Advice Please! With DCF can non-American spouse work right away?

[MadHatter 2]

Hello,

I'm not sure how to phrase my question, so let me start with a few details.

My fiancee and I both live in Japan, I'm American, he's English. We've both lived here nearly 2 years, him on a working visa, me on a religious activities visa. We plan to get married in Summer 2011.

We aren't sure if we will move to England or to America to marry and live but I'm doing research either way.

IF we decide to move to America, would it make more sense for us to marry in Japan now and then do DCF as opposed to the whole K1 fiancee visa thing?

If we were to do that, would he be able to begin working immediately once we entered the US? unless I read wrong (and it's quite possible - I'm very overwhelmed with all this info), it seems that if all goes well with DCF then he would receive his green card immediately upon entering the US. Is that right? is there a restriction on how long one must have been married before one can do DCF?

Can anyone give advice, pros/cons, corrections? Thank you so much!

Yours overwhelmed,

MadHatter

[payxibka 10,047]

Hello,

I'm not sure how to phrase my question, so let me start with a few details.

My fiancee and I both live in Japan, I'm American, he's English. We've both lived here nearly 2 years, him on a working visa, me on a religious activities visa. We plan to get married in Summer 2011.

We aren't sure if we will move to England or to America to marry and live but I'm doing research either way.

IF we decide to move to America, would it make more sense for us to marry in Japan now and then do DCF as opposed to the whole K1 fiancee visa thing?

If we were to do that, would he be able to begin working immediately once we entered the US? unless I read wrong (and it's quite possible - I'm very overwhelmed with all this info), it seems that if all goes well with DCF then he would receive his green card immediately upon entering the US. Is that right? is there a restriction on how long one must have been married before one can do DCF?

Can anyone give advice, pros/cons, corrections? Thank you so much!

Yours overwhelmed,

MadHatter

DCF is a process... it is not a visa... the visa that results from the DCF process is an immigrant visa that provides a greencard immediately upon entry. Length of marriage is not a requirement for DCF but length of residency by the USC

[virginiadare 0]

Hi there,

DCF is one of many options you can choose if you decide to move to the USA. If you decide to marry in Japan and file an I-130 for your husband at the consulate there it would certainly enable you to move straight to the USA once your application is approved and the visa is issued. Your husband would recieve a visa in his British passport which activates once he uses it to go to the USA. His permananet residence card (green card) would turn up in the mail a few months later. However, as you would have been married for less than 2 years it is likely he will only recieve a 2 year greencard and he would have to file to adjust his status a few months before his greencard expires in the USA. However, he becomes a conditional permanent residence once he enters the county with his new visa and can work right away. I don't believe there is any restriction on how long you have been married in regards to being able to DCF. Usually the only restrition in a consular visa application is that you are both ordinarly resident in the county you are filing i.e. Japan which it seems you both are. I know in London, UK where I filed it there is a 6 month residency rule i.e. both my spouse and I had to have been resident in the UK for 6 months previous to the application. In the UK it takes between 4-6 months to apply for a visa from start to finish so you would probably want to get married about 7 months before you plan to move (however do take a look and see if you can find the average processing time for your local embassy. My husband and I had a qiuck civil ceremony with just the two of us and then a bigger religious wedding with family and friends when all the paperwork passed through.

If you decide to go to England and you are married in Japan you would go through a similar process although it should not be as long...a UK spouse visa usually takes anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. If you google 'UK residence forum' you will get more info there on how to do the UK version of DCF.

In terms of waiting to get married and reside in either England or America I think it gets a little more tricky but i'm not sure. I'm sure others on here will advise you on the Fiance process. Hope this helps!

[redglasses 1]

If you two are married, you are qualified for DCF since you have lived in Japan more than 6 months on a valid visa.

If I were you, I would definitely go for DCF since it is more cost effective, faster, and easier than K-1.

On the CR-1/IR-1 visa, your fiancee gets granted the temporal permanent residency upon the entry to the US.

Then about 3-4 weeks later he would receive his GC in the mail.

Permanent residents are free to work in the US.

[kristinakiko 0]

Hi there. You sound like me and my hubby. I'm American and he hails from Essex. It took us a while to weigh the pros and cons of both countries before finally deciding to move to America. We started looking into American visa processes and thought the K-1 was for us until we learned about the DCF visa. The DCF is much faster, cheaper, and IMO easier. We got married last month and applied for the visa in the same month so I doubt there is a restriction on how soon you can apply. One of the advantages to the DCF is that the immigrant can work right away whereas with the K-1 you would have to wait until you got married and some things cleared. Hubby and I are eikaiwa workers and we can't afford to be unemployed for very long!

Good luck with whatever you decide to do. It was a tough decision for us and we are hoping it turns out to be the right one!

[TOM&Riz 4]

On the CR-1/IR-1 visa, your fiancee gets granted the temporal permanent residency upon the entry to the US.

IR1/CR1 is a visa for immeadiate relative ie. spouse not a fiance visa, I know what you are saying but it sounds like they can get a fiance' ir1/cr1 visa

[redglasses 1]

IR1/CR1 is a visa for immeadiate relative ie. spouse not a fiance visa, I know what you are saying but it sounds like they can get a fiance' ir1/cr1 visa

Thanks for the clarification. I should have written future-husband instead of fiancee :-P

[MadHatter 2]

Thanks so much for the replies everyone!

In my research it looked like DCF was easier to do than K-1, but I wasn't sure if there were other things I wasn't considering. From the replies here it looks like maybe it would be a good route to go if we end up deciding to live in America.

I'm going to look further into this and probably will be posting more specific questions in the next several months. Thanks a lot!!