engaged to CAN student living in caribbean needing to go to US

[travelinggirl 0]

Hey everybody,

I really need some advice on where to start. Here's our situation.. I'm a USC, my fiance is Canadian. We were friends online for 10 years, then met in person 2 years ago and have been dating ever since. He would come see me each month and I went to see him a few times. After 6 months of long distance I quit my job, sold my house in the states and moved to Canada. I more or less only took my clothes and my cat, and entered as a tourist. We signed a lease for an apartment together and I tried to get a job there but my employer's request to hire an American for the position was denied. We were in Canada for about a year.. crossed the border back and forth many times so I never overstayed.

He was accepted to medical school in the Caribbean so that is where we are now. In January we will be moving to the Bahamas (he's still in school) and then next August we will be moving back to the states where he will be finishing school and starting rotations. When we go to the states he will get either a B1 visa (that's what the school says he'll need) or an F1 visa (I think that's what he will actually need and another CAN student told me that's what they had to get) to finish his last semester of school and then start his hospital rotations.

So we have just gotten engaged and we are trying to figure out all this immigration stuff. We want to get married next year, sometime before October. We were thinking August but once we started finding out about all the immigration headaches we are thinking that this will now determine where and when we get married. We obviously don't want to spend any time apart.. and I understand the I-129F has to be filed by me while in the states and he has to remain outside of the country until that and then the K1 is approved. I don't think we can file DCF or CR1 in the Bahamas because you have to be there for 6 months before you can file at an embassy. We will be in the Bahamas only for 7 1/2 months total so I don't think that's enough time. We also don't want to screw anything up for him to come into the country to finish school. (Medical school is reaaally expensive and we don't want to mess anything up with that.) We also read that if we wait until we're in the US on his F1 or B1 visa and then get married and try to change his status we would need to wait to do that and still might get questioned about his intent when he entered (since he will be entering with the intent of school).

We had originally been thinking of getting married in Canada next August during his semester break but he would need to come right into the US after that for school.. but now we don't know if it would be better to get married in Canada or the US or in the Bahamas or when to do it, how to file so we can stay together and not interfere with him coming for school.. I don't know if anyone has been in a similar situation but if anyone has any advice at all we could really use it. Planning a wedding from outside the country was going to be hard enough since we'd only have 2 opportunities to go to the states to arrange things (the break over Christmas and the break next April) and now that we don't even know how to get married and not screw up our travel in and out and his immigration I'm really stressing out.

Thanks SOO much in advance!

[Penguin_ie 5,996]

Not a Canadian but from what you write, assuming you are both legally in the Bahamas at the moment, I believe the easiest thing for you to do would be to get legally married now, and then file for a sousal visa via DCF (directly with the local US embassy). That would mean he could then enter the USA to study or work, and gets a greencard immediately upon entry. You can then plan a religious wedding/ reception whenever and whereever you wish.

[travelinggirl 0]

Not a Canadian but from what you write, assuming you are both legally in the Bahamas at the moment, I believe the easiest thing for you to do would be to get legally married now, and then file for a sousal visa via DCF (directly with the local US embassy). That would mean he could then enter the USA to study or work, and gets a greencard immediately upon entry. You can then plan a religious wedding/ reception whenever and whereever you wish.

We're not in the Bahamas now, we'll be moving there from another island in January. We'll be there from January - August. From what I read on the State Dept website: http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/ty...types_1306.html "Sometimes a U.S. citizen living abroad can file an immigrant visa petition at an U.S. embassy or consulate or with the USCIS overseas, when the American citizen petitioner has been a resident there for the preceding 6 months and has host country permission to reside there." The problem is we'll just be getting to the Bahamas and we'll only be there for 7 1/2 months so we'd have to wait 6 months to qualify to apply at the embassy, then we'd only have a month and a half before he would need to go to the states.. and I'm assuming it couldn't be done in that short of time for him to be ok to enter the states for school.

[Penguin_ie 5,996]

1 1/2 month is cutting it fine, yeah... it took us 6 weeks but every embassy is different.