Throughout our seven months of marriage, and the ten months of dating before that, most big appointments had to do with me--mostly doctor appointments, it seems. But today was a Niels-driven day, but very important for both of us. USCIS Interview Day!
Penske Logistics brought Niels to the States a few years ago from their Maastrict office in The Netherlands. Before he met me, he made plans to file for Permanent Residency through based on his work Visa (I-140). He can tell you the more official terms (Niels' comment: L1b Visa) but basically he's so stinkin' smart that he passed the Labor Certification step for the work visa with ease and the Labor department said that he was more qualified than an American for his particular job. But then he met me and we decided that he wanted to apply for permanent residency through the family status (I-130), this time on account of being my husband, and we would really rather not be separated by continents at any point in our marriage.
We started the process in November with a TON of paperwork and documentation. In January, Niels had to go to the federal building in Cleveland for his biometrics--fingerprinting, background check, etc. Of course, anyone who knew my dating criteria should not be surprised to learn that he passed with flying colors! Then last month we received the letter informing of us of our mandatory joint interview. Again, we had to compile a long list of documents, including "photographic evidence to substantiate our relationship." If you've seen the movie
Green Cardyou'll have an idea of what we had in store for us.
Today was the day of our interview, and it went surprisingly well. It was fun, kind of like our own personal Newlywed Game. Our agent was really nice and seems pretty pleased with our "evidence!"
They'll do one more background check on Niels and then we should expect to get a very important piece of paper in the mail! For more info on it, check out the Wiki-page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Permanent_Resident_CardUPDATE: tonight at 7.30 we got the message from USCIS that the petition has been approved and the notice had been mailed. We'll await the instructions on the mailing, but we're APPROVED !!!
The end of a number of years of visa-issues (at least for the next 2 years) is here. Earlier today when I got the mail (which I maybe did 5 times over the last 9 months) there was a very nondescript envelope without any markings. When I opened it I did a little dance of joy... It was my I-551 Permanent Resident Card, a.k.a. the Green Card. Finally! I'm now officially a permanent resident of the United States.
