That's the End of That

[geminigirl]

We had zedrikcayne's green card (permanent residency) interview on Monday. It was, at best, anti-climactic, and at worst, a complete and utter joke. I believe he uttered the phrase, "Well, we could have gotten through that if we were strangers."

Seriously. We'd spent the evening before, preparing everything, so that we had all our document organized and easily accessible. We had all sorts of organized paperwork, and everything prepped. We went and ran a couple of errands, had some lunch, stopped next to the Homeland Security office to make copies of a few things we'd forgotten to copy, and arrived, as our attorney had instructed, about 45 minutes before the interview. Went through metal detectors, and sat. For about two hours and a half hours, actually. Waited, waited, waited. Finally, we were called in for our interview. The woman looked at the file she had in front of her, confirmed information like our names, birth dates, whether this was our first marriage, social security numbers, names of our parents and so on. Pretty basic statistical information. She asked about any documentation we had of joint stuff-insurance, bank accounts, credit cards, and so on, and we added a few more photocopies of things that we had. We provided her with a copy of our 2006 taxes that we'd filed after the immigraiton petition, and corrected the statement about Cayne's arrest, and that was it. Then she stamped his passport with a temporary green card, confiscated his EAD, told him he could apply for citizenship in three years and sent us on our way.

And the green card process is over for now.

Comments

[ladygreyy.livejournal.com]

Wow. Just wow. I mean I'm glad it was that easy for you guys, but what's the point of making you jump through all those hoops if they're just going to be that blase about it?

But congrats.

[geminigirl]

Thanks. I'm glad it's done, because it's just one more thing we don't have to deal with.

Perhaps it was that we were well prepared,or the way we presented ourselves (nicely dressed, professionally, etc) or could "afford" to hire an attorney (it's noted in the documents, but they don't know that work paid for it) or that he speaks English fluently without a discernible accent, or that he's white or any of the other things we came up with that made our interview so simple, but I hope to not find out. I do hope, however, that the process is equitable.

more to it than that, though....

[happypete.livejournal.com]

I would imagine that they did a records search on you. If anything had "popped up," this could have been an opportunity for them to get more details, etc.

Re: more to it than that, though....

[(Anonymous)]

I know that they conduct a background check on him, and collect his finger prints. You would think, despite it being a pretty mild thing, that the fact that he got arrested would have shown up, and the fact that we answered the question "no" (it was an arrest that we assumed was for a traffic violation, which the attorney informed us was not a traffic violation, and the question on the form specifically excludes traffic violations) would have raised an eyebrow or something. We were rather proactive in disclosing it; when she asked whether our forms were all correct, we said "no, we have to make a change" and explained what it was, why we'd answered it the other way, and provided, upon request, a copy of the discharge of arrest.

Re: more to it than that, though....

[geminigirl]

Okay, apparently I'm logged out of my own LJ when I made the previous comment....

[alibee.livejournal.com]

But... it's not like that in the movies!
I don't get it!

:P
Congrats!

[geminigirl]

When I catch you on IM one of these days, I'll give you the longer version. :P

See above comment for now.

[fj.livejournal.com]

Hur-fuking-rah.

And remember what I told you about throwing away credit-card offers unseen from now on: Don't. Beause the card will come in an envelope that will make you think it is a credit card offer. Open each one from now on.

[danger-chick.livejournal.com]

Does it come with a low APR introductory rate?

Congrats!

[geminigirl]

That depends on how much money one laid out to go through the proces.

We're actually really lucky in that regard; EA paid for the attorney and all of the filing/biometric fees, along with the postage for sending the documentation back and forth between California and Florida, and the photocopies of the documents. Not counting the wedding as an immigration cost (although seriously, we might have run off to Vegas and done the Rabbi Elvis thing if it weren't for immigration...much cheaper than what we did, but there are things I'd have missed out on if we'd done that,) we paid for the immigration physical (about $300,) and the documents for the disposition of arrest from when he was arrested ($5) plus the time we spent filling out forms, and making copies.

[geminigirl]

I do remember. I tend to open them before I shred them anyway, only because my shredder can't handle that many pages at once. In this case, however, I'll need to open them before I pitch them into the "to be shredded" bin, where things sometimes linger.

[wait.livejournal.com]

Whew!

[sweet-tea79.livejournal.com]

Glad that's over for you!

[messyjessy.livejournal.com]

Sometimes anti-climactic is best. I'm glad it was so easy for you guys. I'm sure its a relief to have one less thing hanging over your heads.

[geminigirl]

You are so very right about that.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Congrats!

[mskathy.livejournal.com]

Glad it's off your list of worries! Love the icon, made me giggle.

[aliki.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!!!

If you can believe it, mine was more anti-climatic than that. (My interview was Aug 15, 2006). In a huge black 3" binder, I had compiled, photocopied, and carefully labeled with colorful dividers our birth certificates, passport, marriage certificate, bank statements, utility statements, photos of our relationship over the six years, documentation of various vacations we'd taken, and all our IRS tax forms.

We got called in, sworn in, she confirmed our names and birth dates, asked for our wedding date, then confiscated my EAD and that was that. I looked at my huge overflowing 3" binder and wanted to sputter: "but.. but.. I did all this work! DOn't you even want to see it!?"

[geminigirl]

I can believe it. I also felt the same way about all the work that we did.

[fairion.livejournal.com]

Woohoo. Major congratulations.

[geminigirl]

Thanks. :)

I owe you an e-mail with contact details and synagogue stuff; I'll do my best to get to it in the next day or two...it's hard with limited net access while we travel.

[cmariewt.livejournal.com]

Well that has to be a relief.

So are you not sleeping with an alien anymore? ;P

[geminigirl]

Still an alien, just a permanent resident alien now.