DORA

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Yesterday, Lilly and I went to U.S. Department of Homeland Security where we filed her immigration paperwork through the DORA program. It was a surprisingly less painful than I thought it would be process. We showed up on time for our 10:15 AM appointment...went to the window...paid our fees...and we were told to return at 2:45 PM for a 3:15 PM appointment. D'oh!

We came back at 2:45 though, and all seemed to be going smoothly. We went in for our interview, and that's when we received the biggest shock of the day. It turns out that a Marriage License is, in no way, considered proof of a marriage by the immigration department! What? Apparently, they wanted pictures from the wedding, a copy of a statement from a joint bank accounnt, a copy of our lease, etc. I knew they would want this stuff in the long run, but I thought that would be in two years from now, not immediately!! Thankfully, we had our insurance cards with us (for our car insurance). That, combined with a spontaneous quiz on the part of the interviewer apparently convinced her that we are, in fact, married. I think we could of been rejected right then and there! (That would of sucked)

At any rate, it seems the process is going forward ok now. We were however shocked to discover a couple of unexpected things about how it will work though.

First off:
The filing of the I-485 is expected to take 90 days. No less. If there are any problems, then it will take longer and we will be notified of this.

Secondly:
The Travel Document we wanted to file and the Employment authorization won't even be processed unless the I-485 takes longer than 90 days!!!!

Thirdly:
We were faced with a choice of filing the Travel Document and Employment Authorization now, at the current rates, or waiting, in which case the rates will approximately triple as of July 1st (I think that date is correct..).

So, for the next 90 days, we definitely can not leave the country. This means no going back to Germany in the middle of September, and no employment authorization in the meantime.

However, with Lilly's clean background, I think we should be ok within the 90 days. We filed the Employment authorization, just in case, anyways. But we did not file the Travel stuff. We can file that later if we need to.

We had been talking about going to Germany in Sept./October to celebrate our wedding there. It's looking like we can't do that now. If we know we will get the 485 in time, we could do it in the early part of October. Maybe. Either way, it looks like we won't be coming back there until next spring because we can't reliably plan as it is now.

But, at least there's a chance we could be done with all of this in 90 days... (until 2 years from now...)