DragonHeart

Hi PPL,

I am a Uk Citizen and my Wife is American and has Dual Citizenship and we have been living in the Uk Married for around 5 Years.

We both want to set long term plans to both move to the USA......... Can someone please point me in the right direction or site as to how to go about this. We run a photography business, which we could easily move to the usa and start up thier (which is our long term goal).

IE : How much savings we would need ? Visa requirements for me, Rules and Regulations sponsership etc etc..

I would really like to get the ball rolling, as it has allways been a long term plan and would like to follow our dreams, before we get too tied down to the UK.

Thankyou in advance for any help or pointers on this.

DragonHeart

Noorah101

Hi, and welcome!

Start with this link: http://britishexpats.com/wiki/DCF_I-130_Filed_In_London

Since your USC wife lives in the UK, you guys have the unique ability to file the I-130 towards your Immigrant Visa directly to London (called Direct Consular Filing, or DCF here on this forum), thus cutting out months of processing time. Total time from submitting I-130 to getting interview date is roughly around 5 months for DCF.

A few things to make you aware of:

1. Hopefully, your USC wife has been filing a US tax return each year. If she has not, she will need to get caught up on the most recent 3 years. Even if she did not earn enough to warrant filing a tax return, she should anyway, because the ConOff might ask for it.

2. Your USC wife will have to prove "intent to domicile" in the USA. I think the Wiki guide covers it, but do a search for others who have recently done DCF and you'll see what kinds of things can be used.

3. Your USC wife will need to do an I-864 affidavit of support for you. If her income is not from a US source, or will not continue from the same source once she moves to the USA, she can either use assets or use a joint sponsor. Assets must be 3x the amount needed in income, and is best shown as cash in the bank. You will read that an asset can be a home or property, but currently London ConOffs are not easily accepting a primary residence as a good asset, simply because of the bad market. The asset must be able to be liquidated with 1 year....not something you can do with a home so easily anymore. If you guys need a joint sponser, the joint sponsor must be a USC or US PR, age 18+, living in the USA, earning enough income to cover their own household size plus the immigrant. Details on the I-864 are at www.uscis.gov, Forms, I-864 and I-864P.

Rene

DragonHeart

Thankyou so much for the info,

My main concern is would it cause alot of problems as we would both have no income until we can start our buisness up in the USA ? and we dont have huge savings as the costs of living in the Uk is so high.

Would it be best if my wife went back to the USA a few months before me and found a job and accomodation (which is something we dont really want to do) or use a 3rd party sponser ?

Thanks

meauxna

There are three ways your wife can satisfy the I-864 Affidavit of Support:
-have a sufficient income that will continue when she moves to the US
-have assets at 3X the income requirement
-have a Joint Sponsor in the US

Which is 'best' for you depends on your circumstances.. it's a little hard for us to say, not knowing you yet.

DragonHeart

Thanks for the quick reply.

It would have to be the last then, the joint sponser as funds are very very limited

Noorah101

As long as you can find a joint sponsor for the I-864, the issues you raise above won't be a problem.

Having your wife move back to the USA first is not the most desireable thing (for you), but it will alleviate the need for her to prove intent to domicile (as she'll already be living in the USA), and it will alleviate the need for a joint sponsor, if she gets a job earning enough for the I-864 requirements.

That is also a possibility, called "joint sponsor", which I've mentioned. The joint sponsor takes care of the I-864 requirements, but does not help the "intent to domicile" issue.

Rene

Noorah101

If you do this, it would be best if she finds an actual job, with an employer who can provide her with regular income and pay stubs, so her employment can be well documented.

If she intends to come to the USA and be self-employed right away, that will be much harder to get approval for the I-864. You guys can continue your self-employment after you've immigrated.

Rene

Noorah101

I'm not sure if this will count towards "income continuing from the same source", but it might be something to look into. If you've got your own business, maybe you can document over the years how successful it was, how much you earned (personal income, not the business itself), and have a well-documented plan for starting it up in the USA....perhaps that would be useful on the I-864? I don't know, but something to think about.

Rene

meauxna

That's OK.. no shame or anything in it. I was also living overseas when I sponsored my husband. I didn't really have a local job and didn't have one waiting in the US.
I used a combination of assets, income and finally took a Joint Sponsor I-864 with me for back up. Many couples have to use a Joint Sponsor when they've both been living overseas.

Alternately, your USC can move ahead of you and get things established. She may want/need to do that anyway, if she doesn't meet the 'domicile' requirements.

PS: plan on taking a few days for all these new terms etc to sink in.