From Jennifer Leavitt-Wipf,
Your Guide to Immigration Issues.
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Question #16: How long does it take to get a Fiancé Petition approved?

Carl Shusterman: That varies, depending on what service center the petition is filed in. For example, the California Service Center approves Fiancé Petitions in approximately two months. To see waiting times in other service centers, see: http://shusterman.com.

Question #17: How long does it take to get naturalized following the marriage interview?

Carl Shusterman: Most Permanent Residents have to wait 5 years after becoming PRs to qualify for US Citizenship. However, the law gives a break to spouses of US Citizens: If you have been married for at least 3 years, and your spouse has been a US Citizen for at least 3 years, you are eligible for citizenship 3 years after you become a Permanent Resident. Actually, you are allowed to apply for naturalization 3 months before the end of your 3 year residence.

Question #18: Can I file an N-400 abroad?

Carl Shusterman: No, N-400 must be filed in the United States.

Question #19: When can we file for a Green Card for the spouse of a Permanent Resident?

Carl Shusterman: The State Department publishes the Visa Bulletin on a monthly basis, giving waiting times in various categories. For the last for the last 3 years my site has posted the State Department's Visa Bulletin on the Web on or before the date that the State Department posted the bulletin. See http://shusterman.com.

Jennifer Wipf: Thank you Carl! OK all, it has been a great pleasure, but it is now time for Mr. Shusterman to bid us farewell. We will post a chat transcript here, which you can access through Born Abroad or through http://shusterman.com. Thank you for coming Carl! I'm really pleased. This has been so informative for so many people. I can see from the "thank you" messages coming across our screen that most everyone agrees.

Carl Shusterman: It was a pleasure answering your questions! And I look forward to our next chat here on October 25th on Becoming a US Citizen.

You can see a list of my chats at http://shusterman.com.

Good night all : )

Jennifer Wipf: Good night Carl! I hope I got to most of your questions and I'm sorry if I missed some of you! Several of the questions that I opted not to highlight, due to time constraints, were those I knew could be answered through text within articles on Shusterman's site. Peter and I, your editors to Immigration Issues at About will be happy to help you and direct you to the specific information you need. You can also send us any comments about this chat and how to improve the next one. We will work hard to make these chats valuable for you, and will share comments with Mr. Shusterman as well. Write to immigration.guide@about.com.

And last but not least.... I noticed before Mr. Shusterman arrived that many of you were sharing your stories with each other, and then I changed to moderator console and you probably felt frustrated at not being able to continue that way. The size and professional nature of Shusterman's chats require a moderator. However, feel free to drop into our Chat Room to chat with each other anytime you'd like. We personally provide our ICQ, Yahoo and AIM instant message/pager numbers and we encourage you to do this too, so others going through the immigration process can invite you to chat. (You can turn a pager off or limit your visibility when you are busy).

You can have either private or multi-person chats in our room. The main advantage over instant messaging is having one large window and being able to invite more than one person. Please contact us if you have something particular in mind that you would like posted on our schedule or if you simply want us to transcribe your private or group chat for you! You can also exchange messages at our Forum Boards. Both these community tools are available to you every day and we encourage you to use them. All Shusterman chats are listed at Shusterman.com, as stated above. From anywhere on our About site, you can also check the schedule for Shusterman Chats, as well as our immigration club chats and online support groups, simply by hitting the "Events" link up by our photos on every page of this site.