Options for Mother In Law

[ezra 0]

Hello, My wife is from Vietnam and is currently a permanent resident in the US with one year to go until she can become a citizen (thanks to all the help and support from this forum). In addition, we just had our first child on New Years Eve, 2009. We successfully got a visa for my mother in law from Vietnam and she is staying with us for six months which has been great, but we are now thinking beyond this visit. Ideally we'd like to have her come out for 3-6 months each year. I am curious about a few options and questions...

1) If when she goes back she immediately applies for another tourist visa, do you think she has a fighting chance if she has some good ties (owns a house, bank account, all other children live in Vietnam... but husband passed away)

2) Should we try and apply for her to be a permanent resident? In the long term, we assume that would be easier than always stressing about applying for visas?

3) Are we better off waiting until my wife is a US Citizen to sponsor her mom to be a permanent resident? Or is the process and wait times exactly the same?

4) If we ask for an extension of her visa to stay here an extra few months (we'd like for her to stay until our son is 1 year, but that will require us extending her visa by 3 months) would that be frowned upon when she tries to apply for a tourist visa again?

Many thanks for all your experience and thoughts.

Ezra

[Brother Hesekiel 2,236]

Calling Jim . . .

[Boiler 46,122]

1 Wait a few months

2 If she wants to live in the US, yes. But what about all her ties to Vietnam?

3 Your wife has to be a USC to petition a parent

4 Yes

[Anh map 2,098]

Visitor visas are not for spending more time in the US than a person's home country. If a CBP officer sees she has been in the US more than home they could give her a short date on an I-94 or worst case scenario refuse entry.

Turning around and applying for another vistor visa at HCMC will certainly raise questions with the CO. The fact that she has no spouse in VN but has a child with a new grandchild in the US would now make it look more like she is intending to live in the US. As we all know, HCMC is well versed in fraud. And while your MIL may have the most honest of intentions, her actions will fit the profile and thus bring more scrutiny.

Your wife will have to be a citizen to petition her mom. You can't petition for her.