Applying for the green card in US ep.3

Before you start …

I am an international student from South Korea, working on my PhD. Thus, my visa status in the state is F-1. I am applying for the green card through marriage with my wife. I have been living with her since 2014 and we have a child together. Please consider my specific situation applying for the permanent residency (a.k.a. green card) in US.

I would like to post some date marks in here as there has been some progress on my application status.

When package sent to USCIS: Jan 4th 2018
When package received by USCIS: Jan 5th 2018
When text/email notices sent: Jan 11th 2018
When physical notices mailed: Jan 15th 2018
When finger print notice received: Jan 26th 2018
When finger print notice scheduled: Feb 7th 2018

I have to say that the process is being done quicker than I thought it would be. Currently, I am waiting for the finger print appointment. This is their way to check my criminal background and/or register my biometric information in their system to specially screen me. The physical notice that I received is form I-737c. This form is to inform petitioner/applicant next action that they need to take.

If the green card application is not family-based (like my case), you file I-130 first and then wait for I-737c to be arrived. This notice is one of the required documents of I-485. However, when you apply it as a direct family member, you don’t have to wait this procedure and file I-130 and I-485 together without I-737c. This is called concurrent filing procedure, which speeds up the application process a lot more. Here is the link of forum that I read to prepare my case: https://www.immihelp.com/forum/showthread.php/93775-Concurrent-filing-of-I-130-I-485-I-131-I-765

This helpful post gives you an example of filing method and the cover letter. Since you will have to include butt tons of papers and documents, it is recommended to include a cover letter as you can see in the above post. It’s beneficial for both USCIS and you to make sure all required materials are presented in the package.

Applying for the green card in US ep.2

Before you start …

I finally packaged everything (including fees) and sent it out. Today is January 4th. In this post, I would like to talk about the form I-693 (Report of Medical Examination and Vaccination Record). Disclaimer: You don’t have to include I-693 when you file I-485 because it takes time to finish I-693. They will let you know when your I-485 is being processed and need the medical record of yours. Then, you can process I-693.

US government wants to make sure that the intended immigrant (you, non-us citizen) is disease-free (at least from the severe ones or the ones can be spread easily) when they would like to be “the one”, the green card holder. So basically, you have to go to “designated” doctors (a doctor who US government gave an authority to inspect this applicant. They are called “civil surgeon) and ask them to fill it out for you. Of course, they will do some examination such as if you have any physical or psychological problem etc. The list of required vaccinations and tests can be found from the instruction document of I-693.

One thing that I found surprising is that you can’t use any insurance for this process (vaccines or doctor’s visit) and they are extremely pricey. You must have a vaccination record with you to prevent to pay things again. Unlucky for me, I am from South Korea and I don’t have such record and lucky for me, my school’s student medical center provides most of required vaccines for free. Here is the list of vaccines that I got for this purposes.

Measles, Mumps & Rubella (MMR)
Meningococcal Conjugate Vaccine
PPD test
Tdap Vaccine
Varicella Zoster Vaccine (Chickenpox)
TB test done (negative)

With this vaccine record, all I needed was urine test for sexually transmitted disease. Before you go to civil surgeon, make sure there is a way to get these required vaccines for free or at least, discounted price. It is important for you to make a call and ask how much do they cost before you visit a doctor because there might be many civil surgeons in your area and their price are also different. One place that I asked the quotes told me that I need to pay ~$320 and I ended up paying $150 in different clinic (doctor’s visit + urine test).

Just 2 days After the test, I was called that result was in and I was able to get sealed and signed I-693 from the clinic.

In the next post, I will talk about concurrent filling (filling I-130 and I-485 as a package) and cover letter.

Applying for the green card in US ep.1

It’s been a month since I posted the first one about this topic. I researched A LOT (I mean a lot a lot) about specific process and basically felt that..yeah, I understand why people hire a lawyer for this. It is extremely complicated process that could screw you (and your family member) over with a few mistakes. I do recommend you, at this point, to hire a lawyer ONLY IF 1) your time is valuable and/or 2) you wouldn’t jeopardize your status in the state due to some mistakes you could make over some dollars for the lawyer. None of above apply to me so that I am continuing my posting here.

One thing that I learned (I am still in the process, but I felt it’s necessary to post where I am) is that applying for the green card is a goal of so many different kinds of visa status. For example, you could be a spouse of a US citizen or you need to apply for the green card because you recently got a job in the state or it could be religious reason or you are a refugee. Each applicant I mentioned will have to follow different steps of the application process. That being said, I will mention my specific visa status, why I am applying for the green card, and my family status on very first part of each post to remind readers.

