US Citizen + Sri Lankan Citizen

[radigast 0]

Hello all! This is my first post, and will probably be quite lengthy, so please bare with me.

I am a US Citizen, and I will be marrying a Sri Lankan citizen. However, my fiance was born in the United Arab Emirates, and has never lived in Sri Lanka. We are getting married in Colombo, Sri Lanka on August 14th. Her family has a house in Sri Lanka, though, so she does have a permanent address/place of residence.

Since we are getting married abroad and want to remain together, DCF is the best (and only) route for us to take. Now, we will both be in Sri Lanka on June 15th up until the wedding. As of now, I am thinking that it would be best to sign the wedding papers in Sri Lanka ASAP, and then file for DCF in Colombo so that the ball is rolling for those few months before the ceremony.

However, I do have a few questions regarding this process....well, actually a lot of questions, but I'll just ask a few now.

1) Is this feasible? I will not be a resident of Sri Lanka, and will simply be there on a visit visa for the entirity of my visit.

2) Will the fact that my wife-to-be has never permanently lived in Sri Lanka have any bearing on our ability to file a DCF there? As I said, she is a Sri Lankan citizen.

3) If we did DCF in Sri Lanka, what sort of time frame would we be looking at until she gets the OK to immigrate to the US?

3) Do any of you have any advice, or notice any tragic flaws/possible problems for DCF in Sri Lanka?

I appreciate all of your help, and want to get all the wrinkles ironed out so that we can get US immigration for her as fast as possible.

Thanks all!

Radigast

[meauxna 15]

You have really limited yourself by saying that DCF is the only option for the 2 of you. Where did you get the idea that you might be able to do this, other than wishing? The Colombo website seems fairly adamant about where petitions must be filed---unless you've talked to someone who did directly file a case there?

The very first thing to do is for the US citizen to contact Colombo and ask if this would even be entertained. Until you know that, the rest of the questions are moot. However, the Immigrant Visa Unit in Colombo would be the best folks to answer the questions you posted here.

http://colombo.usembassy.gov/visa_petitions.html

Filing Immediate Relative Visa Petitions

Consular Officers are authorized to approve I-130 petitions filed by American Citizens resident in Sri Lanka. American Citizens must be residents of Sri Lanka; otherwise they are required to file their petition at the nearest Department of Homeland Security (DHS) office to their place of residence in the United States.

http://colombo.usembassy.gov/affidavit.html

Immediate Relative Visa Petitions

Consular Officers are authorized to approve I-130 petitions filed by American Citizens resident in Sri Lanka.

I see your timeline question addressed in that website as well.

Have you read the DCF Guide?

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...custom&page=dcf

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=2939

Finally, where are YOU normally resident?