Any recent U.S. citizens?

What was the first step?

-- I came here on a student visa (F-1). Got OPT upon graduation, and H-1B one year after that.

Length of time of process?

-- Took four years from H-1B to a green card. Five year mandatory wait period, and about a year from application to certification for citizenship.

Fees?

-- About $4000 in USCIS fee for the green card, and about $800 for the citizenship. About $11,000 for the attorney fee for the green card. (I did not use attorney service for the naturalization, so I don't know how much it would cost.)

What was biggest hassle?

-- Immigration officers can throw extra obstacles at any moment out of their own discretion. If it is not based on any written law, you can fight them, but it will take more time (and attorney fee if applicable). So sometimes it makes sense just to comply, even if you have absolutely no legal obligation to do so.

-- I don't know if you call it "hassle" but the medical examination can be quite a humiliating experience for some people. (I would not have agreed to it if not for the green card.) On the other hand, I didn't find the finger printing objectionable at all.

-- This is not related to green card or naturalization, but I had to go back to my former country a few times to get a new visa, because my old visa had expired before I was able to get a new one. (If you do not leave within 30 days of the end of your previous status, you are deemed "out of status" and subject to deportation and denial of re-entry. And then you can no longer renew the visa within the US border.)

Where did your research start?

-- International Student Center at the University I was studying. And then the Human Resources office at my employer. (They recommended the immigration attorney I used for the green card.)

Anything you want to add.

-- The biggest hurdle is to get the green card. Once you get it, naturalization is not hard as long as you stay out of troubles.

-- You should consider yourself incredibly lucky if you were born a US citizen. That's like winning a lottery on birth.

your huddled masses wrote:

What was the process like?

What was the first step?

Length of time of process?

Fees?

What was biggest hassle?

Where did your research start?

Anything you want to add.

Thanks in advance.

PS. Been here many years.

took 10 years, thousands of dollars after getting bachelors and masters.

And Ches now is going on what now 15 years trying?

Something is not right in that man's story

I've known a number of people that have been able to get their PR without the use of an immigration attorney. It's really quite doable without them. You have to gather all the info to give to the attorney anyway but hey, if you got the money why not? Once you have the PR it's just a matter of waiting the five years and then paying the money to get citizenship.

The whole process is a pain in the butt. There's no doubt about that.

US Immigration wrote:

I've known a number of people that have been able to get their PR without the use of an immigration attorney. It's really quite doable without them. You have to gather all the info to give to the attorney anyway but hey, if you got the money why not? Once you have the PR it's just a matter of waiting the five years and then paying the money to get citizenship.

The whole process is a pain in the butt. There's no doubt about that.

Thanks everybody. Been here 30 years and have green card. How much easier process with that.

Is there an initial and friendly website to go to?

Thanks.

Thanks for the info. Can be useful.

US Immigration wrote:

The whole process is a pain in the butt. There's no doubt about that.

That's deliberate though, right? If it was an easy, cheap painless process, there's a perception that it would be an "open border" so we choose to militarize everything.

range wrote:

US Immigration wrote:

The whole process is a pain in the butt. There's no doubt about that.

That's deliberate though, right? If it was an easy, cheap painless process, there's a perception that it would be an "open border" so we choose to militarize everything.

It's just horrendously managed American beurocracy.

My wife immigrated and commented how absolutely everything she encountered is run so terribly.

Immigration = 1-2 years here, 10-20 days in her country

Setting up insurance = How ever many months until the 2 week open enrollment here, 3-5 days in her country.

Passports = 4-6 weeks here, 2-3 days in her country

Any type of government, banking, education, covid vaccine, etc., etc. here takes orders of magnitude longer. So extremely inefficient.

emigrator wrote:

range wrote:

That's deliberate though, right? If it was an easy, cheap painless process, there's a perception that it would be an "open border" so we choose to militarize everything.

It's just horrendously managed American beurocracy.

My wife immigrated and commented how absolutely everything she encountered is run so terribly.

Immigration = 1-2 years here, 10-20 days in her country

Setting up insurance = How ever many months until the 2 week open enrollment here, 3-5 days in her country.

Passports = 4-6 weeks here, 2-3 days in her country

Any type of government, banking, education, covid vaccine, etc., etc. here takes orders of magnitude longer. So extremely inefficient.

I've seen JFK as an overseas visitor - it's worse than socialist countries like Laos in that there are hundreds of people whose job it is to shout at jetlagged passengers and disagree 100% with the last "official". It's the worst immigration process I've ever encountered...

...but again it's deliberate. It's to let you know that Johnny Foreigner isn't a priority, isn't welcome and you should think yourself lucky to be grovelling on our doorstep.

It would be easy to cut thousands of government jobs, millions of dollars and make the experience for visitors and immigrants easier, but that's not the plan.

your huddled masses wrote:

US Immigration wrote:

I've known a number of people that have been able to get their PR without the use of an immigration attorney. It's really quite doable without them. You have to gather all the info to give to the attorney anyway but hey, if you got the money why not? Once you have the PR it's just a matter of waiting the five years and then paying the money to get citizenship.

The whole process is a pain in the butt. There's no doubt about that.

Thanks everybody. Been here 30 years and have green card. How much easier process with that.

Is there an initial and friendly website to go to?

Thanks.

You mean, something like this? I think all the information you need is here. (At least I didn't look at anything else.)

range wrote:

US Immigration wrote:

The whole process is a pain in the butt. There's no doubt about that.

