<p>I’m from England and have attended school in America for the last 3 years, I currently am back in London after taking the fall semester off but I am returning to a different school in the Spring.</p>
<p>I met my boyfriend 3 years ago at the school I attended in Georgia, since he was a year older than me he has graduated and is now working for his dad’s company in Oklahoma. I have been to visit him in Oklahoma for a week a few months ago. We decided that instead of returning to my school in Georgia I would tranfer to a school near him so I could move in with him.</p>
<p>After this semester I’ll be finished with school and will no longer be on a student visa. We have decided to get married but are confused about the steps you have to take and also to ensure that I don’t break any laws and jepordise my immigration status.</p>
<p>From what I’ve read after I finish studying I have to return home and apply for a fiance visa and have to enter on this visa, and within 3 months of entering we would have to get married. While waiting for this visa I cannot enter the united states, has anyone gone through this before and knows how long this takes as I couldn’t find information on it?</p>
<p>Or does anyone know a website that has step by step instructions, i’ve looked on my us embassy website but it has all kinds of other information on there irrelevant to me that makes it hard to know what im supposed to do, in what order, and in what time frame!</p>
<p>The “recommended” way is via the fiance visa. Technically you can also marry him while you are on your student visa and then file for adjustment of status. But that process may take longer than a year, and in the meantime you would not be allowed to work.</p>
<p>You can apply for citizenship once you marry through your husband. The INS will interview you to determine that your marriage is legit and not just for citizenship.</p>
<p>I would strongly urge that you consult an immigration attorney as to the best (least hassle) way to proceed. I’m not sure how hard it is to get a fiance visa. Adjusting status may or may not be easy depending on the kind of student visa you have. There are 2 student visas. With the one (can’t remember which) that is typically given to undergraduate students, changing status is not a problem. With the other (exchange visa?), it is a much more complex process and may require your leaving the country for a period of time. </p>
<p>We went through this many, many years ago, and by pure luck, happened on the answer we needed. My experience with INS is that if you know the right questions to ask they will answer them, but if you just ask for information, you get no help. </p>
<p>I’m not sure what changes there have been to the laws in the intervening years, but since the difficulty of changing status can range from very simple to exceedingly difficult, it would definitely be worth your while to check with a lawyer who specializes in these matters.</p>
<p>We went through this in the 1980s. My wife was here on a visitor’s Visa. We met and got married about six months later and did the adjustment of Visa thing. It was a bit of work arranging the marriage too with international flights but we managed.</p>
<p>The INS was the most difficult organization that I’ve ever dealt with (the IRS is second). We were on hold on the phone for an hour or two to try to get help and their voice system frequently dropped calls. We could go down there in person but would have to wait in huge lines, take a number and it was possible that we didn’t get called. Your place wasn’t saved if it was the next day. One day we went there an hour before the place opened and it was 5 degrees outside and there was a big line at the place.</p>
<p>It took quite a while to get everything squared away (Green Card). They lost something along the way that we had to partially do over again. Working wasn’t an issue.</p>
<p>We got grilled over whether the marriage was real. They had us in separate rooms and asked a bunch of questions. This was near the end of the process quite some time after we had been married. We had a house and a baby (don’t recall if it was on the way or already born) but I still got quite the lecture on how adjusting Visas wasn’t the right way to get married.</p>
<p>We know one couple that just got married in the other country and assumed that they could just come over here and live. The foreign person had to go back to the other country for quite some period of time and do a lot of paperwork before they could come back into the country. The other country was in the Far East so it wasn’t terribly convenient to fly back and forth for visits.</p>
<p>The Fiance’ process is a pain because the foreigner can’t come into the US while waiting for the processing. The makes planning a wedding harder. Adjusting the Visa seems to be an easier process to me.</p>
<p>One problem that you have right now is intent. You’re not supposed to come here with the intent to get married. I’m pretty sure that I was asked about this several times in the interview.</p>
<p>Note that what I’m saying refers to my experience over 2 decades ago. I’m sure that things have changed since then. Best to go over all of the documents carefully.</p>
<p>^^Not exactly correct. The path to US citizenship goes through permanent residency. Your husband will sponsor your permanent residency first, then you will be eligible to apply for US Citizenship. For green card holders married to a US Citizen, the waiting period is 3 years of permanent residency vs. the usual 5 years. </p>
<p>Unless you are extremely savvy when it comes to US immigration laws, I strongly recommend at least an initial consultation with an immigration attorney.</p>
