Getting married in the U.S.A.

Welcome to my immigration web pages. I moved from Finland to U.S.A. in September 1996 and married my wife who is U.S. citizen. The process in filing all the papers was complicated and not even over yet. I have just got my green card application approved and there still are many steps in the future (removal of condition in green card and citizenship).

I have been receiving a lot of emails about my move to U.S.A. - how it should be done and what kind of papers I had to fill. There are so many people interested in this topic so I thought to create web pages about that... But please note that I am not lawyer and I am not giving any legal advises on these pages. Everybody who writes on these pages writes about their own experience and all opinions are their own - they are not giving you any legal advices. I and many others (who will send their contributions to me - hopefully) just want to share their experience with you and help you doing the same we have done.

I hope these pages helps you. If you have any comments or questions you would like to be answered here, feel free to email me - rko@iki.fi. Also, if you have your own stories I would like to hear from you - please contribute to these pages - and let's make this the information source #1 about K-1 visas and way to green card and citizenship of the U.S.A.

The Start

Dealing with Immigration and Naturalization Service

Financial issues

What else an alien in the U.S.A. should know?

Other issues

These pages are under constant development. If you find errors or you have your experiences about issues let me know. My case is only one case and together we can make these pages comprehensive - I want to take all issues of being an alien in U.S.A. and dealing with problems we face to these pages. Whatever it is - if it is something to do with K-1 visa way to U.S. citizen it is welcome here.

Btw, my guess is that these pages will become very popular. I am sure these will get hundreds/thousands of hits per day. If you are interested in sponsoring these pages, feel free to contact me. I can place your add to these pages (for example, if you are an immigration lawyer this is an opportunity to you).

Contributions

Here is Krista's story

Links to Official Information

Immigration information

Other K-1 web pages

List of K-1 pages and FAQ
K-1 web ring
Gary Kemper's K-1 page
Mathias Rysse's K-1 page
Simon and Barbara's story
Claire's K-1 page
Alan and Elena's K-1 page
Do you want your link here? Please email to rko@iki.fi.

Links to Law Offices, Lawyers

Be aware - they are professional - they know what they do and they usually want your money. They have some good information on their pages though. Please note that this list is NOT list of recommended law offices. Actually I recommend the best lawyer possible: yourself. If your case is clear and you can read and write and have patient - you can do it yourself.

Law Offices of Rajiv S.Khanna
Siskind, Susser, Haas & Chang
Law Firm of Livingston & Associates (I can comment them little bit: initial consultation is at no charge, and seems to be very friendly and knowledgable. Replied to my questions in few hours. If I would need to hire immigration lawyer I would probably take them.)
Law Offices of Carl Shusterman
National Immigration Services
Do you want your link here? Please email to rko@iki.fi.

Contact

If you have anything to add to these pages... comments... stories about your own experience - feel free to email me to rko@iki.fi. Yes... I am still using my address in Finland (all mails will be forwarded from there to my ISP address here).

Thanks

I wish to thank following people giving me help doing this page:

My wife... Barbara Kotalampi, barbara at kotalampi dot com
Markku Nylander, Oak Ridge, TN - thenewt@usa.net
Krista

These pages are devoted to my lovely wife, Barbara Kotalampi, who has been my inspiration, help and support going through all these things. I made all this for her - left Finland and started new life here.