It's official!

As of two days ago when we held Felix's Permanent Resident ID in our hands it was and is finally official! We can both breathe easily knowing that the biggest hurdles have been overcome. In two years we apply to remove the conditional status then after that it's time for full-fledge citizenship.

We've both been feeling kind of overcome with all the possibilities and it put us in overdrive for trying to make a lot of things happen at once.

First on our list, Felix contacted Sac State to change his residency status since he was admitted for the fall. Guess what? The CSU system goes off the entire year prior to Sept 20th when establishing residency. After further doing our research and lots of vague responses from both Sac State and FAFSA we've figured this out to mean he is NOT eligible for financial aid until next Fall semester. Further digging on my part though has shown that community colleges are much more lenient with their residency standards which takes us to the second item on our list.

Felix can finally do CRC's EMT program like he's been wanting to. He's all signed up to do the American Red Cross' CPR Certification for the Professional Rescuer since it's a prerequisite for the EMT program. He's pretty stoked though I can't get that excited about 9 hours of anything let alone learning how to resuscitate people. He'll probably do the EMT class instead of going to Sac State since we'd be on our own for funding either expenditure. 6 units at $36/unit ($216 total) beats 6 units at $1769 total. Fo'get you, CSU system.

Third... we're working on replacing Felix's Mazda, may it rest in peace. We're buying my niece's Civic which Felix is excited about. Lemme tell you, I am excited too, but spending $3000 was not in my summer plans as I wanted to move to a bigger apartment! Still, it's a fantastic deal and we love the thought of getting a car from a well-known owner. Plus it's nice enough to last for a good long while. The thought of paying for both our auto insurance makes me wanna hit my head on something hard. Felix went and got his permit at DMV this past week and his driving test is coming up. May I please point out that the BEST part of him driving is I can get drunk when we go out and just make him drive? Yep.

Going back to that apartment idea is our number four. I threw the biggest PMS-fueled fit today about how much I hate our tiny apartment and with the anticipation of our huge monthly insurance payments it's looking like we won't be able to afford a better place. Mom has stepped in saying she'll help but I have to quit my job in August to do my senior internship so I still have to look at the money stuff. Big sigh. How much longer until Fall financial aid disbursements, again?

Five although it's probably the biggest is Felix's big job hunt. He's planning on sticking with Crepe for a bit but it would make 1-4 so much easier if he had a better-paying job. We're working on his resume right now. He's applying pretty much everywhere, full time only. Cross your fingers!

So that's where we are for now. Lots going on with only four weeks left in the semester. I'm aiming for those A's again. Gotta get into grad school so all these challenges will just be a strange time to look back on and laugh about.

Turning everything in just to wait

Well we finally dropped off all our documents.

Getting the medical done was a nightmare - the cost skyrocketed from the $175 we were quoted to $315 thanks to some missing shots on his shot record. I gotta wonder if a tetanus shot is really worth how much they charged us. At least he has his updated varicella vaccine now. Poor guy has never had chicken pox so what a nightmare it'd be if he got that or shingles now... Eek. He tested positive for TB on his arm so he had to spend another $50 to get an x-ray of his lungs. No TB there. Then the idiot at the front desk kept saying his payment didn't go through. We printed out bank statements and got confirmation numbers from the bank and they still wouldn't buy it. They got in touch with the vendor who processes all their payments and almost two weeks after the exam we finally got our sealed I-693.

I had a hell of a time getting University Enterprises to write my confirmation of employment letter. I contacted the same person twice by e-mail then finally called her and got her machine. I left a professional yet nasty voicemail saying it was my third attempt to reach her within 10 days and as she had no vacation notice up I assumed she was in the office. I ended up going to the office to demand a letter and the woman at the front desk didn't seem surprised that the other lady was such a nightmare to deal with. She typed it right up for me and sent me off within 5 minutes of getting there.

We spend another $60ish on passport photos since he needed 4 and I needed 2 but got extra so I could eventually get a new passport. I'm thinking we should have just done them at home. We have a white wall and pretty nifty camera. Ah well.

