Alien-Spouse Visa.....USA

Hello Snuffy,
I went through a simular thing with my wife. I would first start at WWW.Travel.State.gov There is all the information you could want to find there, and forms also. I would also contact your local congressmans office and ask for the person who assists with imigrant visas, they are usually very helpfull. The process is time consuming.
Best of luck
Nick

Oh man, you are in for some rough stuff.
IF your spouce is well educated, income earning and solid in every respect, you should have no trouble getting a 10 year visa for her.
IF , on the other hand, she is poorly educated, unemployed and unknown, it is possible that the Consulate will make life difficult for you. They have suspicions of a "fixed" marriage. You know, "You marry me and I give you money>?" type of thing??

If the baby is declared at the local Oficial?a de Estado Civil, and then registered as yours at the US Consulate, he should be able to get a US Passport. He should also get a Dominican Passport.
Read the articles under this in the Archives...

Good Luck, be patient...

HB

Yes there are several that have done it. There is a yahoo group that was set up by some of those going through the K-1 process which is for the fiance visa. If you go to groups.yahoo and look for a group called k-1visa_dr

The new k-3 spousal visa intriduced last year is along those lines. Up until about May of this year the time frame for this visa was about 5-6 months from start until entry into the US.

The time table for the K-1 process depends greatly on the service center and consulate used. With the K-3 the time table depends on Missouri and consulate.

If you live in the DR and start the process, the biggest problem that I would see might be the affidavit of support. If you live in the DR and that is the source of your income and you move to the US then you now longer have that source. So you need to have assets to sponsor her, have a source in the US (self employeed) or a co-sponsor. But it is possible.

Jerry

One of the steps is that you will have to supply an affidavit of Support. You must meet the 125% of poverty level for the number of people that will be in your household. If you poke around the INS site www.ins.gov the table of required income level is listed. (came across it once but would have to search again).

One way to prove income is a letter from your employeer. If you depend on the pension, then I think they will take a letter from your bank listing the amount of deposits for the last year.

Also at different points you will actually have a second affidavit of support, the first is 2 pages and takes a couple minutes to fill out. The second in like 8-10 pages. I need to look closer at this one soon. So I can not tel you too much about it.

Also if you are a legal resident of DR, then you should be able to apply directly to the consulate and by pass several steps in the US. All of the same things must be done, but they are done at the consulate instead of 2-3 different stops in the US. Don't know if that is good or bad for the DR consulate because I have never seen a timeline for that.

Jerry

Does she already have a Toursist Visa? If she does you have a easier pth ahead. If not prepare for a rough ride!

Old, retired US male with young, uneducated, unemployed DR wife?
Look at a loooooooooong time.....Sorry, this has been seen and tried before.

HB

I'm about to begin the process. I've told that it could take up to two years. Apparently, K-1 visa is a lot easier to do then spousal visa, which to makes no sense. I would think that the spousal would be a lot easier to do than k1-visa.. I would like to speak with you.... Is there a group for marriage-visa..

Free

Okay here is a email group that deals just with the DR. It started out as a K-1 (fiancee visa) group but some of us are actually going the K-3 (Life Act spouse).

Back before the Life Act the spouse visa was in the 18 - 24 months range. The fiancee was about 4-5 months. The reason for this was the spouse visa was an immigrant visa while the fiancee was a non-immigrant visa. The life Act allowed the spouse to enter the States and wait for the paperwork there. Like the K-1 fiancee visa, the K-3 Life Act visa is a non-immigrant visa and requires more paperwork once the spouse is in country.
Prior to June of this year the time for the K-3 was about 2 weeks longer then the K-1. Now it is a toss-up and it depends on which INS service center you are dealing with. Also if you are a legal resiedent of the DR, you might be able to do a direct consulate filing (DCF). In some countries this is very fast and pain free. I have never seen a time line for the DR so I could not tell you what to expect.

There is also a news group that deals with marriage based visas, but you have to realize that each consulate is different in how they handle their applications. So between the 2 you should get a good idea. You can get to it with a news reader or a search on a site like google.

alt.visa.us.marriage-based

Jerry