Iceland for a weekend, I went and visited her in New York a weekend, she then moved to Sweden for two months. I moved to USA with a L1-visa 3.5months ago, we live together since (she moved from upstate NY to West Virginia) and got married eight weeks after I moved here). We are both on the lease of our apartment, and we have a joint bank account. She is covered by my health insurance. The marriage was small but photographed by a professional photographer so we have some nice photos. Her parents, brother, uncle and a friend of her was there, and my mother. Figured we'd also include photos from when we first met, from our vacations in Iceland and NY, us together with my family in Sweden, and us together with her family in USA.

Seems to me this plenty of evidence that the marriage is bona fide, but a friend of my wife filed an I-130 and was told by her lawyer that affidavits was vital. Do you think we really need them?

Thanks in advance, again

Noorah101

No, you don't need them. They are actually the weakest form of evidence and are not required.

Rene

Jasskatten

Thanks Rene!

S Folinsky

Ah, the famous "friend." At least it wasn't the "friend of a friend."

Every case is different. I considered declarations [which can be used in lieu of "affidavits] to be the weakest form of evidence. That said, there WERE cases where the declarations were essential. YMMV.

Jasskatten

Well, I made a stupid oversight. When starting to compile the supporting documentation, I realized that my Swedish birth certificate says "Marital status: single". (Sweden doesn't really have birth certificates, the closest thing is a notarized copy of the information about you in the population registration, including marital status. I didn't report to Swedish authorities that I had gotten married, so I started that process this week by sending a notorised copy of our marriage certificate to the Swedish IRS to get the marriage registered in Sweden. After that I can order a new birth certificate. Getting the marriage registered takes 4-8 weeks, but I can hardly apply with a birth certificate that says I'm not married can I, that would cause a lot of confusion, wouldn't it?

Tomorrow I have my appointment with a civil surgeon to get my I-693, although I probably will have to do it again since the processing time for AOS is longer than a year. But I might as well do it now, just in case it moves faster than that.

A bit frustrating this process, including the L1-visa process we've been at it for nine months now, and a long road ahead of us. Got to remind myself that I one of the lucky ones that worked for an American company, so we can actually be together while we wait.