State ID for Citizen sponsoring GC

[gcapp]

Hi,

I am a F-1 student who has applied for GC on the basis of marriage to a US citizen. My wife (US citizen) does not have have a state id or driver's license for the state in which we reside currently (MD). Though she moved to MD 5 years back she still uses her driver's license from her home state of CO. We are from different cultural backgrounds and she still uses her paternal last name. Should she get the license for the current state (MD)?
Thank you in advance.

[PraetorianXI]

Yes.

[gcapp]

Thank you for your reply. Just a quick follow-up. My wife has filed taxes in MD each year and has copies of it. All our joint bills and rental lease have her MD address. Do we still need her to get MD driver's license for her? She will have to skip work for a day or two to get this license here in MD.
Thanks.

[PraetorianXI]

It takes but merely a few hours to get a license. It will be a good proof of living together. but it is your choice, if you have plenty of other evidence you don't need it.

[arvindkappula]

My personal experience and what I have learnt is better to change OOS (out-of-state) DL to MD at the earliest possible and just in addition if your wife drives car with OOS license tag and willing to keep the tag like how I did, this MD MVA do have an option to apply for “Temporary resident” permit which they give for 1 year after providing few documents like letter from employer, project duration etc., and paying $27 (not sure how much it is now) and you can renew it every year (I did renew for 2 years with out any issues)

Trust me as long as she is not caught for traffic violation etc., I guess she is just lucky but if caught good luck with that & they will come hard on you. Once again personal experience and learned in hard way but I was lucky enough to get away with 1st warning ticket and changed my DL to MD which was another nightmare experience & long story described below.

FYI -- Pls. do remember, MD local county police dept is pretty much in practice of driving through apartments (if you are living in one) to check for OOS license plates and log in their system if there is no “temporary permit sticker” displayed on windshield and quite often they do re-validate randomly & if this license tag is already in their system and as their standard procedures I guess they issue tickets off your knowledge. That’s how I was “lucky” enough to get one warning ticket and after investigating got into all these details and learned on work around process 

For all the folks who might be also interested to know about how hopeless the service is as of today in MD-MVA especially for non US Citizens who will be applying/transfer of DL or applying for State ID and here is my personal experience again:

Part-1: Transfer of OOS-DL to MD:

There are only specific days in a week & in main MVA offices they will accept Non-US Citizens DL app, transfer or State ID request. I had to visit the one in "Glen Burnie, MD". THE BEST experience ever I had in my whole life.

1st you have to stand in line at 6:30AM to beat other non-citizens who were already in the line by that time, by the way they only assign/give limited tokens for different services on that particular day. I am quite not sure about the exact numbers they assign on this specific location and I think its around 20/specific days and I think mine was 10th token.

Office opens at 8:30AM and by the time I got in and they called my token number it was 2PM (what in the world speed service they provide) and by the time I came out of MVA office it was 4:30PM (my H1 stamping in India was much easier and less then 30 min – LOL!!. This whole process took just 10 HOURS (just to transfer my DL from another State to MD) that was ridiculous.

The slowest place in America and they did off beat USCIS. The best part is you will get a chance to see whole bunch of slow motion folks sitting behind one big long glass counter and have no clue what they are doing. After going through their standard interview providing all requested documents they did print my DL twice with wrong information.. how about that!!! Looks like that's how well these agents are trained at MVA office in "Glen Burnie, MD". Having mentioned above my FULL ONE DAY was gone to just transfer my DL to MD.

Part 2: Getting State Photo ID for my wife on H4:

I had to drop her again at the same location at 7AM, her token was called in around 12PM (little progress here with respect to my DL experience) and left to my work and picked her up at 3PM (once again good progress then what I had) looks like my wife is lucky to get out of this office little early.

Conclusion: After going through this hours & hours of wait time, the only one thing which did made me happy and overruled my frustration was, they issues DL/State Photo ID for 10 YEARS = GC (OH MY GOD).

There were so many times during my visit, I thought of asking these MVA folks, am I getting my GC or DL/State ID…LOL!! Great experience.

[gcapp]

Thank you so much for your replies, PraetorianXI and arvindkappula.
There is a reason why my wife has not transferred OOS DL to MD and arvind has highlighted it in great detail. The MVA here in MD makes government offices in developing world look super efficient :-) We do own a car therefore that temporary resident thing does not apply, but thank for the info. We are planning to go the MVA office near Mondawmin mall. My wife is a US citizen and will try to transfer OOS DL to MD. I do not know if they have some specific days at Mondawmin MVA to do this, especially for citizens? I guess, I will call up and ask. I am sure it will take up the whole day though, maybe two :-(

[gcapp]

Oops, we do NOT own a car.
Thanks

[arvindkappula]

Good luck!

I am sure it should be lot easier for your wife being US Citizen.

Forgot to update my location, its actually "2500 Gwynns Falls Parkway (adjacent to Mondawmin Mall) and that's exactly were I had this super experience.

Don't forget to look out for BUNCH OF I **** 's behind the screen. This place will be just like ZOO

[gcapp]

Mondawmin mall MVA is the location where I got my original DL as well. It was couple of years back but it took me 2 days to get one. The first day they lost my appt. for driving test, therefore I got another appt and gave my test. On the day of passing the test I sat there for hours before my token was called. I came back home around 3-4 PM, I remember. I wish they improved. Thanks for your reply though.