<p>I concur with those recommending an immigration attorney. There are often multiple paths and you are best off to find the most efficient and easiest method for you.</p>
<p>I will definately consult a immigration lawyer. But having not dealt with a lawyer in any way before do you think its advisable to just get a consultation at the beginning of the process and then apply for everything on our own or would the lawyer be able to do that all fo us? </p>
<p>I suspect if we employ the lawyer to handle our whole case that could cost a lot? How would we be charged for that because they couldn’t charge hourly rates could they? Or say if they didnt need to do anything to our case for 2 weeks then they had to answer a query on our behalf on something then how would they charge for that? How would we know whent hey are actually doing work for our case?</p>
<p>I didn’t come with the intent to marry, I came over on an F-1 visa t go to school and met my boyfriend at school where we have dated for the last 3 years.</p>
<p>Natoar23 – The questions about price and such are things you’ll have to bring up with the attorney. If you cannot afford to pay, there should be a free or low-cost service somewhere in your town. Ask your school counseling office for a referral in any case…they have undoubtedly had other foreign students fall in love and marry during their stay. </p>
<p>Oh, and I see I forgot to say ‘Congratulations!’ I hope you will be very happy with your beloved and that you will continue to find America welcoming and warm-hearted!</p>
<p>“I didn’t come with the intent to marry, I came over on an F-1 visa t go to school and met my boyfriend at school where we have dated for the last 3 years.”</p>
<p>The issue is that you’re outside of the US right now and will be coming back in. If you did get married and adjusted your Visa on this trip, they might say that you came in to get married.</p>
<p>In our case, it was a lot easier for me (the US Citizen) to deal with all of the INS stuff as the language was a little more familiar as was experience dealing with government agencies in the past. Doing things long distance (from another country) can be challenging too.</p>
<p>BCEagle91 - I see what you mean now, I will be coming back on an F-1 visa but I think after reading the posts here and a lot of websites I will apply for the K1 Fiance visa rather than try to change my status. The only problem with that would be I would have to wait at home until I receive it and I’ve already just spent the last 6 months away from my boyfriend!</p>
<p>If I’m not allowed into the US, i’m sure he could come and visit me or we could meet in Mexico or another country close by!</p>
<p>While I concur with the advice to see an immigration attorney, there is another step that sometimes works. Have your boyfriend talk to his Congressional rep. Our local rep (NYC) knows a lot about immigration law and her staff is very, very helpful. While I haven’t tried this avenue myself, one of my neighbors did. She never used an attorney and our rep’s staff guided her through all the steps successfully.</p>
<p>Another avenue is to marry in the foreign country and then have the person come to the US as a spouse. It’s not my area of law, but I’ve been told that the INS tends to look a bit more favorably on such cases.</p>
<p>I think that it’s still a lot of paperwork. Logistically, I think that it is easiest to adjust status if you decide to get married while the foreigner is here on the same visit as the marriage. That’s the way the true adjustment of Visa is supposed to work.</p>
<p>The INS wants to know that it’s a real marriage. A joint mortgage or rental or a child between the couple probably goes a long way. I think that they’ll still take you into separate rooms and ask you some interesting questions that you’d have to live together to know the answers too.</p>
<p>So what’s the color of the wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom?</p>
<p>Well I have been searching around a lot of the internet and now I’m thinking maybe I should just go ahead with the F-1 visa and apply for a change of status, it appears to be easier for some people but then not so for some others. But this way I woudn’t have to sit at home for months waiting for a K1 visa. </p>
<p>Also just to make things a little more complicated, I work for an American company and after handing in my resignation a few weeks ago my boss now wants to discuss with me my options about transferring to an American branch and I’m guessing that I would be on a H-4 working visa then!</p>
<p>I know I need to talk to an immigration lawyer, I want to call one just for an initial consultation but how do I pick one? there are so many on the internet, how do I know if they a good one and are telling me the correct things?</p>
<p>As if Christmas time wasn’t stressful enough!</p>
<p>BCEagle91 – I’ve been married to an American (I’m one too, btw) for more than 20 yrs and I doubt he even knows there’s wallpaper in the downstairs bath, let alone what color. If the INS ever comes calling, we’re in such trouble…</p>
<p>Natoar23 – Again, check with your school counseling office for a lawyer referral. Do not choose one off the internet.</p>
<p>Novelisto, Same here. I couldn’t even tell you the color of the walls in our downstairs bath, if it were not for the fact that I painted them!</p>
<p>They never talked to me at all when we went about changing my husband’s status. But that was almost 30 years ago. And they might have been suspicious because he arrived at the beginning of August on a student visa and we were married 2 weeks later.</p>