Part 1
Detailed Background Story: Describing our situation and how it might apply to yours
For anyone who doesn't regularly follow our blog, Part 1 is to give you some background on why I'm writing out this process and details of our own story. For those of you wanting to simply read the outline on the actual residency process we went through, you can find that in Part 2. The citizenship process is detailed in Part 3.
Background and information on B1/B2 visas
My husband and I are missionaries living in the Dominican Republic. We met in 2016 and were married in the spring of 2017. He's Dominican and I'm American.
Before we met, Miguel had applied once for a B1/B2 tourist/business visa to the United States to be able to travel on behalf of the organization, but his application was denied. We were married in the DR and shortly after, applied for a visitor visa with plans to travel stateside and hold a reception for friends and extended family who didn't come to our wedding. After going through the application process, Miguel went into the American embassy for an interview in July and was denied the visa. This second visa denial set off a chain of events that led us to pursuing American citizenship for Miguel.
If anyone reading this has ever been in the same situation with visa denials, our experience may sound familiar. The interviewing officer didn't give a specific reason for the denial other than a paper with a generic reason stating "not enough supporting evidence qualifying for a visa" or something similar.
It was frustrating for us because we couldn't get any information on what exactly was considered enough supporting evidence, so on our way back from the American embassy, we checked around with friends for a reference to immigration lawyers, simply to get some questions answered.
We were able to meet with a great lawyer whose offices are located about halfway between our home town and the capital city, where the embassy is located, and she gave us some great insight into why B1/B2 visas are usually denied, as well as what our options moving forward would be.
B1/B2 visas are given for people intending to visit the U.S. as a tourist for up to 3 months and attending to something connected with their organization of employment that is not considered income (think seminars, workshops, meeting with potential donors or investors, etc.). We had gone forward with the application thinking we needed to prove reasons why he wanted to travel (such as a letter of invitation, itinerary of places we would go to, etc.). But.
Approval is largely gauged on 5 points that, on paper, determine if the applicant has enough ties to prove he will, without a reasonable doubt, return to his country of origin:
- Income source and level
- Property and investments
- Family life
- Education
- Community ties
In our case, Miguel had almost nothing, on paper, that would tick these 5 boxes, even though we fully intended to return to the DR and continue to live here for the foreseeable future.
- His income level is very low (due to working in the non-profit world).
- At the time, we had no property or investments (other than a car and motorbike).
- His family was an American wife, recently married, with no kids (seemingly more of a reason to want to stay in the US rather than return to the DR).
- He was enrolled in ongoing education at a university in the capital (one thing in his favor).
- And he had been with the same organization for 6 years (a good community tie), but we had recently moved away from his hometown (which could be counted as a negative).
In addition to the above, the U.S. only grants a certain quota of visas per year per country, and the Dominican Republic is notorious for having a high denial rate due to the high number of applicants. Even though it didn't give us much hope of Miguel being able to ever qualify for a B1/B2 visa, we were grateful to have some answers.
Our lawyer advised us to go directly for residency for Miguel, since, under normal circumstances, spouses and children of American citizens qualify for immediate review (no wait line), and we didn't qualify for other types of visas without moving to the US. Residency normally requires 1 1/2 years of physically residing on American soil, including American jurisdictions, in the 3 years before a spouse qualifies to apply for citizenship. Part 3 details an exemption we qualified for in the citizenship process.
Preparing to Apply for Residency
After consulting with the lawyer, she gave us a quote that was outside of our budget. We were running into a potentially tight window of being able to get the process done since Miguel was still enrolled in university weekend classes, including summer classes, so he usually had about 2 weeks off between each trimester. At the time, we understood we would have 90 days after receiving Miguel's residency visa to enter the US to finalize his residency and we wanted as much time as possible for that first trip stateside to finalize all the paperwork, so we planned to take off for 4 weeks over Christmas and New Year's break by him skipping one weekend of classes. I would be taking a trip stateside in late August and would gather some paperwork we needed while there. Our goal was to file as soon as I got back, giving us a 3-4 month window for the process.
Some friends put us in contact with two other couples who had been in the same situation as we were and did the residency process shortly after getting married as well. They hadn't used a lawyer and explained the process very well to us, but it had taken them about 4-6 months from application to going stateside for finalization. Our lawyer had explained in our consultation that delays are most often due to paperwork gaps when filing. The US consulate would let an applicant know they needed further supporting documentation of some kind and set up an appointment to submit said documents, a process that could take several weeks depending on available appointments. Her job as a lawyer was to know which documents needed to be submitted to support our case. She said she had one client who'd gotten his process completed in 3 months' time; our case was pretty straightforward and she had good reason to think we would have enough time to make our travel window.
Our options were:
- hire a lawyer we couldn't afford and hopefully make our travel window that year
- do it on our own and potentially need to wait until the following year to travel, meaning we'd intentionally need to delay the process to hit our preferred dates so Miguel's studies wouldn't be affected
We evaluated prayerfully and decided to let our donors know what was going on with the amount we would need to hire the lawyer. It was kind of our Gideon's fleece - if we could fundraise the needed amount quickly, we'd go forward with the lawyer; if we couldn't, we'd take our time filing and wait until the next year. That same evening, only several hours after sending our update, someone called us saying they wanted to donate the entire amount we needed so we could hire the lawyer and get the process done!
We had some delays in completing translation of documents, so we ended up filing the end of September instead of the beginning. We received an email confirming acceptance of the case less than two weeks later, no further documentation required for the case file. I explain the different phases of the process in Part 2, but all in all, Miguel's residency visa was approved in 2 months' time - a record for our lawyer and most people we have spoken to who have gone through this same process!
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