I am bringing my girlfriend to the USA with a K1 visa and was just offered a three year assignment in Germany. Can we go?

[Duane & Haney 95]

First of all, I'll say this is a theoretical problem. I don't have said job offer, but it could come, and I want to know what to say.

 

Secondly, if I had to choose between my girlfriend / future wife and my job, I would of course choose for her. NO QUESTION!!! 😉

 

Thirdly, I understand there are problems with doing what I want to do, although here is where my knowledge needs to be improved by this fantastic community...

 

question 1: would it be possible to take the three year assignment, and if so, what would it take to do this?

question 2: if I was offered an assignment that was shorter, what would be the ideal time frame to not interfere with her US status?

 

Thanks again, hope someone can chime in with some straight and simple answers! 

 

Thanks and have a great weekend, everybody, 🙂

Duane & Haney

[Boiler 45,951]

You need to ask your employer what visa you would be getting and what the situation would be for her.

 

Not familiar with German Immigration bit I would anticipate it would not be an issue.

 

 

[JFH 12,191]

You, as the USC, can come and go as you please. You can leave the USA and never, ever return and your status as a USC will not change.

 

If you leave before your wife's AOS is completed, she cannot stay here. If she has her green card before you leave, she can stay here. If she moves overseas with you, she will be abandoning her residency and will need to complete the CR-1 process to come back to live. The good news is that Germany offers DCF so it is quicker than the "usual" route for spouses. Green card holders can maintain their residency with temporary periods outside the country but voluntarily taking up a job offer overseas does not fulfill the "temporary" requirement and also by default means that your residency will be in Germany, not the USA, so she won't be a resident here. 

[Kiolas 103]

@Duane & Haney Hi, there are many unknowns in your situation. Are you U.S. citizen? What kind of company? 

 

You may look into 319b - it is for spouse of U.S. citizens employed abroad. However, there are certain requirements that have to be met.

If you meet the requirements, your girlfriend (soon to be wife) may become U.S. citizens without having to wait 3 years, as a spouse of U.S. citizen employed abroad (if you are U.S. citizen and if your employment is qualified under 319b).

 

But again, I do not know your particular situation. You may or may not qualify.

[Duane & Haney 95]

2 hours ago, JFH said:

You, as the USC, can come and go as you please. You can leave the USA and never, ever return and your status as a USC will not change.

 

If you leave before your wife's AOS is completed, she cannot stay here. If she has her green card before you leave, she can stay here. If she moves overseas with you, she will be abandoning her residency and will need to complete the CR-1 process to come back to live. The good news is that Germany offers DCF so it is quicker than the "usual" route for spouses. Green card holders can maintain their residency with temporary periods outside the country but voluntarily taking up a job offer overseas does not fulfill the "temporary" requirement and also by default means that your residency will be in Germany, not the USA, so she won't be a resident here. 

Hello JFH, thank you very much. 

 

What I understood so far from reading in the forum, is that having a green card does not mean the beneficiary (my girfriend / wife) can stay away from the USA indefinitely, like what we would be planning for three years, although I'm not sure about that.

 

That is, if she gets citizenship, it's obviously no longer an issue, but as green card holder, she could not be gone for more than a certain period of time without losing her status, and would somehow need to retain residency here, correct?

 

So far I was planning on having to turn down the expected assignment, but now that you mentioned the CR-1 (or DCF), I have hope again. 🙂

 

So the idea is just to plan appropriately ahead of time so that when we finally headed home to the USA, her paperwork would be ready? I know we don't want to go through the K-1 wait again, it's been already 8 months for us, and we're still not approved...

 

OK, hope you can help answer the questions above, and appreciate you jumping in with the insightful and super helpful infos! 😉

 

Duane & Haney

[Duane & Haney 95]

1 hour ago, Kiolas said:

@Duane & Haney Hi, there are many unknowns in your situation. Are you U.S. citizen? What kind of company? 

 

You may look into 319b - it is for spouse of U.S. citizens employed abroad. However, there are certain requirements that have to be met.

If you meet the requirements, your girlfriend (soon to be wife) may become U.S. citizens without having to wait 3 years, as a spouse of U.S. citizen employed abroad (if you are U.S. citizen and if your employment is qualified under 319b).

 

But again, I do not know your particular situation. You may or may not qualify.

I looked quick [url=https://www.uscis.gov/policymanual/HTML/PolicyManual-Volume12-PartG-Chapter4.html ]right here[/url], I work for a normal for-profit company with no affiliation to the US government, so don't know if I would qualify.

 

Really appreciate you taking time to answer, though, and share your thoughts. 🙂

 

Does anyone know if 319b applies to a typical Fortune 500 company?

 

Thanks!

Duane

Edited September 15, 2018 by Duane & Haney

[Unlockable 7,315]

@JFH has the best advice, IMO.

 

Arrange for your wife to join you in Germany for the next few years. When the time comes, then you can file DCF from Germany to bring her here.

