Visas

OK, to anyone looking to legally get a loved one over to the U.S. for marriage. Look out....it's not the world's easiest thing.

My fiancee and I are JUST starting the process this month....all this after a few months of reading law sites, researching the US Immigration Service website, and finally gathering everything that we need together.

First, I have to prove that I'm a U.S. citizen. So I have to copy my passports. "front to back". So I'm like killing a million trees copying every page of not ONE passport, but two of them going back at least 5 years. In my older passport I still had a picture of when I still had my long hair and mustache...so I looked like a chinese triad or something. That's not good.

I had to submit a copy of my Certificate of Citizenship...while it clearly says on the certificate itself that it's illegal to make a copy of that document. Errrrrrrrrrr..... so will I be arrested for making a copy of my legal certificate to send to them by their request? I'll be sitting in jail with my celly. He'll ask me, "I killed a guy...what are you in for?".

"Oh I made a copy of my certificate"

Next we have to prove that we've met each other within the past 2 years. I guess they're trying to sort out the fake marriages from the real ones. So now my fiancee and I are printing out our trip photos, our personal hallmark cards, our wedding receipts, ring receipts, etc etc. Heck, we must have like thousands of emails and telephone records shared between us. I think the immigration officer's eyeballs is going to pop out of his sockets looking at this corny stuff.

And then there are the application forms themselves. Not only do they have to be filled out in duplicate...I hear the immigration office picks these things apart with a fine tooth comb. So we're both making sure we fill out everything as directed....cross-checking dates, looking up records of where we've been or worked at over the last 5 years.

Why did the Spaceballs scene pop into my head? "We aint found shit..."

And finally, we have NO idea when they'll process this stuff. As far as we know, they have about a 5 month backlog at this time. So we won't even know this stuff is even all complete until 5 months from now.

Sick isn't it? I have this huge stack of stuff to send out this month. It's no wonder they're so backlogged requiring people to look through all this mess. I should invite the poor guy at the immigration office to our wedding.....this person's going to know a LOT more about us after reading through all that.