British Expatriate Network

Hi everyone,

I am new here and wondering if anyone at all can offer any advice. I am a Brit, married to an American and returned with husband to UK 3 yrs ago. We have now decided it is time to go back, but I never stayed long enough to have the conditional status removed from my card. ( I do have a SSN) but understand we have to re-file the whole I-130 again and do the medical/interview here in the UK.

I haven't been through that before (everything was done previously in the States, by myself and was absolutely hell!) I keep reading things on here like EAD and SSA - things that I am not familiar with and wondered if anyone at all has any advice - things have changed since I did it all.

Unfortunately I cannot even remember how we got through the co-sponsor part of the forms, but I was fully accepted ( have the little card to prove it, shame it has no value now!)

Still married to the same person, we have bills etc to show that we are married and co-habitating and all that, but no clue how long it takes from this side of the pond and so on. Any advice/info gratefully received and thank you all for sharing your stories and information on here for people like me.

I only wish this kind of info/support had been available to me before and I might have stayed. Look forward to hearing from you and or making new friends for the future.

Sincerely,

D.

EAD is an Employment Authorization Document.
SSA is probably Social Security Administration, but don't take my word for it.

You'll probably have to file I-130, do the medical, do the internet and get your green card. Should be painless. Check out the alt.visa.us.marriage-based newsgroup. You'll find a lot of recent, helpful advice there.

Regards
Nigel

It took four months from submitting forms to getting the Visa from the Embassy allowing me to go to the US - but that was ten years ago. Good luck!

Thank you both for replying to me so promptly- I really appreciate it. I have found my way to the newsgroups- they are excellent, I shied away from them in the past and to be frank, I am not the most skilful user of them now, but they are excellent resources(and immigration X website), so thats been really useful.

Cannot believe I am to do this all over again, I must be crazy!

Thank you again,
Regards
D.

Hi

It took me about six months from start to finish last year with the US Emabssy in London.

However I think my application took longer than usual as you have to have police certificates from each country you have lived in ..we had lived in Japan previously & it was a nightmare trying to get a response from the authorites over there!!!(I think this probabably added an extra 4-8 weeks on the normal processing time from what other people have told me.

Hope this helps & if you need any other info..will be happy to help.

Good luck

Louise smile

Thanks Louise, That IS really helpful, I have been told that because I have been married to the same person who applied for me last time and all we did was change country of residence it should be fairly straightforward (however , in my INS experience NOTHING is ever straightforward!) and this time I have a dog to get over there - and I am more concerned for the timing regarding her welfare than my own!

I will take your off of future advice and thank you again for taking the trouble to reply - I am trying not to annoy people who have already answered newbie's questions smile

Best Regards
Sheril ( real name) might as well be who I am!

As you have spent 3 years in the UK you have abandoned your US residency in any event.

So you'll have to refile the I-130 and all that stuff in London again...

If you get all your ducks in a row, you should have it all done, interview and all, in about 4 months, your only alternative is to get a K visa if you are in a hurry, but that's not otherwise worth the hassle