U.S. Immigration question

Here's a question from a fellow mix-breeder, Lydia:

Teodor and I plan to get married soon, but he is still employed with the company that sponsored him for his expired work visa down on Cape Cod. If we get married he will move up to Boston to be with me immediately. However, I was wondering if he should keep his job down there for a while and if when filling the immigration papers it looks better for him to be employed?

My intuition tells me that Teodor should keep his job and wait for his immigration papers to come through. I feel like otherwise it would look too much like you're getting married so he can get a visa. Which is NOT how you want things to appear. Of course, this is what I think and I am hoping to get other people who read this blog to help you guys out.

What do you guys think these two should do?

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Photo via BeJealousOfMe

From the mailbag

I received an email from Laura, an American woman married to a Bulgarian man and living in Stara Zagora. I thought you guys might appreciate the succinct write-up she did about visas, permits and long-term living arrangements.

Petya,

I wanted to say hi after coming across your Blog How to Marry a BG.

My name is Laura, I am an American married to a BG man. We have been married for almost 1 year, but together for 8. We currently live in Stara Zagora. I certainly understand many of the challenges in a mixed couple!

Regarding the couple that want to get married in the States and come here to meet his family. She can come to BG with her American passport, no visa required, which will allow her 90 days in BG, after which she would have to leave the country. She can apply for a long term visa based on her engagement if she wishes to. They don't have to be married already to get a long-term visa. She would have to apply for a long term visa at the BG consul office nearest her, which allows 6 months to a year at a time. The application for this takes about 6 weeks. It has to be renewed every year, even if they are married. Renewal costs 500 lev at the local police administrative office in BG. Once married, if she wants to become a BG citizen, that is a different process with different time frames, but the good news is America and BG have dual citizenship reciprocity. You can be a citizen of both countries at same time.

I would certainly be open to communication with other mixed couples similar to you and me. I look forward to hearing from you or others like us!!!!

Laura.

I removed Laura's contact information from this blog entry but if you have more questions for her I would be more than happy to put you in touch. Thank you so much, Laura!

Mix-breeders to the rescue

Hey y'all,

We've got a new reader here... Lydia (American)... who is soon to be married to a Bulgarian man. And, guess what, they are deep in bureaucratic questions and confusions... up to here!

Let's try to help them out. They are planning to marry in the States and then want to travel to Bulgaria to visit his family. What do they do? Are they allowed to travel out of the country right away?

Spill the beans in the comments section. There's absolutely no reason why anyone should go through bureaucratic hell alone.

Banking blues

Some asshole tried to breach into our Bulgarian bank account. Visa blocked our debit card and our fortune (ha-ha) is safe. My bank called me right away and said they had already put in a request to have my card reissued.

HOWEVER, it is impossible to get our new bank card. To do so, I would need to show up at the branch that issued the original card in person OR give someone power of attorney to represent me in my dealings with the bank. Whaaaaaaaaaaat?!

People! Have you heard of FedEx.Or just... you know... mail.

It's not a huge deal, mostly because there wasn't a whole lot of money in the account but it's also a MAJOR deal because the only way we had access to it was via the now-blocked debit card.

In general, I try to keep a happy face as I talk about the intricacies of international marriage. But this time I can't even pretend. Splitting your life between two continents can be a real bitch sometimes.

Converted

Since I wrote about our honeymoon travel plan falling through, people have been sending me concerned emails, asking if we were OK. Yes, we are, thank you for asking.

And here's what happened:

Like I already mentioned, we had planned to spend a couple of days in Philadelphia, then rent a car and drive through Indiana and see Brooke in Bloomington, then stop over at St. Louis to hang out with Kyle's mom and her husband Tom, and then we were going to drive South to Memphis to see Dr. J and Sewanee. We were going to end up in New Orleans.

We reserved a car with Budget online and headed over to their office bright and early on Saturday morning. The guy behind the desk was friendly enough and rather than chatting us up went straight to business and proceeded to enter our personal information into their data system. Company policy. Everything was going just fine until he asked for our credit card. Kyle handed him a debit card, when the guy said (not-so-nicely, may I add) that he needed a CREDIT card, not a debit card. Had something to do with the company's trying to cover their ass in case of car-theft something or other. OK, credit card, we said. And handed him our credit card. He refused to accept it.

See...HE needed a driver's license AND a credit (not debit) card that were both in the same name. What WE had was a driver's license and a debit card in Kyle's name and TWO credit cards in my name. The fact that we had more money in our debit card then in our two credit cards combined did not matter. The fact that we were fuckin' married did not matter. The fact that we offered to leave a cash security deposit did not matter. The fact that we had rented a car from Budget using Kyle's driver's license and a debit card just last summer when we were in Califordnia did not seem to matter AT ALL. There were company policies to be followed and data fields to be entered into "The Computer System" and thus no car to be rented to the Kirilova-Grady crew. Bummer.

