Met my husband overseas then he came as F1

[EMalavathu 0]

Hi everyone,

My question is whether it will look bad at the immigration interview that I met my (now) husband overseas in India before he came to the U.S. on a F1 Student visa. I was studying abroad in India when we met, and he had intended on coming to the U.S. to do his Phd before he met me. The situation goes like this:

1. July 2014 - December 2014 - I studied abroad in India where we met in our classes and became good friends

2. March 2015 - He submitted applications to do his Masters in the U.S. This was his dream long before he met me, but we had started dating at that point.

3. August 2015 - He arrived and started his course work. I finished college and we did long distance dating

4. February 2016 - (6 months later) We decided to get married and got engaged.

5. July 2016 - We got married and then filed paperwork.

We have a lot of evidence that the marriage is bona fide (joint bank accounts, rent agreements, health insurance, photos of the wedding/relationship etc.) and his parents even came to the U.S. for the wedding. My concern is that they might think he came to the U.S. on a student visa with an intention of marrying me to immigrate, even thought the reality is he came here to pursue his academic goals, and then later we fell in love.

Does anyone have any experience with this or advice?

[tinnytintin 2]

Shouldn't be a problem if you have genuine evidence.

My husband and I met abroad, he got his F1 to study here and we eventually got married and applied for AOS. Our timeline is different though, we got married 2 years after he got to the US and then applied for AOS more than a year later because we weren't sure whether we wanted to live in the US or not. By the time we applied for AOS, we had already lived together for three years and I had piles and piles of evidence. The officer didn't even ask us any trick questions, just asked us to tell our story and then went through the forms. Feel free to ask questions and good luck!

[Penguin_ie 5,993]

**** Moving from AOS from Family Visa to AOS from Student Visa *****

[KierenHby 899]

Does he continue to pursue his academic goals that were the basis for applying F visa?

[mymarriagejourney 113]

I met my now-husband in his country while I was doing an internship. Then, 6 months later, I went back and did another internship. A couple months after the second internship, he came to the US on an F1 visa to pursue a masters degree. A year later we got married. He's now a US citizen.

Edited December 28, 2016 by mymarriagejourney

[EMalavathu 0]

Shouldn't be a problem if you have genuine evidence.

My husband and I met abroad, he got his F1 to study here and we eventually got married and applied for AOS. Our timeline is different though, we got married 2 years after he got to the US and then applied for AOS more than a year later because we weren't sure whether we wanted to live in the US or not. By the time we applied for AOS, we had already lived together for three years and I had piles and piles of evidence. The officer didn't even ask us any trick questions, just asked us to tell our story and then went through the forms. Feel free to ask questions and good luck!

When you told your story in the interview, did you mention that you met overseas? Did you just say something like "We met abroad and then he came to the U.S. to study. Later as we got to know each other more, we fell in love and decided to get married." (Or something like that.) I'm just not sure how much detail to go into, because I've heard so many different pieces of advice.

Does he continue to pursue his academic goals that were the basis for applying F visa?

Yes he continues to pursue his dream. He is taking 4 courses this semester and finishing his Master's thesis. He will graduate from his Master's program in May, and he's already started preparing applications for Phd programs in the United States. He's made top grades each semester, and so my hope is that all of this will clearly show his intention for his studies.

[tinnytintin 2]

When you told your story in the interview, did you mention that you met overseas? Did you just say something like "We met abroad and then he came to the U.S. to study. Later as we got to know each other more, we fell in love and decided to get married." (Or something like that.) I'm just not sure how much detail to go into, because I've heard so many different pieces of advice.

Yup we told them that we knew each other before. He had previously visited me on a B visa, two years before his F1, so for us it was useless to try and hide anything. Don't go in to detail, but don't hide it either if they ask. And remember that they can't deny you based only on immigration intent . You mentioned that he is continuing to study which is good. By the time we applied for AOS, my husband had finished his MS, had a full time job and his H1B visa.

Yes he continues to pursue his dream. He is taking 4 courses this semester and finishing his Master's thesis. He will graduate from his Master's program in May, and he's already started preparing applications for Phd programs in the United States. He's made top grades each semester, and so my hope is that all of this will clearly show his intention for his studies.