New plans required
by dixie
To all who attended Wanderpalooza 2007 in June, congratulations. You have witnessed the only opportunity this year the Wanderer will have to return to Dublin. Now I am faced with the task of planning what to do for Christmas for the first time in…oh dear…six years. I also have to figure out whether I really want to finish that 100% wool cardigan I started a few weeks ago with the specific intention of wearing it during the freezing Irish Christmas.
As the K3 expires this week, the Wanderer’s new status is “I-485 pending,” which means he’s not allowed to leave the country. Well, that’s a little dramatic. He’s certainly allowed to leave whenever he wants, it’s just that USCIS will cancel his green card application if he does. (And it “may trigger the three or ten year ban,” though it’s not clear exactly what would change that “may” to a less ambiguous “will” or “won’t.”) We can also apply for a travel document, but such things take at least three months to process (and cost a nontrivial amount of money), which makes Christmas plans a bit tight. This state of limbo remains until the application is completed. Current processing times are between 6 and 9 months, and they received the application on 8 August.
So that’s February at the earliest (read: luckiest) that we’ll be able to go jetsetting again, for those of you keeping score at home.
The really exciting part is that one’s driver’s license is linked to one’s legal presence, and the Wanderer’s job makes frequent and necessary use of this license. (The xenophobes will try to tell you illegal immigrants can get all sorts of nifty benefits like driver’s licenses without having to prove their status. They are wrong, woefully wrong, in addition to being loathsome individuals.) So the Wanderer’s driver’s license expires at the same time his K3 does, this week. Bad things happen when you let your license expire, whether you’re a citizen or not. USCIS assures us the I-797 Notice of Action is sufficient to reassure the Legal Presence Verification Unit of the Wanderer’s status, but the Unit itself is less reassuring, demanding a Notice of Approval. We will hopefully learn more tomorrow, after carting the I-797 to the DMV and waving it about under their noses.
We’re also filing another EAD application, as it too expires soon. The fun never stops.
Comments
Christ the amount of paperwork is truely staggering. Its like a bad monty python sketch.
“Hi I’d like to pick up a form X-100 please”
“Have you filled out your form X-300?”
“What’s a X-300?”
“Its the form you need to fill out in order to be allowed submit other forms”
“Thats crazy, ok give me a form X-300 then”.
“Sure I’ll just need to see an approved X-100 before I can give it to you…”
Nightmare.
“A camel is a horse designed by a committee”.
I don’t know who was the first to utter that line, but they were, unfortunately, far too accurate.
I’m waiting so long for my driving test here that my licence has expired…with the vast, vast number of admins employed by any state body, you’d think that some work would, you know, get done?!?