That's deliberate though, right? If it was an easy, cheap painless process, there's a perception that it would be an "open border" so we choose to militarize everything.

Yeah, it's not like the 19th century any more, when any white European was admitted as long as they didn't have infectious disease or criminal record. (The rejection rate at Ellis Island was less than 3%.) And then, you became automatically eligible for naturalization after five years. That ended in 1920s.

Of course, if you were from Asia, you had entirely different experience with immigration officers.

Not Born in the USA wrote:

your huddled masses wrote:

Thanks everybody. Been here 30 years and have green card. How much easier process with that.

Is there an initial and friendly website to go to?

Thanks.

You mean, something like this? I think all the information you need is here. (At least I didn't look at anything else.)

https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship

Thanks. I'll start here. Bit IT challenged at the moment (thank you China).

I’m sure the US immigration process is far from desirable but let’s not pretend every other country has its ducks in a row. I’ve been through some pretty abysmal ones. You mentioned Laos, have you been through immigration there? I’ve been there (couple of different airports) and some of the staff were pretty clueless, in particular how to handle a lost bag of mine.

First step is a green card - can't naturalize without it first and you need 5 years with one, except for if you have a green card through marriage then it's 3. $725 is the current cost

The green card is the most difficult step. Once you have one, naturalization is pretty straight forwards.

I got my green card through the lottery (DIV) system, even though I entered on an L1A and could probably have got an EB (employment based) green card through the company I work for. Doing it myself = more flexibility and freedom. The whole process took around 18 months from when I entered the lottery to getting the card. For me it was 7 months after entering the lottery to when I knew I had the "petition" or chance to apply. You get assigned a random priority number and can only apply once your number is "active" (they start at 1). In the remaining 11 months I had to go through a series of steps that were not that crazy - you just need to follow them precisely and in order. I found an incredible immigration forum that had an excel spreadsheet that laid out the steps precisely.

First step was paying diversity visa fee - it's now $330

Next step get medical done - to do it properly (and you want to) you might have pay about $300

Once your case number is active file with the USCIS - for me I was adjusting status and the fee was $1140

Do biometrics - cost $85

Done. I paid less than $2k

Regarding an immigration lawyer - in my experience completely unnecessary. They will and can only function in an admin role basically collating info you give them (which are all forms you need to download and fill in anyways) and they know things like the Visa bulletin which can seem confusing at first but really isn't if you care to educate yourself on the process and understand the purpose of it. The things I would see them very helpful with would be in the case that ones English competency isn't high in which case they make sure that your forms are filled in correctly because if you mess that up they USCIS will reject your case which is a nightmare (for me I quadruple checked forms to avoid this). But they don't end up in front of a judge or anything lobbying for you and the final interview is basically formality where the immigration officer asks your the same questions in your application (for me the I485) and makes sure your answers are consistent. That took literally 10 minutes and I was done. I don't want to be a d$ck but the dude who paid $11k for a lawyer I would ask the question as to what the lawyer did? 11k for form collation and understanding a calendar seems really high. Yikes.

Understand the process. Be accurate with your form filling. Don't try and conceal anything. Do things on time and in the order they are asked for. Don't give a USCIS officer a reason to deny your application.

Good luck :) !

Not Born in the USA wrote:

-- You should consider yourself incredibly lucky if you were born a US citizen. That's like winning a lottery on birth.

Probably true on average. BUT ... I was born overseas as a US citizen, never lived in the US, now I am 44 and am never likely to live there. Being so lucky has cost me $80k in additional taxes and fees in the past five years. Thankfully I managed to renounce my citizenship in 2019 and can now get on with my life without the additional administrative hassle on my life...

Enjoy life in the USA!

Yeah, why can't everyone win a lottery like you did, right? All we need is to be lucky like yourself.

I don't know if you actually tried the EB process before winning the lottery, and how far you had gone in that process, but by far the hardest part is to get the labor certificate. USCIS field officer threw many unlawful rulings (they are not based on any written statutes, I didn't mean "illegal") in attempt to reject my application. I am not as versed in US codes and immigration court cases as yourself (or my attorney), so I could not cite particular sections of US codes and court cases to refute their rulings like you would have done. I also could not tell which rulings were worth contesting and which rulings I should comply. (One of the silliest things was they had an issue with the way my employer advertised my position.) How do I know what they will demand if they are not mentioned anywhere except in the head of a field officer? But of course, I am not as educated as you.

The fact it took only 18 months for you means you managed to skip many steps that I had to go through. Once you won a lottery, you were already in the year three of my process. Of course, I should have won a lottery like you did. I tried it multiple times, but it never worked.

Salvatore, Green Card through marriage. Have had GC for many years, so I shouldn't have to deal with lotteries, visas,etc......right? Want to get my citizenship started before my current GC needs to be renewed.

Is process done online or paper (printable forms, etc.).

Thanks for your patience. Oh, I hail from a British Commonwealth country.

US Citizen no more wrote:

Not Born in the USA wrote:

-- You should consider yourself incredibly lucky if you were born a US citizen. That's like winning a lottery on birth.

Probably true on average. BUT ... I was born overseas as a US citizen, never lived in the US, now I am 44 and am never likely to live there. Being so lucky has cost me $80k in additional taxes and fees in the past five years. Thankfully I managed to renounce my citizenship in 2019 and can now get on with my life without the additional administrative hassle on my life...

Enjoy life in the USA!

Is that $80k due to US taxing you on your worldwide income?