Paulbpaul

Hello, everyone
A brief history.
I was granted a K3 visa in July 2009 after applying for it in Dec 2008, shortly after marrying my US Citizen wife
Moved to Wisconsin in July of 2009.
Applied for removal of conditions of the K3 visa October 2009, which was granted January 2010
That gave me a temporary green card for 2 years during this time I applied for and was granted the 10 year green card which was due to expire in April 2022.
Now, I know I could've gone for citizenship after 3 years of marriage or after 5 years but I just wanted to live my life and keep all this niggling immigration stuff on the back burner for a while.
(Not too brief after all, lol)
So, anyway...December of 2019 I applied for citizenship. I had the biometrics appointment at the end of January in Milwaukee, which I thought was pretty fast. Then the Corona bomb went off.
I wasn't expecting to hear anything back until sometime next year due to world events but then out of the blue, I get an email/ text telling me to attend the interview in Minneapolis Oct. 15th
I was fairly confident about everything that I submitted. I had a pretty straightforward case.
The interview went well. The officer was quite sociable but formal when necessary. He had immigrated too, so he understood how things were from my side of the desk. We even chatted briefly about socc- real football!
So, after presenting him with originals of birth/ marriage certificates, passport and green card ( this is all he required but I had brought a file with everything I thought I may have needed), answering correctly 6 of the 10 random questions and proving that I can read and understand English, he approved me for citizenship and to await further instructions for the date of the ceremony.
Obviously It didn't have it then. That was today, Nov. 19th.
Today I became a US citizen.
The ceremony was quite formal but friendly and short due to Covid reasons.
About 12 of us, masks on, spaced out in the room, pledged our allegiance.
No video msg from the president or any pictures were allowed. After the oath, we picked up our certificates of citizenship, a folder with a message from the president and another folder with instructions for obtaining US passports, notifying Social Security of changes and registering to vote.
That was it. Entered the building at 10:15 am. Left the building, an American at 10:50am.
Happy happy day! All that money spent and undue stress was worth it.
Although I rarely post on here, I still drop in from time to time, getting as much info and direction as possible. This site has been my guiding light throughout all of this. Thank you!
Hopefully my experiences can help someone else, too.
Still married to my beautiful wife with 3 wonderful, for the most part, kids. She can't threaten me with deportation any more! Ha! (joking, guys)

Stay safe, everyone

Paul 🙂

lizzyq

Congratulations on your citizenship and being rid of USCIS!

Paulbpaul

Thank you!
A weight has been lifted, lol.

excpomea

Well done.
Nice to get it out of the way.
Did the same a few years back, mostly forced on us by an employer. Either convert to US citizen or find another job lol.
We chose the former, about 12 of us. Fast tracked due to the project security issues.

Rete

You did the K-1, Paulpaul. Regardless, congratulations on your US citizenship.

Paulbpaul

Thank you. And well done also to you. All 12 of you! 😀

Paulbpaul

Thank you! 😀

mrken30

You are now entitled to two blue passports

Paulbpaul

This is very true! Although I not long ago renewed my UK passport.

steph0scope

He was already married so it was a K-3. In 2009 that was not as rare as it is now.

Congratulations, OP. Hopefully I am not far behind you. Applied September 2019. And the wait goes on...

Paulbpaul

Yes, sir. You are correct.. Hopefully you'll hear something soon. Best of luck!

Rete

Ooops, I misread his sentence. Yup it was one of the K3's from ages ago. Little used today and rarely used by anyone from countries such as the UK or Ireland. Previously used by many married couples with an Indian spouse.

RICH

Congrats! Possibly the 1st K3 story I have seen here in 15 years of reading😀

Paulbpaul

Thanks! We went K3 due to using an immigration lawyer. No issues, just unsure of what to do, so we went in that direction. We quickly realized that we didn't need one, especially after discovering this site!

JosiesJourney

Wonderful news! Congratulations!!