Eu citizen living in UK marrying an American?

[Alex1111 0]

Hello everyone. Would highly appreciate any kind of input, please. Totally lost right now. 

 

I'm a EU citizen, living and working in UK, resident in UK. I have a fiancee, who's American citizen. 

I am thinking about bringing her here on a student visa ( she has to keep studying and it should be possible to transfer) and marry - either in UK, or go to Europe for a holiday and marry there. Than start making documents from UK for US. 

Or... what other option do we realistically have? 

[Boiler 45,568]

Until BREXIT?

 

You do realise that this Forum's focus is in moving to the US?

 

If she is resident and living in the UK and married to you then you can do DCF at the US London Consulate, takes 4 months or so, by far the quickest.

[Starkilla09 366]

This is an American immigration forum so you might not get many replies here. However, these are the few things I know about your situation. First to get married in the UK, your fiancé will need a marriage visa, if you want to bypass this it might be easier to marry in another EU country maybe even yours. Your spouse can legally join you in the UK as a married spouse of an EU citizen though and if I’m right she should be able to get work authorization as well. As for the student visa route that’s gonna be expensive and will depend if you guys have the finances.

[Alex1111 0]

Sure, we want to move to US, but don't want to stay apart for a year, and I heard, that if both of you live outside US, than a visa for the second spouse  is faster than 12 month, not sure how legit that is.  I am a  UK resident, she's from US.

[Alex1111 0]

4 minutes ago, Boiler said:

If she is resident and living in the UK and married to you then you can do DCF at the US London Consulate, takes 4 months or so, by far the quickest.

Could you clarify a little, please? So I would have to bring her to UK, and have her filing I-130, meanwhile she lives in uk? 

 

3 minutes ago, Starkilla09 said:

This is an American immigration forum so you might not get many replies here. However, these are the few things I know about your situation. First to get married in the UK, your fiancé will need a marriage visa, if you want to bypass this it might be easier to marry in another EU country maybe even yours. Your spouse can legally join you in the UK as a married spouse of an EU citizen though and if I’m right she should be able to get work authorization as well. As for the student visa route that’s gonna be expensive and will depend if you guys have the finances.

The whole point of what I'm asking is to avoid going K-1 route, and stay together, meanwhile paperwork runs, rather than be on different continents. But thank you. That's of a help. 

[Boiler 45,568]

2 minutes ago, Alex1111 said:

Could you clarify a little, please? So I would have to bring her to UK, and have her filing I-130, meanwhile she lives in uk? 

 

The whole point of what I'm asking is to avoid going K-1 route, and stay together, meanwhile paperwork runs, rather than be on different continents. But thank you. That's of a help. 

She has to be UK resident, student would do.

[JE57 239]

Yes, you can in theory do what you are suggesting.  However, I'm not sure how prudent it is.   On the get her to UK side you'd need to get her a residence visa in the UK, if a student visa then also figure out how you or her would pay for the education, how you go about transferring credits etc.  I would assume that this may or may not get done before the 2nd semester in which case if it doesn't get done in time for 2nd Semester you would already likely have your K--1 Visa by the time you could get her to the UK.  You then have the headaches of getting married in Europe away from her family which may or may not be to her liking.   On top of all of this assume you get married and then are ready to DCF she'd need to go thru the process of transferring her credits earned in the UK back to the USA to finish her degree if applicable (although maybe she's almost done).   In addition she's need to prove domicile or intent to establish domicile in the USA (again not insurmountable) and she would also need to be able to support you with adequate resources so if she's a full time student she's likely going to need a co-sponsor back in the USA.  All in all what you propose certainly has the possibility of minimizing time apart but does appear to throw some additional hurdles into the process. You might be well served to look at K--1 now and consider that you likely have ESTA rights to visit her in the USA during the process and her with her US Passport the right to visit you and that might well be a better way to limit the time apart.

 

[Darnell 8,478]

ya, if'n you want to minimize time and the goal is for you to immigrate to the USA to live with her, 

go the DCF route.  There's financial implications on HER side (study the I-864) that SHE has to meet, 

but 

 

if you don't care about how much time you two spend together in the UK, married,  as long as yer together forever, 

then maybe she'll not think to leave the UK till she finishes her degree there ?  

 

Regardless,  she has to prove up monies for the I-864 and maybe even secure a joint sponser if'n she has no verifiable income on her tax returns ... 

 

But I'm just spit-balling , so far... 

[Darnell 8,478]

eh - another sticky bit ... .

 

the US Citizen HAS to have valid residency in the UK ...  I THINK a student visa suffices, but that fiance-visa route thingie (a different thing) - you gotta think - 

what can you do to ensure she has UK Residency after you marry her ?  Is there a path for you, besides the student visa for her ? 

 

IIRC, She'll need 6 months of valid residency in the UK before she can file the DCF'd version of the CR-1 packet - and the processing of the packet takes up to 4 months.  So that's 10 months minimum ... 

[Boiler 45,568]

Being a Student counts for DCF.