Spouse's green card: who usually pays?

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worryfreeinvestor
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Joined: Thu Mar 24, 2005 6:17 pm
Location: Seattle, WA

Spouse's green card: who usually pays?

Post by worryfreeinvestor »

I am a Canadian working in the U.S. whose employer is applying for my Legal Permanent Residency, and paying the legal fees. I have a spouse who is not employed. In this case, does the employer usually pay the spouse's legal fees too. Or does the family bear the cost? Or is there no standard?
nelsona
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Post by nelsona »

This is negociable. Mine has paid everything, except my EAD/AP (since they have kept up my H1 status, so EAD/AP was my choice).

That includes a TD, 3 H4's, AOS, a 4 sets of EAD/AP for spouse.
nelsona non grata. Non pro. Please Search previous posts, no situation is unique as you might think. Happy Browsing :D
worryfreeinvestor
Posts: 145
Joined: Thu Mar 24, 2005 6:17 pm
Location: Seattle, WA

What do you think of this?

Post by worryfreeinvestor »

Thanks, nelsona. Not that I expect you to take any responsibility for your response to the following question, but check this out:

What do you think of an employer who brings a Canadian down in May 2005, when he's already married, pays for a house-hunting trip with spouse, pays for TD-1, H1-B, etc,, offers an employment contract that states "after one year satisfactory employment will pay and sponsor your permanent residency application," engages a lawyer who gets the labor certification and prepares documentation for next steps & sends an invoice, and then the employer tells the Canadian employee and the immigration lawyer that "you" in the job offer was in the singular, not the plural, tells the lawyer to divide the invoice and send the spouse's part to the employee to pay, thereby saving a lousy $3010?
nelsona
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Post by nelsona »

I think that that will be an expensive $3000 (sorry $3010) savings which will cost the company many times over in training your replacement.
nelsona non grata. Non pro. Please Search previous posts, no situation is unique as you might think. Happy Browsing :D
worryfreeinvestor
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Location: Seattle, WA

Post by worryfreeinvestor »

My thoughts exactly: a curious choice. On the other hand, I hear the skiing in Whistler is looking very good this year so it may be time to go home.
worryfreeinvestor
Posts: 145
Joined: Thu Mar 24, 2005 6:17 pm
Location: Seattle, WA

Can my employer submit my I-140 & I-485 and not wife's?

Post by worryfreeinvestor »

As noted above, my employer's lawyer has prepared all the green card application paperwork , for me and my wife, including a I-134 Affidavit of Support for my notarized signature. (I have the LC and she is my dependent.) Then my employer decided to present me a bill of $3010 for my wife's share of the costs, in violation of our initial employment contract. (I am still working there, despite a current state of serious tension.)

Anyway, the attorney says he is ready to proceed with my application, because my employer has paid his fees, but he will not proceed with my wife's because I have not paid him. (Nor can I right now.)

Should I tell employer/attorney to go ahead with my application and leave my wife in limbo for the time being? What are the consequences? As the paperwork is already done for my wife, and I have copies, can she just sign new copies and we mail them in or is that way over our heads? (I'm not even sure I know where they should be mailed!)

Is it even permissible to send the two bundles of applications separately to the relevent agencies?
MaggieA
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Joined: Sun Oct 31, 2004 4:06 pm

Post by MaggieA »

Wow, WFI, your employer's after-the-fact cost-splitting seems really obnoxious.

In my case, my employer paid all costs for two sets of L1 (me) and L2 (spouse and child), plus green cards for all three of us.

Like Nelson, we applied by ourselves for some EADs, and paid for those.
worryfreeinvestor
Posts: 145
Joined: Thu Mar 24, 2005 6:17 pm
Location: Seattle, WA

Cost of green card

Post by worryfreeinvestor »

OK, the lawyer has given me an invoice of $3010 for the costs of my spouse's application, of which $2000 are his fees and $1010 are the US gov't's processing charges. However, my employer will not tell me how much he's paying for my LPR appllication. (These are for both I-140 and the I-485.)

Do you think I being charged a reasonable fee by the lawyer? (As I had understood my employer was intending to pay for both me and my wife, I never budgeted anything for this.) An informed person told me that the cost for the dependent spouse should be much less than the employed person. Indeed, I'm not sure how the lawyer can rationally divide the fee between the employed person and the spouse.

What do you think: Am I being scammed by my employer into paying not only my spouse's fees, but mine as well, which my contract says my employer must pay?
nelsona
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Location: Nowhere, man

Post by nelsona »

$2000 to file all the files related to an AOS does not seem unreasonable.

The spouses AOS is not simply a by-product of your AOS process. Really it is as complicated as yours was.

Go ask a lawyer what his fees are for filind a couple's employment based AOS (with I-140 already approved). I'm sure the quote wil be $4000-$5000 plus USCIS filing fees.

Sound like you are about to leave your current employ.
nelsona non grata. Non pro. Please Search previous posts, no situation is unique as you might think. Happy Browsing :D
MaggieA
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Post by MaggieA »

I agree with Nelson. Those fees seem pretty normal for your spouse's AOS alone.
DG001
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Post by DG001 »

I know I am reviving an old post, but I wanted to warn the OP about "seperating" the two applications.

I know technically it should not make a difference - you already have all the paperwork, so you can just file in your wife's application without going through the lawyer (and really, I am not sure what "extra" the lawyer does in the initial stages apart from just filling in the forms) - but here's the difference.

You might get approved - but if for some reason your spouse is not "with" your application, then she/he might have a different timeline. Spouse cannot get approved without your approval, but you can without hers - so you could be in a situation where one of you has the GC, but the other is still filling away on EAD/APs...

My friend (born in India) was approved in 2002 - but because of retrogression and all that, his wife is still not approved (she applied 3 months later as she was away on a trip). Get this - he is almost ready to file for his citizenship!!!
worryfreeinvestor
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Joined: Thu Mar 24, 2005 6:17 pm
Location: Seattle, WA

Post by worryfreeinvestor »

Thanks for the reply, nevertheless. I went ahead and paid the legal fees for my wife's application. In the grand scheme of things, $3,010 is not that big a deal, is it? (My 2007 bonus more than covered it.) Applications submitted on February 25, 2008, and I am EB2, which has no backlog and the lawyer advises is now taking ten months. So, that means we can (optimistically) look forward to a Christmas present and be done with the whole danged thing. Then both my wife and I can job hunt without worrying about new visas, losing our place in the queue, and all that jazz.
nelsona
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Location: Nowhere, man

Post by nelsona »

[quote]My friend (born in India) was approved in 2002 - but because of retrogression and all that, his wife is still not approved (she applied 3 months later as she was away on a trip). Get this - he is almost ready to file for his citizenship!!![/quote]

Tht's great. As soon as he gets citizenship, she should re-apply for AOS using family category. She will have GC in no time.
nelsona non grata. Non pro. Please Search previous posts, no situation is unique as you might think. Happy Browsing :D
DG001
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Joined: Mon Apr 09, 2007 11:22 am

Post by DG001 »

Yeah - thats what they "joke" about all the time.

He keeps saying... "Wait till November"...
Just another fun USCIS story! :roll:
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