Hi. I’m 21 year old girl who is about to graduate university in Korea this February and will be getting married my American boyfriend on March 2016 :))
I’m thinking about going to graduate school after I start marriage life in NY state.
Especially about graduate schools of SUNY Buffalo or Cortland, and Rochester University.
I want to submit the petition for permanent residency as soon as I can.
What I want to know is that,
Should I need to wait 1 year to get in-state tuition after I get permanent residency?
(,which means I cannot go to grad school right away on Sep 2016..)
Can I sign the marriage paper and submit the petition for permanent residency when I visit American this December, which is before April(Wedding)?
(,so that I can go grad school earlier as I can. I think the order of wedding first and then signing the paper or vice versa does not matter that much :)
I saw someone wrote that I need to live in the state at least one year to get in-state tuition after I get permanent residency but if the permanent residency is due to getting married to American citizen, maybe I don’t need to wait one year to get in-state tuition by claiming for tuition classification petition or in-state residence.
I was thinking about going to graduate school Fall 2016 but after I saw some information I realized that it’s gonna take longer than I thought.
Like 6 months - 1 year to get permanent residency, 1 year to get in-state tuition after I get the permanent residency, which means …
You cannot submit the paperwork for being married until you are married.
It may take a lot longer to get your residency than you think. My niece got married in Dec 2013 so they could start the paperwork for her husband to get residency. (they then had a bigger wedding in June 2014). He is STILL not a resident and they’ve been working on it very hard since that first application in Jan 2014.
As for becoming a NY resident for tuition purposes, you will need to check with the school. Your (official) marriage may make you a resident for that purpose, but financial aid may still be a problem until you get the green card.
You need to go onto these universities websites and read the residency requirements as they can vary by school as well as state. Private universities do not charge differently for in state vs OOS residents though.
This was back in the nineties, but it took several months after getting married to get my temporary green card and then we had to come back two years later and prove that we were still married and petition that my temporary status be removed.
Most public universities will consider you in-state as soon as you are married to someone who already qualifies as in-state. So check the residency policies of the public universities you are looking at.
The more important issue however, is getting the green card sorted out as soon as possible. Once you are legally married to a US citizen, you can be turned back by an immigration officer at the US border if you have not yet applied for the green card. Have your husband-to-be check with UCIS to find out how quickly your green card application can be processed if he files the paperwork after a legal wedding in the US or if he waits until after a legal wedding in Korea. For example, can the temporary green card be issued after a December legal wedding in the US quickly enough for you to be able to travel back to Korea for your big Korean ceremony in April? If you wait to have the legal wedding in April, how long will it take to get the Korean and US embassy paperwork sorted out before you would be able to travel back to the US together?
You also should investigate the option of a K (fiance) visa. In the past that made the green card process a bit quicker. I don’t know if that is still true.
Is there such a thing as a temporary green card? I think there is a green card or no green card, not a temporary one. My daughter was issued a green card immediately. My niece’s husband is just trying to get a green card, and it has taken 18 months so far. He can come to the US but cannot work so he keeps returning to his country to work.
You can go directly to the permanent green card if you have been married for a two years before the application is filed and it is clear that this is not a fake marriage just for a green card. Normally the citizen or permanent resident spouse will file immediately after the wedding, and the new legal permanent resident has conditional status for two years. Then the couple returns for a second set of interviews. If the couple divorces, or the citizen/permanent resident spouse dies before the two years are up there are processes which allow the conditional status to be lifted even though that person is no longer in the picture.
Green cards issued to investors/entrepreneurs also are conditional for two years.
Yes, thanks for the clarification, I did not remember the official wording, but yes my initial green card and permanent resident status was conditional and only valid for 2 years versus the normal 10 years.