Volunteer

[AAD... 4EVER!!! 0]

My wife to be someday, (from Canada), has a volunteer job in the US. If she comes here to work as a volunteer, what is the best way to do paperwork? Get married there, and she crosses border, works as volunteer and then would we still file for the I-130 or would we file for adjustment of status? Or what route has someone else pursued? Does anyone here have experience with their fiance/wife working or volunteering in the US during this time?

[Kathryn41 3,205]

My wife to be someday, (from Canada), has a volunteer job in the US. If she comes here to work as a volunteer, what is the best way to do paperwork? Get married there, and she crosses border, works as volunteer and then would we still file for the I-130 or would we file for adjustment of status? Or what route has someone else pursued? Does anyone here have experience with their fiance/wife working or volunteering in the US during this time?

There is no real paperwork for volunteer unless she is following some sort of a religious volunteer job in which case she would need an R-1 and would have to be sponsored by the religious organization. She is not allowed to simply live in the US even if she is working as a volunteer. She needs to have a visa to be here - either an appropriate work visa for which she is sponsored by the organization itself, or one of the immigrant type of visas where you are her sponsor - a K-1 for a fiancee or the CR-1/K-3 for a spouse. The 'volunteer' work is incidental and after the fact, not before the fact. When she is here on a specific visa waiting for her green card to be processed or after her green card is processed she can volunteer, but she can't come here to volunteer while waiting for the visa to be processed.

Edited August 17, 2009 by Kathryn41

[Jauque 1]

My wife to be someday, (from Canada), has a volunteer job in the US. If she comes here to work as a volunteer, what is the best way to do paperwork? Get married there, and she crosses border, works as volunteer and then would we still file for the I-130 or would we file for adjustment of status? Or what route has someone else pursued? Does anyone here have experience with their fiance/wife working or volunteering in the US during this time?

Since she is your fiance you should file for a K1 or make plans to get married and then do CR-1. She does not need a visa to volunteer but volunteering is not grounds for residence or adjustment of status without first having filed the K-1 or having gotten married and filing the CR-1.

She cannot "work" without an EAD which she cannot get without having first gotten a K-1 or CR-1.

Good luck!

[BermyCat 1]

The last time you posted your fiancée was in the US on some kind of temporary visa. Is she coming back on that kind of visa again? If so, what is it?

~ Catherine

Edited August 17, 2009 by BermyCat