Family (with US citizen wife) moving to the US from Australia

[philipps0718]

My family and I are looking to relocate from Australia to the US shortly and while I helped her with gaining permanent residency in Australia I am a little confused with the process of getting us, and my American wife, back to America and her family. Would it be better for us to visit as tourists via the Visa Waiver Program and apply once we are there? Do we apply while we are outside the country? I will also have to commute back and forth for work until gaining residency and employment in the US, is that were I also apply for the I-131? Any help in easing my confusion would be appreciated.

[SteveB]

My family and I are looking to relocate from Australia to the US shortly and while I helped her with gaining permanent residency in Australia I am a little confused with the process of getting us, and my American wife, back to America and her family. Would it be better for us to visit as tourists via the Visa Waiver Program and apply once we are there? Do we apply while we are outside the country? I will also have to commute back and forth for work until gaining residency and employment in the US, is that were I also apply for the I-131? Any help in easing my confusion would be appreciated.

Hi,

I'm pretty much in the same boat, except that I live in France with my US citizen wife.

The longest part of the spousal immigration process is getting your I-130 petition approved by USCIS. From what I've heard that can take anywhere between 3 months to 9 months. After that, provided you are married to a US citizen, the National Visa Center process is fairly quick (2 months). And finally you'll get to the consular interview process in your country. So my advice would be to send in your I-130 petition ASAP. Australia does not have a local USCIS office (see here: https://www.uscis.gov/about-us/find-...ration-offices) so you'll have to mail it to USCIS's Chicago Lockbox address.

Note that once your petition has been approved and assuming you have entered the USA legally, you can request for an "adjustment of status" . See here: https://www.uscis.govhttps://www.imm...ustment-status

Note: I am NOT an immigration lawyer, my advice is purely based on personal experience and internet research.

Best of luck

Stephen

[newacct]

My family and I are looking to relocate from Australia to the US shortly and while I helped her with gaining permanent residency in Australia I am a little confused with the process of getting us, and my American wife, back to America and her family. Would it be better for us to visit as tourists via the Visa Waiver Program and apply once we are there? Do we apply while we are outside the country? I will also have to commute back and forth for work until gaining residency and employment in the US, is that were I also apply for the I-131? Any help in easing my confusion would be appreciated.

You will likely be denied entry if you try to enter on VWP with intent to file for Adjustment of Status while there. The proper way is to do Consular Processing in Australia, where she would petition you, wait for it to be approved, it would go to NVC and the consulate and eventually you would get an immigrant visa. You would not have any special ability to enter or stay in the US during this time. You could still try to enter on VWP, though the chance of denial of entry is high.

If you somehow manage to make it into the US, you could file Adjustment of Status, and with it employment authorization and Advance Parole to allow you to work and/or travel in the meantime.

[Tar Kenkari]

Kiwi with US Citizen wife - our experience so far...

I'm a similar situation (Kiwi with a US citizen wife), from everything I can see the best method is to get the I-130 off ASAP. We have filed the I-130 in January and received the receipt notice back mid February. Now we wait for the processing date to come up, they are currently processing applications from August 2016 so we have a few months (7 months at this stage) to wait before our petition is even looked at. (https://egov.uscis.gov/cris/processTimesDisplayInit.do gives you the dates)

A few tips I've learned so far...
- The cheque needs to be drawn from a US bank account. We had to send our I-130 pack to family in the US, get them to add the cheque and send on to the Chicago lockbox.
- Make sure you include a cover letter outlining the contents of the petition.
- Send photocopies of official documents in the I-130 pack, bring the originals to the consulate interview
- There is a K3 visa option but the processing times are the same as for the I-130 petition.
- After the I-130 petition, the rest of the steps can be done online (web/email) or in person at the consulate (interview)
- Your Australian US embassy website should have good instructions to follow (and guidance for applying from your country), the NZ US embassy had lots of info.

Another option is to try for a Diversity visa (green card lottery) but it is only open for applications one month a year in November (and is not a guarantee)

We want to move to the US ASAP but we have found that with all the paperwork that needs to be completed, we are planning on flying to the US Christmas 2018. At this point we should have everything in place for me to be able to work as soon as we arrive.

I'm not a lawyer or any kind of expert, this is just my opinion based on my personal experience to date.

[philipps0718]

Thanks everyone for your great advice. It looks as though I'm going to have some extra research ahead of me to get it all sorted before we pull the trigger. Cheers.