In this particular case, applications you need to submit are
1) I-130 – Petition for Alien Relative
2) I-130A – Supplemental Information for Spouse Beneficiary
3) I-693 – Report of Medical Examination and Vaccination Record
4) I-485 – Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status
5) I-864 – Affidavit of Support Under Section 213A of the INA
6) I-864A – Contract Between Sponsor and Household Member
7) (Optional but recommended) I-765 – Application for Employment Authorization
8) (Optional but recommended) I-131 – Application for Travel Document

All forms above are available from the USCIS website and instruction documents are provided together. Instructions are extremely helpful, although it could be confusing.

You (beneficiary, a person applying for the green card) and your spouse (the sponsor, a us citizen) will work together to fill out those forms and pack them all together and send it to one place. Fee is hurtful. Once I realized that total fee is more than $2,000, I thought US government is SELLING the right to reside in the country. This total cost, almost surely, will vary in different situations so I will specifically mention the cost part as well.

Applying for the green card in US ep.0

Finally! I am a married man. Now that I am qualified to stay in US without any visa (I am currently holding F-1 visa), I should apply for the green card which will grant me a permit to work outside of the campus. We do have a baby (Liam) and graduate student salary isn’t sufficient to support all of us (we will need some pocket $$$).

Thus, I am applying for the green card even though I am not required. I will be posting the detail of the application process as it is super complicated process and not a lot of information is available on the internet. There are some postings, written by Korean person, and they are mostly like “my husband did everything so I don’t know the detail…” . OK. I don’t have husband who can do everything for me, I need to be the one.

This posting will also be written in Korean as many Korean people will need this info, not only for the English speakers out there.

Unexpected encounter with Ms. Salmon

Ingredients:
Salmon fillet
Soy sauce, 3 spoons
Balsamic vinegar, 1 spoon
Oyster sauce, 1 spoon
Water, 3 spoons
1/2 onion
Green onion (very little bit)
A bowl of rice
A pair of chopsticks
Fire

It is a simple recipe for seafood enthusiasts, especially for those who really don’t have time to cook. Since I am not allowed to cook fish at home, I quickly went to the store and picked up a salmon fillet while Latisha is gone for work. It was raining day but I was excited to finally have some seafood at home.

Make a sauce with soy sauce, balsamic sauce, water, and oyster sauce. Some people put wasabi in it because you know, it is sushi after all. Do not forget you cook rice before you do any of this. It takes a long time to cook rice. If you are not in rice, I think you can skip rice part. It’s important to be flexible.

Prepare onions and lightly cook it with olive oil and 1 spoon of sauce we just made. Food smells and tastes better with onions or garlic, in my opinion. Now, fun part is coming up. I hope you have a pair of chopsticks.

This part is my favorite just because I get to play with fire. Who doesn’t right? Very lightly bake (?) the salmon and flip it over to apply crispiness onto it. You should watch out though because it can be broke and your girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband/roommate will smash in your back like volleyball player for making a mess.

Once you think it’s done, put onions on the rice and sliced salmon on top of it. Green onion is just for green decor. Salmon would appreciate it to make looks better. Original recipe given for me said to pour the rest of sauce on it, but then it will be too salty. It was. It was salty so I recommend you to prepare a little dish and pour the sauce in it so that you can adjust amount of salmon as you like.

I hope you enjoy this dish. Hope you are seafood person like me :).

Surprise christmas gift – memory

I am a graduate student and Tisha is a part-time worker. That generally means we will have to be smart and responsible on our spending $$$. But it is very hard thing to do..almost unavoidable especially when you have a heart of 10 years old like us. WE LOVE HOLIDAYS and main reason is … of course there is a gift! Big part of the reason why we love gift is there is a element of surprise.

So we sat down together and discussed the spending limit for each other and hand in each other’s wish-list (there is no romance anymore??). As soon as she realized that we are in financial crisis, she became sweet and pretended she doesn’t need anything EVEN THOUGH I can hear a grief through her voice tone. I, of course, insisted the gift and long story short, she ended up choosing some candies from Ghibli studio.

I know she really doesn’t want anything and loves Totoro, it is clearly unfair for her since I handed her my wish-list earlier that contains Apple track pad in it. So I wanted to surprise her with a photo album. Nice and neat album that brings up our precious memory together in the paper form, not a digital version. We had this trip in this Summer to Korea and had wonderful time together. These are going to be my target for her happy surprise. I did this for my parents once when they visited me from Korea. They loved it and proudly display it in the living room all the time. I am sure it will work out great for her too.

Everything could be done in front of your computer at your desk or office. What you need is bunch of photos that you would like to put inside of the photo book and Photo application of your Mac computer. Once you migrated all photos into the computer (from your iPhone or iPad), you will have to choose the size of photo album.