So things fell through and we were so shocked by what happened that, honestly, could not even get mad about it. What we did was storm into a Starbucks and get ourselves a room in a hotel that served our breakfast in bed each morning (bagels and coffee and fresh fruit and all). What was one to do, you know...We had to make the most of it.

As we were leaving the Budget office that morning, though:

Prof. Grady: You know...THAT could never happen in Bulgaria!!!
Me: Why, what do you mean?
Prof. Grady: In Bulgaria there's ALWAYS another way around.

My husband...I think he's been converted.

The math of immigration

he good news is that as of today, Kyle is the proud owner of a permit for continuous residence in Bulgaria. The bad news is that we need to go through the whole thing, all over again, in 6 months. Let me explain.

In order for the foreign spouse of a Bulgarian citizen to reside in this thriving economy of ours, they need to possess a residence permit. They cannot apply for a permanent residence right away. They need to jump through the hoops for several years in order to earn the right to apply for permanent residence. Also, it is NOT up to them to decide how long their continuous residence should last. The state has decided that the maximum period for continuous residence is 1 year. It costs 500 leva. After your one year is up, you need to re-apply. And pay another 500 leva. You can only apply for permanent residence after five years in the country.

The interesting thing is that a 6-month continous residence permit costs 200 leva. In other words, if you apply for your permit twice a year, you would end up paying less than if you did it all once. I.e. you have a monetary incentive to deal with the whole bureaucracy of obtaining the permit more than once a year.

So, I did the math, and realized that after:

- submitting 10 application packages
- making at least 20 trips to the immigration office (one to submit the application and one to get your passport stamped)
- living here for at least 5 years
- and paying 2000 leva to the state of Bulgaria

...PERHAPS, maybe...some time in the summer of 2012, Kyle will be given a chance to apply for permanent residency in Bulgaria on the account of being married to me.

Thanks for the good wishes in advance. But, seriously, can someone please shoot me instead? Or give us a consultation with an immigration lawyer as a wedding present...There MUST be a way out of this nightmare!

They don't do the same for us

Earlier today:

Prof. Grady: Have I met your friend Var yet?
Me: Well, yes!!! Var=Zhoro=Joro=Georgi=George
Prof. Grady: 'Kvo?! I guess you NEED a lot of nicknames for Georgi! (pause) There are more nicknames in Bulgarian than names.
Me: We keep things simple for the bureaucrats. (They don't do the same for us, though).

What can I say, that's just a regular day in a multi-national family.

How to marry a non-Bulgarian

Today I found out that in order for my American husband (the same one I married IN BULGARIA just a little over three months ago) to be allowed to APPLY for a long-term resident visa to Bulgaria, I need to provide him with an official invitation. Silly me, all this time I keep thinking that signing my name under an official marriage certificate is enough of an invitation in itself!...

I swear, when Kyle and I outmaneuver the Bulgarian bureaucracy and convince everyone that it is perfectly ok to let a husband live in the same country as his wife, I will write the most comprehensive guide on how to marry a foreigner in Bulgaria. If today's head-on encounter is any indication, though, it might be a long time before we succeed.

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If you are a Bulgarian citizen that happens to be married to a non-Bulgarian and are reading this, PLEASE, get in touch with us. I don't think we will be able to do this without you...

United we stand

Kyle arrived on December 13. The only non-foggy day in weeks.

We ran to the American Embassy, where he made a sworn statement in front of the US Consul. An old guy spoke Bulgarian to him and got a kick out of the fact that Kyle couldn't talk back.
We took the statement to the Consular Section of the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The statement got legalized only after we had gone to a nearby post office to buy "state stamps". I had not heard of state stamps before. You can make payments to state agencies with them.
We then went to a hospital where we had blood drawn, tests done, lights pointed in our eyes.

The next day we talked to a woman who seemed to have just come back from deep communist pasts to talk to us. She asked me to translate carefully and proceeded to tell Kyle he was very beautiful. More beautiful than any American she had seen and she had seen MANY. Her words, not mine. But I totally agree.

We then had many many dinners with friends and parents. Bought champagne glasses and a pair of shorts and on December 23 got married. The service was short and sweet. The lady doing the service got mad at my sister who was in charge of translating but didn't bother to mimic the strange solemnity of her voice. We all agreed Ena doesn't have a future as an interpreter, but in her defense, have you been to a Bulgarian civil marriage ceremony?!?! See, now you know what I'm talking about.

We spent the Holidays introducing Kyle to the Family. Grandmas and grandpas (total of 4), aunts and uncles (4), cousins (6)...yeah, I know. And, because I know SOMEBODY will ask, we both HAVE seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Tonight we leave for the shortest Honeymoon ever.

All of this, just to tell you why I have been away from my blog for the past couple of weeks. But also to tell you that Mrs. Kirilova-Grady is the happiest Bulgarian kid this Christmas as she got everything she's ever wanted. And THAT much more.


Happy Holidays from the K-G's!