What to Expect After Your Visa Is Approved and Issued

Visa packet, can you talk a little bit about the visa packet that that the nurses will receive from the consulate?

Well, again, it's sort of like the medical exam, I mean, keep it sealed, they'll give you an envelope. And if you open the envelope, you're going to have big problems, you know, getting your green card at the airport, they wanted to be sealed. And then when you get off the plane and go through the line and get into the secondary, they'll open the packet. And it's the whole, it's the whole package. Right? So it's the I-140, that the hospital or the employer filed for you. It's the paperwork, you know, the DS260 form that you filed, with the embassy and all that, you know, your birth certificate, if you're married, the marriage certificate, your kids birth certificates, and so on.

And you know, the answers are on the DS260 of all these questions. Have you ever been arrested or convicted? No. Have you ever been a member of a terrorist organization? No, you know, blah, blah, blah, you know, all the questions. And they may ask you a few of those questions. Again, it just depends on the officer at the airport. But they're the ones who have to open it. They're the ones who have to stamp your passport. And once you get that passport stamp and go route, I made it through and now I'm getting are driving on the freeway back to, you know, with my relatives, and going to start my job on Monday, you won't actually have the plastic Green Card that'll come several weeks.

That's something that I'm pleased that you mentioned, because many people don't realize that they're not going to actually get the physical card. Right.

Right. Yeah, they manufacture that. And I don't even know where it where it comes from. But the USCIS will send it to you in the mail, usually, several weeks later, I think the cutoff date is like 45 days. So if you don't get it in 45 days, you can just write a little letter and say, Hey, where's my green card, and so on. And then I should mention that not everybody understands it. But after you get a green card, you're entitled to sponsor some relatives for green cards. I mean, let's say, let's say you didn't, you're not married, you're single. But you know, a few weeks later, a few months later, you marry your boyfriend? Can you apply for a green card? For him? Yes, you can. It's under the family to a category or let's say, you're older, and you have kids over 21. So they couldn't come with you? Can you sponsor them for a green card? Yes, you can do that.

And then after five years of having the green card, you can apply and become a US citizen. And at that time, you can apply for your parents who can apply for brothers and sisters. And there's a whole range of benefits that you get as a citizen that you don't have as a green card holder. And if I could just put in, you know, a small plug. But the so I do have a newsletter that I've been writing for over 25 years. And I always tell the nurses that it's worth the price, it's free. If you go to schusterman.com, my web page and you scroll down and look at the right, if you put your name and your email address and click I'm not a robot, you will get the newsletter. We don't. There's no you know, we don't solicit people or it's just when some development comes out of the immigration service. So I mean, right now, I'll probably come out with a newsletter in just a few days about what we were talking about, which is the requirements to have the COVID vaccine before you can have a green card.

But there may be thing things have been really changing in the last few months more than usual. So there may be something else that comes out in a week or in a month and so on that we're not talking about today. So if you get the newsletter, at least you'll be informed so you can go in full fill that requirement and not have to worry about oh my god, like if Schusterman doesn't say that on the video. Well, he didn't say it because it didn't come out until eight weeks after the video.

Okay, so subscribe to Carl's newsletter. I think it's a great resource. And as I said in the beginning, this is the reason why we do the show onwards and upwards is because it's really important to educate yourself about the process. It's not an easy process. It's complicated. It can be very stressful. It's very overwhelming and people you know can feel scared.

But really, if you are educating yourself about about the different stages as it can take a lot of bad fear and stress out of it. And you know what questions to ask you know how to prepare yourself. And it just makes a much seamless, a much more seamless transition. And I can tell you as an immigrant myself, as I mentioned, I came here 21 years ago, on the fourth of July, was mentioned that because it was really my true independence with Independence Day, America's Independence day and mine, but the day that you get that green card, gosh, I can cry when I remember it. It's just the best feeling in the world because you've worked so hard.

There's so much planning, there's so much time energy money that goes into it, and it's just the greatest feeling to get that green card and then when you become a citizen, oh my gosh, even better. So that's what we want for all of you.