Student marries an American

[Tarajean 0]

My daughter entered the US on a valid student Visa. She has since married an American Student. Does this change her status? Is she required to apply for change of Status or can she remain on her student visa? If they plan on finishing school and moving back to Canada is it necessary to apply?

[Wyatt's Torch 45]

If they are both planning on moving back to Canada, it's probably a non-issue. Since she is a student, and her primary reason for being in the U.S. is student-related, then there's no fraud there, assuming she didn't fall in love with her partner prior to becoming a student (i.e.: prompting her to get a student visa to enter the U.S.)

However, if she decides she wants to move to the U.S. to be with him, this may (and I can't stress that word enough) be one of the very rare loophole cases where your daughter can circumvent some of the typical immigration hassle. It's a little risky, though ostensibly "legal." It really depends on what they decide to do though.

[Inky 1,111]

My daughter entered the US on a valid student Visa. She has since married an American Student. Does this change her status? Is she required to apply for change of Status or can she remain on her student visa? If they plan on finishing school and moving back to Canada is it necessary to apply?

Marrying a US citizen does nothing to her status and she is not entitled to a US passport or anything of the sort. She is still in the US under student status. If she intends on living in the USA permanently then she needs to file for adjustment of status.

If she does not intend on living in the USA and will return to live in Canada when her student visa is up then she just moves back to Canada at that point. If he wants to move to Canada, they need to look into getting him proper status to live in Canada. For that they need to go on a website that is for Canadian immigration such as http://www.roadtocanada.com/forums/index.php

[warlord 73]

Not sure about the student visa, you need to check into that to see if marriage in fact does invalidate it. If so she would be living in the US undocumented and could face deportation. As mentioned marriage doesn't do anything for her status until she applies with all the paper work and goes through the interview process.

I know some visa's and status's do in fact get nullified when one gets married (TN Status for example). So you really need to research that and tell her to take appropriate action to rectify that (either leave the US now before found out or file for AOS).

And yes if they move back to Canada she will be fine, again as mentioned, he'll have to apply there. If they ever plan on returning to the US, he'll have to apply for her to get in to the US which could take a long time depending...

[hikergirl 277]

Depending on how long she has left in school it may be in her best interest to apply to adjust her status so she's no longer an International Student and is instead a resident.

I've read that qualifying as a resident is different for every school/state but it might be worth looking into.