Back in the USA

We arrived back in the US at the end of the first week of February. The point of entry (PoE) we used was Los Angeles because the airline we wanted to fly across the US with didn't fly direct from San Francisco. I was sort of nervous when we got there because everything had been such a trial up until that point that I was expecting something to go wrong or to have to wait around for hours to be processed as a fiancée to a US Citizen on a K-1 visa. Much to my surprise and delight it was the easiest and quickest part of the process thus far. The immigration officer opened my sealed envelope with all my documents in it from the US consulate in Auckland and asked a few questions then took my fingerprints and a photo, stamped my passport, told me we had 90 days to marry and let me through.

It took us a few days to manage to get to the Town Clerk's office to apply for the marriage license and then there is a 3 day wait for the license to be issued. The day that it was ready we had booked an appointment with the Town Clerk to officiate the marriage and we were married that very morning on 16 February. It was just the 4 of us: the Town Clerk herself, my (now) father-in-law, the groom and me. We couldn't stop grinning at each other, hubby and I, throughout the ceremony. We just wore comfortable clothes and funnily enough I was wearing the very same top that I wore when I first met my husband back in 2010 at the airport. He had joked in the past that I should wear that top and some jeans when we got married because I had expressed how wasteful I felt it was to buy a lavish dress I would only wear once. The words that the Town Clerk (who had the same name as my late mother-in-law) used were beautiful and religiously ambiguous enough that we were comfortable and pleased with them. The Town Clerk then gave us 3 official copies of our marriage license with our brand-new name on it. We both changed our surname to a portmanteau combination of our father's surnames. I won't list it here since, as far as I know, we are the only two people in the world to have that surname.

Since days before the ceremony I had begun to prepare my Adjustment of Status (from K-1 fiancée to immigrant/permanent resident wife of a US Citizen) application documents. It's been about 2 weeks now since we were married and I finally, yesterday, sent off my package with all the documentation needed for this next stage. The package was huge and it took a long time to complete. While I was in the process of preparing it I actually applied for a Social Security Number (like an IRD number for NZ readers) and it arrived very quickly so I was able to include that information in my application. Now that I have an SSN I can apply for a bank account and a driver's license. I've never driven a car before but I have drive motorbikes and scooters for a few years so I think I'll be a good, defensive driver. I find it hard to imagine being comfortable driving a car - they're so big! I feel like it would be hard to gauge how close to other cars, the edge of the road and other objects each side of the car would be while driving. I don't even want to think about parking yet.

I'm not authorised to work or study in the US yet - those privileges are part of the approved permanent resident status perks - so I'm still chafing for that right. The next step in the process is to hear if US Citizen and Immigration Services receives and accepts my adjustment of status. Once that happens then they will give me an appointment for biometrics. After that I may or may not have another interview to establish that my marriage in genuine and I'm not an undesirable immigrant. I think that's their reasoning, anyway, but they don't give any details on the purpose of much of their requests. Anyway, hopefully one interview is enough and that will be the final hurdle until I have to renew my permanent residency 21 months (it lasts 24 but you have to apply again 90 days before it runs out) and ask for the conditions to be removed.

Immigration to the US is certainly not for the faint of heart or people who can't stomach paperwork. If I had known all the work involved ahead of time then I might have looked for another way to be with husband. But, as it stands, I still don't know how we could have done it an easier way. Our circumstances don't leave much opportunity for flexibility. Hopefully things will change and there may be a time, if we so decide, that we can move back to New Zealand. But the foreseeable future is here so I guess I should start getting used to it.