Green card through Marriage. US & British Citizen.

[iamsuperbritish]

Hello,

Me and my wife are lawfully married since August 4th, 2014 (in Bangladesh, we have necessary translated and notarised copies) and I wanted to start the process for my Greencard.

She is now currently in New York and I am in the UK.

From my understanding by reading the USCIS website, she has to fill out the I-130 Petition for Alien Relative, then submit it to a 'lockbox' in Chicago for filing.

Now even if I reside out of the USA, which I currently do, then it still has to filed in Chicago right?

Are there anything else but the 'electronic notification' form that I need (or she needs) to fill out?

Also what is the process once the I-130 is filed? How long do I have to wait to hear anything?

Thanks.

[kow]

Spend the 1k USD on a immi lawyer.. Trust me on this..

I managed to pay for a lawyer and I guarantee I was making less money than you.. They automate everything and know ways to fast-track applications..

[rayb]

The $1,000 was a lower-than-average fee for the I-485 procedure. I doubt that there was much automation involved. An attorney generally pays a clerk to complete forms individually or with immigration software that shares data between forms. The form-filling can be done manually in about 3 hours.

If this was your first such application, how do you know it was "fast-tracked?" I know that lots of immigration professional tend to brag about their knowledge of the process and ability to over come obstacles along the way, but that just means "filling the forms out" correctly and using Express Mail or FedEx rather than First Class mail, a savings of about 3 days travel time to the Chicago Dropbox.

--Ray B

Spend the 1k USD on a immi lawyer.. Trust me on this..

I managed to pay for a lawyer and I guarantee I was making less money than you.. They automate everything and know ways to fast-track applications..

[NYCRambo]

Is a lawyer a must for routine petitions ?

The $1,000 was a lower-than-average fee for the I-485 procedure. I doubt that there was much automation involved. An attorney generally pays a clerk to complete forms individually or with immigration software that shares data between forms. The form-filling can be done manually in about 3 hours.

--Ray B

Absolutely true. The above is exactly what lawyers generally do.

May I also add a caveat to this. Most any routine immigration petition can be done by a non-lawyer if he has enough experience in the field. By this, I do not mean any dis-respect to lawyers. ( I will come to this later )

Any non-lawyer who provides this sort of assistance, and who has processed many petitions for his friends etc, ( let us say he has done ten petitions like I-130 for immediate relatives , and got them all successfully approved from USCIS without sending them into a whirlpool of RFE's ) should be more than adequate to process your I130 for your parents or wife. He knows exactly what forms to fill, what evidence to submit, simply by virtue of his experience. And to boot, such people will charge you only a quarter of what a lawyer would charge ( or at most a third ). There are many such experienced people providing in-expensive but exceptional assistance to petitioners all over the US. However their unfortunate experience has been that instead of encouraging them in keeping costs low without sacrificing quality, some petitioners tend to balk when they hear " You are not a lawyer ? Then how dare you ? "

But I would NOT advise you to do your own I-130 if you are doing a petition for the first or second time. Keep in mind, you are a novice when you do it the first time. And you definitely do not want to screw up your dear one's I-130 by entrusting it to a novice ( in this case - yourself )

However I do feel a lawyer is required in the following cases:

Cases that are not routine, have some twists in the narrative etc. These people I described above, cannot represent you in an immigration court, so any case where it is likely to land up in an immigration court, should be handled only by a lawyer.

Cases which require some degree of creativity and imagination in providing evidence, eg: you are in the US, and you want to get a humanitarian visa for your husband who is in Mexico,but is on an immigration bar for example, should go only to a lawyer. Lawyers spend all their professional lives in creative pursuits of presenting evidence in a more convincing fashion to the jury or judge, and take my word, they really can get you out of a spot.

So lawyers are really required in some situations, but in routine petitions, another less expensive helper or agent will work just as good. Just dont get duped- always ensure the person you seek help from is an Accredited representative, if not make sure you have a word of mouth reference from some one whose petition he got approved for a very low fee. Checking the antecedents of such helpers is very important.

If you have borne with me till here, a big thanks for reading.

[rayb]

NYC guy,

Very good advice and overview.

--Ray B

Absolutely true. The above is exactly what lawyers generally do.

May I also add a caveat to this. Most any routine immigration petition can be done by a non-lawyer if he has enough experience in the field. By this, I do not mean any dis-respect to lawyers. ( I will come to this later )

Any non-lawyer who provides this sort of assistance, and who has processed many petitions for his friends etc, ( let us say he has done ten petitions like I-130 for immediate relatives , and got them all successfully approved from USCIS without sending them into a whirlpool of RFE's ) should be more than adequate to process your I130 for your parents or wife. He knows exactly what forms to fill, what evidence to submit, simply by virtue of his experience. And to boot, such people will charge you only a quarter of what a lawyer would charge ( or at most a third ). There are many such experienced people providing in-expensive but exceptional assistance to petitioners all over the US. However their unfortunate experience has been that instead of encouraging them in keeping costs low without sacrificing quality, some petitioners tend to balk when they hear " You are not a lawyer ? Then how dare you ? "

But I would NOT advise you to do your own I-130 if you are doing a petition for the first or second time. Keep in mind, you are a novice when you do it the first time. And you definitely do not want to screw up your dear one's I-130 by entrusting it to a novice ( in this case - yourself )

However I do feel a lawyer is required in the following cases:

Cases that are not routine, have some twists in the narrative etc. These people I described above, cannot represent you in an immigration court, so any case where it is likely to land up in an immigration court, should be handled only by a lawyer.

Cases which require some degree of creativity and imagination in providing evidence, eg: you are in the US, and you want to get a humanitarian visa for your husband who is in Mexico,but is on an immigration bar for example, should go only to a lawyer. Lawyers spend all their professional lives in creative pursuits of presenting evidence in a more convincing fashion to the jury or judge, and take my word, they really can get you out of a spot.

So lawyers are really required in some situations, but in routine petitions, another less expensive helper or agent will work just as good. Just dont get duped- always ensure the person you seek help from is an Accredited representative, if not make sure you have a word of mouth reference from some one whose petition he got approved for a very low fee. Checking the antecedents of such helpers is very important.

If you have borne with me till here, a big thanks for reading.