We headed over to Golden1 to add him to my bank account and after making us squirm for a while they eventually told us they couldn't add him since his ID was expired. I could tell he got upset but we still had to get $1366 worth of money orders so we just handled that then took off.

We dropped off the docs in the afternoon and the lawyer's office was locked. We had to call to get let in and the intern was rude about Felix's difficulty understanding the bizarre buzzing/locking system on the door.

It was a crappy, crappy few weeks and especially the last day. At least now our documents are in. Now we wait until the lawyer asks us to come in and sign them (I think?) before they get sent off to the big bad immigration office. We're really getting tired of all this and it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

It'll be over soon.

Where we are in the process

A couple of weeks ago we met with out lawyer again. He forgot how much he said he'd charge us so he knocked his remaining fees down to $1700. Score for us, big boost of good energy for him! Every little bit counts right now.

He collected a lot of our preliminary information so they could start putting our package together. That afternoon we got an e-mail with a questionnaire for each of us, I being the petitioner and Felix the beneficiary. There was a section on each of our forms where we had to list our addresses for the past ten years. We practically ran out of space. He could hardly remember all the addresses and I just couldn't believe how many we each had. It was a nice reminder of what we're working so hard for. 'Home' is a very important goal for both of us.

We have to gather a bunch of documents still. He also needs a $200-400 medical exam. We'll be working on that throughout September. We really wanted to get all of that done in August so we could send our paperwork off in September but it looks like September or very early October is more plausible. So many things to do! We both have to take passport-style photos. I don't know what both of our pictures have to do with him becoming a resident but hey, I'll jump through any hoop at this point.

That's all for now. We're just assembling the package before we send it off to the big scary gov'ment.

Meeting our lawyer

After tons of research online for which lawyer we should use I found Blake Nordahl. He came highly recommended by former clients and peers alike. He seemed liberal since had been on the news speaking out against Arizona's recent legislature. He also is a professor at McGeorge so he's invested in Sacramento on several levels. Here's his website: Nordahl Law

Felix and I met him at 4PM right off University Ave. He met us right up front and as we were his last appointment of the day and we could tell he was tired. We started joking with him about how we'd been up since 5:45AM so we'd try to go easy on him.

Once we got back to his office we started all the serious business stuff... except he made everything sound easy and not scary. It didn't feel like business at all. I'm not feeling particularly articulate tonight so I'm just going to transfer my notes from our meeting into here:

1. When can we start the process of adjusting his status?
• Right now - we could have started the day after we got married
2. What is the breakdown of the total costs?
• $100 consultation fee is applied to our total case cost
• Usually he charges $2500 for our kind of case
• BUT he's taking of $500 since we're students!
• He'll also knock off another $100 if we pay in full up front instead of making payments so down to $1900 now
• It's about $1365 for all the filing fees with the government
• Another $250 or so for Felix's physical, more if he needs shots
• So the grand total we should expect, low end is... $1900+1365+250... the total cost is about $3515
3. What is the timeline of the adjustment of status process?
• Once we pay they start working on the case immediately. It takes about one month to assemble the first package that needs to get sent off to ICE. From there it's about three more months tops. So all in all he'll be legal about 4 months from our start date!
4. Not working isn't an option - so what do we do?
• Ideally he should quit his job since he's working with a made up SSN but honestly ICE won't care too much about that when he becomes a resident. He isn't using someone else's SSN and he doesn't owe taxes so he should be fine. Just quit the job as soon as he is legal and seek proper employment with the new and correct information.
5. I didn't change my name... will that hurt us?
• Nope, not at all. Booyah now I'm never changing my name.
6. What else should we be doing to get started?
• We already have a lease together as well as a joint AT&T account
• Get a joint bank account and actually use it, don't just let it sit there
• If possible get on shared health insurance but since we can't it's good he has my Power of Attorney

He reassured us that everything will be fine. He doesn't foresee any issues coming up since Felix entered the country legally, went to high school here and has his diploma, attends college legally, and come on he wants to be a firefighter, how can you say no to this guy?

So yay! We'll keep you posted on everything. We just need to figure out the money stuff.