Apple offers various options. Once you select the size of the album, it will ask you a theme of your album, which will define color of the book or how it will distribute the photo of yours. Nice thing about this is that this software automatically distribute your photos into the photo album nicely so that you do not have to it by yourself one photo by photo. It really takes you a 5 minute to set until here (Yes. All you need to do is paying it with your credit card).

My photos (left, organized in date order) are distributed into the album with one click! (right).

Once you are done with this process (need a credit card to print and ship it to your office), they will send you confirmation email that has a link to a tracking system and shipping status. Yes. It is somewhat costly, but once you receive it, you would love how they deal all process and perfect design of their product. It was the best product for my parents and hope will be too for Tisha 🙂

Season of the warmth and gift!

December is finally here! It is a month of warmth and (presumably) lots of gifts! We decorated a tree, did a few events, and many fun wine nights! It looks like we are having weekly dinner gathering with Max, Claudio, and Maurizio. It’s been fun day and night altogether, including relatively new family member Jupiter the grey.

Most importantly, I am secretly preparing a great gift for my girlfriend Latisha. It’s an photo album that has most pictures that we took back in the Summer in Korea. She is still day dreaming about that trip so I thought it would make a great present for her so that she can keep the memory on her hands. I am still working on it. Whenever I imagine her big smile after she gets this present, it makes ME the happiest guy.

Shipping your belongings with Amtrak

Location : Seattle to Chicago. I know that there is a ‘major’ station and ‘minor’ station in Amtrak station. ‘major’ station can ship the boxes and ‘minor’ station doesn’t. The major station in Washington state (as far as I know) is the King street station (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Street_Station_(Seattle)) in Seattle. Chicago union station (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Union_Station) in Chicago is certainly a ‘major’ station. This means not all stations in the state ship your boxes even though the amtrak trains mostly stops at that station.

Cost : I had to ship 14 boxes. The weight was total of 325 lb. Amtrak charged for $175.75, and $10 for an insurance. Thus, it was $185.75. Technically, they charge you $65 for the first 100 lb, then 57 cents per additional pound (as of Aug 2015). Also the insurance cost is determined depends on the value of your belongings. I went to cheap option, so I chose $10 one.

How long did it take? : I should be specific on this one. I shipped my boxes on August 17th, which is Sunday (Yes! they work even on Sunday!). And that day, a lady from Amtrak said they will ship my boxes on Monday. When my boxes arrived in Chicago, people in Chicago union station couldn’t read my phone number on the receipt since it was written poorly…. So they contacted me late. So I could get my boxes on 25th. They said it could have been 22nd, but they gave up casually (this is what they said!). So yes! it took them 4 days, technically..from Seattle to Chicago.

Almost all information you need to know before shipping is available on the web (http://www.amtrak.com/express-shipping). But I know, you need more. You want information of where to go, which station you have to choose, where exactly I should drop off my boxes, etc… I will describe my experience as specifically as possible in here.

First off, be sure that each of your boxes does not exceed 50 lb and dimension does not exceed 3 ft x 3 ft x 3 ft. I simply went to Home depot and picked up bunch of small and medium boxes. Also, you need to write down the destination address along with the starting address either on top of the box or side of the box. Oh wait, this means 2 things. 1) It doesn’t need to be you who receives the boxes. As long as you clearly mention the recipient, Amtrak will make sure that person gets the box. 2) You need to know the address you are moving to. I had an apartment lease by that time, so that was not a problem. If you don’t have an address, consult with Amtrak express person, as they hold the boxes 48 hours for free and charge you $3/box for storing them in the station. Perhaps you can write down whatever address in the destination area and get ready to receive the boxes before the boxes reach to the destination station? One thing was clear for me..they really didn’t care the destination address.

Second, most importantly, you can’t put the things with the wire in the box. Things with the wires? yeah, electronics. Nor fragile. This was huge for me as I have some console games, computer products, and TV. The principle of this whole thing is that ‘the moving cost should not more expensive than the amount of money you would get by selling them as used product’ So yeah, I had to sell my TV. I had to ship the electronics using different method.

Since I have 14 boxes, I got the U-haul truck for a day to move boxes to the station in Seattle. After all, it was a good experience and I don’t think not lots of people use or know this method. The shipping cost was (for me) oddly cheap and the condition of the boxes when I got them in Chicago was clean and neat, as they wrap all your boxes with the plastic wrap and put them on the wooden career. It was indeed satisfying!

Here is other helpful blog posts that I looked into. Thank you for them too!

1. Long distance moving on the cheap : Part 2, Moving with Amtrak and Greyhound

http://www.wealthinformatics.com/2013/06/07/long-distance-moving-on-the-cheap-part-ii-moving-with-amtrak-and-greyhound/

2. Using Amtrak to Ship Everything You Own

http://batmanimal.com/post/38797869104/using-amtrak-to-ship-everything-you-own

Alex And Tisha

It is always nice to be around you