Advanced Parole (I-131) for overseas wedding ceremony

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My wife (Australian) and I (USC) were married abroad in Cyprus in 2009. We’ve been living/ working overseas until now and had no need to file for her US visa as she has been able to visit my family here under ESTA.

I recently resigned from my foreign posting and we returned to visit family in San Diego, where we are now. I have just secured a position in Texas so we will be permanently moving to the US.

I have been advised that since my wife entered under ESTA without the intention to immigrate (we were only going to be here about 6 weeks but then this job came up) and is still within her legal ESTA stay of 90 days (about 40 more days til that is up) we can file an I-130 and I-485 simultaneously.

Here’s where it gets tricky:

Since we were living in the middle east at the time of our marriage, due to logistics and finances we chose to have a simple legal ceremony and agreed to have a proper “celebration” with friends and family when finances allowed. Last year we locked in our “celebration” in Bali for August 2013 for both our families/ friends to meet and re-commit our vows.

The critical question is whether she could be granted Advanced Parole (I-131) for travel in August highlighting the spontaneous need to move to the US and leave again. I have come across mixed results on people being granted AP to visit family in home country and others saying emergency/work/study only, but I am concerned if there is any way this situation would qualify (even though in my eyes it seems a valid reason for 2 weeks travel)??? I should add my wife has never over-stayed any US visa in the past and has a clean immigration record.

Her deadline for her ESTA stay is end of May so we have to file I-130 soon or have her leave (we are not really in a position to send her back to Australia to file, financially, logistically). I guess the conclusion I have reached is we have to take the risk that the AP will come through (we have 16 weeks for processing) or if it is denied we will have to travel, abandon I-485 and she will be forced to re-apply from Australia! AHHH!

Any advice/ thoughts would be appreciated.

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

Ap is for any purpose, not just for emergencies. So AP can be used to go whatever you want.

But, AP takes 90 days to be approved. They won;t expedite it for anything other than a life/death emergency.

The good news is that it is April now so if you applied by the end of the month, you'd have AP by around the end of July, so I think you'll make your timeline. It'll be tight though, best send off your package (which is a lot of forms and paperwork) ASAP.

Good luck.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Harpa Timsah