Moving to the US

Hi everyone

I know that this is for Americans coming to the UK and my question is based on travelling in the other direction but I will carry on and apologise now to anyone who feels I am misusing the forum.

My wife and I are looking at moving to the US. My wife is the American in the family.

We have been married for 5 years and lived here in the UK.

Does anyone know if I qualify for a "Green Card" just by being married to an American and is it a simple process?

I am about to wade through the legal jargon of the US Immigration websites but was hoping for a "heads up"

Thanks in anticipation

My DH is a member of Dive into America, which is a group dealing specifically with UK-US immigration.
He said it's a very friendly and helpful group.
www.diveintoamerica.com

we started the process last October and the thought of the everything made us change out minds.....I am the American in the family as well as my 2 girls we have been almost 9 yrs...not having a job that covers you with insurance and al that it was just to much.....

not having a job that covers you with insurance and al that it was just to much.....

That two weeks vacation after one year business is what's too much to me . . .

OH I know..........how could you go a whole year with just 2 weeks for a holiday?

seems totally impossible now..

Thats the part I am not looking forward to since I get 30 fully paid holidays at the moment.

But it will be worth it to see my wife happy back in her homeland and it will be a big adventure for me.

It's a fairly painless effort, given your circumstances. diveintoamerica would be a great help. They made our similar circumstances a breeze!

(of note, Brit hubby only gets 1 week of vacation a year.........but his job is very stressfree so an easier tradeoff!)

The DCF in London is meant to be approximately 1 million times easier (to the 10th power) than trying to get a fiancee visa in the US.
When DW got hers in the US I felt like 10 years were knocked off our life it was so seemingly impossibly difficult at times.
If you are already married and resident in the UK the US Embassy gets you your greencard before you ever set foot on American soil and you effectively
have indefinite leave to remain (although you might have to be married for 2 years to get this automatically?)

I'm just curious if anyone knows.  We have no plans to move back to the US anytime soon but given that DW had a greencard in the US for a short period of
time (about 6 months) before us moving to Britain would that 6 months count towards the total 3 years wait for US citizenship?  We've been back in
Britain for nearly 4 years now so I'm wondering if that period if time is ignored or if we could apply that towards the wait?

DCF was very easy indeed, my story is that I brought my American fiance to the UK on the fiance visa, we got married and lived in the UK for 1 year, then after she got homesick we went through the paperwork of moving to the US. Im not sure the 6 months would count towards the the 3 years (though I thought it was 5 for citizenship?) since the conditions for naturalization I beleive require you not to have left/resided outside of the US for any significant amount of time

I'm just curious if anyone knows. We have no plans to move back to the US anytime soon but given that DW had a greencard in the US for a short period of
time (about 6 months) before us moving to Britain would that 6 months count towards the total 3 years wait for US citizenship? We've been back in
Britain for nearly 4 years now so I'm wondering if that period if time is ignored or if we could apply that towards the wait?

The only residency that counts for US naturalization is the three years of "continuous residency" (or five if not married to a USC) immediately prior to filing, so any previous residency prior to that is a non-issue.  The continous presence requirement can be broken after being out of the country for as little as six months, so in your wife's case the clock will be set back to zero if you guys ever move back to the US.

Ok, thanks for that, amarylis, and d'oh!    Actually, it's not really that big a deal as we have no plans to move, but if we ever did decide to go back in future it's good to know about it.

I see you're moving to Manchester this year, I really like it up there.  I'm driving up there tomorrow (from Gatwick, ugh!) for the weekend to meet up with DW and brother-in-law and fiance.  We originally looked to move there but there were any suitable jobs for my field at the time so we're down South in Buckinghamshire.

Thanks Robatwork, good to know the DCF was so easy!

I know this has ABSOLUTELY nothing with what we're tlaking about, but mayyj74, I totally adore your avatar. Been a huge TMBG for over a decade.

Thanks Marlespo.  It's funny how Flansburgh and Linnell never seem to age, they generally have looked the same-ish age for so long.
Btw, if you have an mp3 player or iTunes you can download the TMBG Podcast they put out about once a month.

I see you're moving to Manchester this year, I really like it up there.

Oh, I'm glad.  I've heard mixed things about Manchester- I've actually never been there even though I used to be a student in Sheffield.  I'm visiting soon so hopefully I'll really like it too!