<p>I was hoping to post this anonymously but I guess I can’t. But I would like some advice about my situation.</p>
<p>Serious posters only please.</p>
<p>I’m currently a 2nd year undergrad with ambitions in education. However life seems to throw you curve balls all the time and it happened to me this past summer. My mom took me to meet her side of the family this past summer for what was suppose to be 3 weeks. When we got there, I met someone who would throw a monkey wrench in my plans. I spent quite a bit of time with this person and what was suppose to be 3 weeks turned out to be 5 weeks after a bit of convincing. Ah, young love. The time which I was there only seem to speed up the pace of our relationship (but we did not do anything stupid; the furthest we got was kissing).</p>
<p>Upon coming back to the states, I tried to see how I can continue to communicate with her and the cheapest way was using calling cards at ~7cents/min. Since I’m still in college with limited income, I’ve been limiting myself to 10-20min/week which is not a lot for a budding relationship and moreover, a long distance relationship. </p>
<p>However, there’s something I’ve left out so far. This person that I fell so hard for is my cousin. Direct blood relationship cousin; she’s my mom’s sister’s daughter (which is why I wanted to choose to post this anonymously). I really like my cousin and would give anything to be with her; I am actually using my work study even though I do not have to, all just to save up money so that I can pay for a trip to finance a trip to see her next summer. I’m also trying to be responsible with the money; I promised my parents that I would only go if I am able to match the money I use on the trip and place that money in the bank. I’ve been slowly breaking the news to my close friends and for the most part, they’ve been taking it pretty good; only a couple reacted negatively but soon got over it.</p>
<p>So now to the heart of the story. I know it’s still a bit early to think about marriage but I’ve been looking into it. I’ve more or less planned out the rest of my college career. I’m also thinking of going to grad school and more or less begin to prepare for that; there’s a program that I’m looking to do during my senior year which I hope to be a great boost to my grad school app. But <i>should</i> this relationship continue and we want to take it to the next level, since she’s a foreigner, marriage is not so easy between us. I’ve looked at the forms to bring her over, but it seems like the ultimate say is based on the people reading the case files; Even more so on this form <a href=“http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/I-129F.pdf[/url]”>http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/I-129F.pdf</a> which is the main one that gets the ball rolling if I have interpreted it correctly. </p>
<p>Question 17 on the form asks if I am related to my fiance(e). Should I say yes, would that negatively impact my chances of bringing her over? Theoretically, it should not, but with the taboo of having a relationship with someone related to you, I’m concerned that by answering yes, my petition will be denied, and if I answer no, I’m lying.</p>
<p>Furthermore, I’ve also been looking up the rules relating to marriages in the country which she’s from and it’s quite confusing. On some sites, it says that marriages between close relatives is common while on other sites, it says said marriages are forbidden. Which leads to this question: Even if the marriages between my cousin and I are forbidden in her home country, marriages between relatives in the states is left up to the individual states and thankfully in my home states, marriages between first cousins is legal. If my petitions and everything is okay’ed by the US gov’t, will her country prevent her from immigrating to the states at which time she’ll marry me?</p>
<p>Quite a bit of these questions might be answered by a lawyer specializing in marriages but I’m not sure if I’ll have to pay for their services and if I do, that’ll just set me back further in my goal to see her again next summer. That’s why I’m turning to the parents of CC. Hopefully you guys have some insight and/or some connection which may get me some information. Thanks.</p>
<p>Again, none of this has reached the point where I’ll be acting on this in the near future. I’m seeing this happen in maybe 5-7 years. Please excuse the errors in this post if there’s any.</p>