[tamcloud 92]

18 minutes ago, Duane & Haney said:

I looked quick [url=https://www.uscis.gov/policymanual/HTML/PolicyManual-Volume12-PartG-Chapter4.html ]right here[/url], I work for a normal for-profit company with no affiliation to the US government, so don't know if I would qualify.

 

Really appreciate you taking time to answer, though, and share your thoughts. 🙂

 

Does anyone know if 319b applies to a typical Fortune 500 company?

 

Thanks!

Duane

To my knowledge, that is for military or civilian federal employees on orders. Fortune 500 employees wouldn't qualify. I looked into it when I was considering a placement overseas; but, this was after her AOS and she'd had her conditional GC.

Edited September 15, 2018 by tamcloud

[Kiolas 103]

26 minutes ago, Duane & Haney said:

I looked quick [url=https://www.uscis.gov/policymanual/HTML/PolicyManual-Volume12-PartG-Chapter4.html ]right here[/url], I work for a normal for-profit company with no affiliation to the US government, so don't know if I would qualify.

 

Really appreciate you taking time to answer, though, and share your thoughts. 🙂

 

Does anyone know if 319b applies to a typical Fortune 500 company?

 

Thanks!

Duane

It depends on the ownership of a Fortune 500 company and its activities. If it is

 

"American firm or corporation engaged in whole or in part in the development of foreign trade and commerce of the United States, or a subsidiary thereof"

 

then such company would qualify.

[jesserz 73]

4 hours ago, NuestraUnion said:

@JFH has the best advice, IMO.

 

Arrange for your wife to join you in Germany for the next few years. When the time comes, then you can file DCF from Germany to bring her here.

Depends on which city the job is in in Germany. If it's in Frankfurt, you can. We live in Berlin and couldn't DCF.

 

If you take the job in Germany, you could cancel the K1 and then get married. Then, you can live in Germany together (my husband and I did just that and neither one of us is German) and file for the CR1 from abroad.

[Loren Y 2,756]

The best bet would be to retract the K1, and not go any further with it, you will only be out the 500 dollars or so. Then when you are 2 years into your 3 year assignment you can get married and file for the spousal visa, and if things go well you should have it by the time your job is complete. Then again you may have no choice but to marry before you take the job offer because you will have no problem getting a visa for 3 years to work in Germany, but unless she is your wife at the time you apply or company applies to get you a visa she may not be able to accompany you. I am at no way familiar with visa requirements for Germany, so that is something you have to research also, But I don't think they will let her stay on a tourist visa for 3 years.

 

It all depends on when you were thinking of taking this job offer. If it is soon best bet cancel the K1, and look into other visa options. You don't want to bring her here get married and then have to play the song and dance with USCIS trying to get permission for her to go abroad for 3 years, and trying to maintain her residency in the United Sates. The costs and time involved in that would be a nightmare I would think, and not worth it.

[Duane & Haney 95]

Thanks, everyone, great information!

 

I'm hearing some suggestions to cancel the K1 process. Why will continuing the K1 process negatively influence the result, say if my fiancee got her green card and then I received the assignment?

 

What would be the solution in this case?

 

Again, thanks so much to all who responded! We're getting there, really appreciate all the excellent information. 🙂

 

Duane & Haney

 

***PS am reading a little more on what Loren Y is saying, i.e. the K1 process commits you in a sense to spending the next three years or so in the USA, i.e. if I had another option to live elsewhere it wouldn't make sense to go that route***

 

If someone else could confirm my -new- understanding, I'd appreciate that 😉

Edited September 16, 2018 by Duane & Haney

[Duane & Haney 95]

OK, so I'll just wrap everything up here and thank everyone for their input (thanks given!).

 

1. if I do receive an offer to go out of country but am within the K-1 process, I need to stop it immediately and make sure I don't get married. If I do get married, that puts us in the middle of the green card process, which, without many (easy) exceptions, means my newly minted wife has to stay in the USA

2. if I do receive the offer and go out of country and am able to stop the K-1 process, then the next step would be to wait for about a year before the expected end of the assignment, depending on processing times, and marry in the country of the assignment, and begin the CR-1 process. Alternatively, and if this were an option, I could do DCF, which apparently is available in the Frankfurt embassy.

 

additional notes:

-If I am going on an international assignment, I may have to deal with the company not being willing to process a visa for a girlfriend, as opposed to a wife. This would be a situation that would have to be dealt with directly, YMMV.

-if you do get married and apply for the CR-1, there is a time limit of two years, therefore if the assignment goes longer than the two years, we'll have to make sure we don't marry too far from the end of the assignment. I assume that the same caveat applies like in #2 above, which is, if we begin the green card / citizenship process, now via the CR-1 visa, my bride still cannot leave the USA until she received her citizenship.

 

Did I get that right? 🙂

 

Again, thanks to everyone who helped (thanks given!), I think things are a lot clearer now. 😉

Duane & Haney