Gregg Macdonald

Hi Everyone!

I'm a longtime occasional lurker in this newsgroup, I post
very rarely but I do want to say that I greatly appreciate this
resource and the many fine people who post here and give their
valuable time when they don't have to, to make the whole
immigration process an easier one..

I don't have a question right now, but I do want to give my
timeline (so far) and comments about what I've gone through
in the hope that it might interest others..

I'm canadian (ottawa, canada) and my wife is american
(cedar rapids, ia). At the time, I was 32 and she was 26
and neither of us have dependents. We started talking on
the net on ISCA BBS on Dec 1999 and I flew down and visited her
for the first time in Feb 2000. We had several visits
with me visiting her and her visiting me, and I
proposed on my christmas visit in Dec 2000.

11-Jan-2001 - My wife mails the I-129F to NSC

22-Jan-2001 - 1st NOA (recieved by me in Ottawa, it says 70-100 days
before a decision will be made)

06-Mar-2001 - Approval of I-129F by NSC (recvd by me in Ottawa)

I remember emailing the Montreal consulate with a question about
the process.. for those interested (I don't know if it's changed),
the email address is Montreal-IV/[email protected]

04-Apr-2001 - Arrival of Forms from Montreal Consulate at my home in
Ottawa, (I think this had the interview date, I don't remember for
sure)

07-Apr-2001 - Filled the forms out and sent them off to the consulate

02-May-2001 - K1 Interview at the consulate.
The previous day I drove to Montreal with a friend and we stayed
overnight at a relative of his before taking the subway to the station
near the consulate. Been a long time since I'd been on one (or been in
montreal for that matter).. nice! My interview was 10am (i
believe), and there was a small lineup at the door of the consulate.
it's a small door (it could be a side entrance to the building itself,
I didn't pay attention) we went through security to an elevator.
There were only a few buttons there for floors near the top of the
building, security again I'm sure. We got off and into a large room
with various booths (like a cashier, hard to describe). Anyway, the
rest of it is kindof a blur, I remember waiting anxiously, I think
I remember talking to someone, but at the end of it I had a new
document in my passport, a shiny new K1! success!!

07-May-2001 - My fiancee arrives in Ottawa to help me move down with a
rented Uhaul

14-May-2001 - We leave ottawa at something like 4am. too damn early
anyway! *laughs*. bittersweet since while I was leaving for the best
of reasons, my (now) wife whom I love very much to start a new life in
the US, still, Ottawa had been my home for many many years and I knew
I would miss my family and friends and my country very much. We cross
the border at Port Huron, MI. When I said that I was entering on the
K1, he said something which I couldn't make out so I started to get
out of the truck to get closer to hear him better and he got very
alarmed, so I stopped getting out of the truck, got back in again and
asked him to repeat himself, he did. Not the most auspicious start!
*laughs*.. we parked at the indicated place and went into the customs
office. The border guard asked us a few questions, he seemed to be a
"good-ol-boy southern type" from the way he spoke and looked
and dressed. He verbally mused about taking the time to inspect our
truck but decided not to. I got the distinct impression (and I could
easily be wrong) that if either of us hadn't been "white" that the
process might not have been quite so smooth and quick. There
was an asian family in the same office next to us that I partially
overheard who got rejected when trying to enter on an immigration
visa... something about paperwork.. english wasn't their first
language I could tell... I felt bad for him, the whole immigration
process isn't easy even when english IS your first language. He
scribbled some stuff in my passport and stamped it, but no
work auth stamp. I think there was a I-94 that he took too (but I
don't recall for sure). Anyway, we cleared customs/entry point fine.

We arrived in sunny Cedar Rapids, Iowa a couple of days later, and we
get married at a justice of the peace on 25-May-2001. We chose that
day very deliberately since the following year it falls on Memorial
Day which is when we decided to have the public (non-official)
wedding. The idea was to keep the date the same (18-May) so we have
only ONE anniversary date, not 2.. just a thought for those not at
this point yet.

31-May-2001 - We drive to Lincoln, NE (5 hour drive!) so that we can
drive to Omaha, NE (only 1 hour from lincoln where my wife's parents
live) to file my I-485 and EAD paperwork.

01-Jun-2001 - We file the paperwork to adjust status (I-485).. We
dealt with a couple INS agents there who seemed rather unclear on
things. One was upset that we didn't have photocopies of some stuff
(when the forms I don't believe mentioned they were necessary) so she
was snippy but did them anyway. We thought about filing for advance
parole but decided against it for now since I didn't have the money to
travel anyways. As far as the EAD goes, when one of the agents
realized I was from canada, she mentioned something to the other one
and said that I would be given an EAD today! yay!! And that is in
fact what happened. BTW, I do recommend that you photocopy this (both
sides) in case you have to file for unemployment before you have
citizenship. You may need it if the unemployment office decides to
audit your employment eligibility, like they did me recently.

Between then and last november I filed for Advance Parole, it never
arrived. Drove to the INS brance office in Des Moines twice (an option
we had from the beginning of 2002, which made a 4 hour trip only 2,
nice!) in order to find out what happened with my advance parole, they
never could tell me.. but it didn't matter (other than being out the
cash for filing it) because around the end of October 2002 we got the
letter for our interview for Conditional Permanent Residence status
(I-551C), scheduled for 15-Nov-2002.

15-Nov-2002 - Filed the paperwork for the I-551C at the Des Moines IA
office. We had an interview, the guy was really nice. At one point in
the interview he did leave the room for a couple minutes. Others on
this newsgroup have mentioned this happening too.. it wouldn't
surprise me at all if they watch+listen to you on camera to see how
you react when the agent isn't in the office.. but hey, this is a
government building in a high-security area, if they AREN'T watching
you, I'd be pretty surprised. Anyway, he comes back, he asks me a
bunch of questions under oath while looking directly at you.
Again, what I figured would happen and I've nothing to hide anyways,
so I passed that just fine. My passport gets stamped with my I-551C
and that is that! From what I've read since on the newsgroup, if
that interview had been even ONE day later, I would have run into that
delay bit with the stamps and the green cards. *whew*

02-Jan-2003 - Recieved my Conditional Permanent Residence card in the
mail. I didn't really expect it to be green and it wasn't..

Since moving here and getting used to the american way of doing things
and living here in general. Some things I miss about Canada, other
things are better here. It's been good, no real complaints! Mind
you, being unemployed for the last couple months hasn't been fun, the
IT market is really down here, but I'll find something eventually.

Anyway, that brings us up to the present. Hope it's interesting
reading to someone out there!

Later,
Gregg

julieb

Thank you ...I think it would really help people going through the same route as yourselves...I am in the UK so some of it doesn't apply to me but it is very good of you to take the time to tell people what to expect...heres to a long and happy life together!

Julie