We have been here now starting our 6 month. All has gone very well. We decided after the first 3 months to change our plans and see about changing her tourist visa to a green card status. This has been a very interesting process.

To avoid any unknowns I first sought out an immigration attorney for a 1hr free Q&A. I went in very prepared with a bunch of questions and grilled the attorney hard. They offer this free in hopes they can baffle you with enough bullshit to scare you into using them to handle your case. Their fee is $350 an hour plus expenses. Most say the end cost is $6 to $10K. I said F that.

So we embarked using the Ca.Gov website and low and behold all the docs are there in a nicely defined format. There are a few I am not certain we need but will wait for them to question it later. I was going to list all the forms but will hold off until I know if I submitted ones not needed or missed others.

The process is pretty straight forward and you do not need to have a law degree. You just need to do your due diligence. One of the biggest challenges in front of us on our specific case is we had no intentions of staying here. It was a 6month visit and return. However a nice job opportunity surfaced for me about a month after we landed and it just makes better sense to stay for the near term and bank reserves. Our biggest challenge is proving that she had no intentions of emigrating here using the “Tourist Visa” as the means. We have had to put together a timeline of us knowing each other with pictures and receipts from hotels we stayed in Thailand. I have to submit the job offer letter depicting the date offered and my first date of hire. Then we have to show what we were doing up to the time I started working while here in California. You couple all that with 12 forms, my acknowledgment that I will financially take care of her and of course the medical assessment.

Thus far the process has a cost of $1577. 75% of that has been all the medical assessments. She has been given all her immunizations, had blood drawn 2 times, a chest xray and mini physical. All checks out clear but being she could not prove she had TB immunizations and being that she did have a small reaction to the TB arm scratch test she has been informed that she is required to take 6 months of a medicine to avoid latent TB. No big deal just a pain in the ass.

We will receive her medical clearance this Friday and we can send in the packet for her naturalization(Along with a $960 app fee). The beauty here is that once submitted the clock stops on her Visa meaning she can stay until a final determination is made based on the information supplied. If we missed info or we need to submit more the clock is still off. The process is an INS agent will review the data and then schedule a formal meeting with us to confirm all is accurate and factual. I will update this thread as we forge forward.

For now it has been very straight forward and the only real complication is just determining what forms to submit. Please be advised that during the document assessment period it is ill advised that the individual travel back to Thailand as it takes a special form with a steep fee and it raises red flags. So plan accordingly in that regard.