Girlfriend with F-1 Visa and I want to get married

[Orangesapples 1,954]

25 minutes ago, Duke & Marie said:

100% agree.. vwp vs B2 makes a big difference when wanting to return when you got a usc fiancé or spouse.. high risk countries e.g. Cambodia. Thailand, Vietnam will have a lot more problems 

at OP 

she can’t return on the F1 knowing your going going to get married and then adjust, it’s prior intent.. she has to have intent to go home at the end of her studies.. 

 

‘’best bet is to marry and file now and apply for AP‘/AOS while she’s here now, before she goes home next spring 

I was actually talking about her family, not her, what OP mentioned. 

[ToastedMuffin 4]

5 hours ago, Orangesapples said:

It matters where they're from. Japan or Korea - they can easily visit using the VWP. Cambodia or Vietnam - it's very unlikely they'll get tourist visas. But you don't have to answer here, just keep that in mind. 

I see the point you're bringing up here in regards to her family and that is certainly another thing to consider. In this case, there should be no issues.

 

4 hours ago, Duke & Marie said:

100% agree.. vwp vs B2 makes a big difference when wanting to return when you got a usc fiancé or spouse.. high risk countries e.g. Cambodia. Thailand, Vietnam will have a lot more problems 

at OP 

she can’t return on the F1 knowing your going going to get married and then adjust, it’s prior intent.. she has to have intent to go home at the end of her studies.. 

 

‘’best bet is to marry and file now and apply for AP‘/AOS while she’s here now, before she goes home next spring 

Unfortunately, due to a variety of circumstances outside of my control, I cannot marry her immediately. So I'll probably just inform her that she may not be able to return in the spring, and should avoid making any solid plans until we know more.

Edited October 3, 2020 by ToastedMuffin

[Riley and SP 17]

On 10/3/2020 at 11:51 AM, ToastedMuffin said:

I appreciate your advice and suggestions. Perhaps I have not explained my situation adequately. Specifically, when I said "want", I was only expressing a desire, not a commitment. We are not committed to be married or engaged (which would include a formal proposal). She is my girlfriend, not my fiance. The reason being is that there are other considerations (such as getting to know her parents, and her getting to know mine) that preclude me asking her to marry me. As such, I have not proposed, and we are not engaged. Nothing is set in stone, we are only planning hypothetically and speaking in hypothetical terms because of the obvious hassle it is for an international marriage. It is clear that the difficulty of the immigration process should be taken into account before even proposing if things are to go well. It is possible to talk about marriage without being engaged.

Hey! I don’t know what you ended up deciding but I was in a very similar situation. 
 

I was on F-1 visa and living with my then BF at the time. We have spoken about getting married and contacted different venues just to see what the cost will be so we can decide on small vs big wedding. But as you say nothing was set in stone. He had not proposed yet. He hadn’t bought an engagement ring. It never occurred to my mind that would be a problem. 
 

So, we bought place tickets to visit my home country for Christmas so my boyfriend at the time can meet my family. Further, I have a 10 year old son back home who I hadn’t seen for a year. We booked hotels. We booked a NYE trip to Paris with my son and my best friend and her BF. However, I am in law school and we had one initial free consultation with a lawyer. We went to talk about the AOS in general - again I didn’t even imagined travel would be a problem. When the lawyer told me yes AOS is not a problem so long as you don’t travel out of the country,

we were shocked. You can imagine all the plans, my son telling me every day that he counts the days till we go for Christmas. I cried my eyes off. I consulted another lawyer - he wasn’t so sure travel would be a problem but said there is a risk of visa fraud if the officer of entry asks me questions - for example what my plans after graduation are and as I was in my last year that was a plausible question. I spend hours and hours researching the issue myself and couldn’t find definite answers - apparently there are people who have done it and then adjusted without issues. But technically,

it could be considered a visa fraud. 
 

So, we ended up cancelling the whole trip although we lost $3000 we paid for non- refundable plane tickets. The hardest thing was telling my son mummy is not coming back for Christmas and I always always keep the promises to my son (I didn’t tell him we are going until we had bought the tickets). May be my lawyer was over cautious but he told me that with the current administration he has seen things he has never seen before and it is not worth the risk. 
 

We ended up planning a small 50 people wedding for St. Valentine’s Day and flying my family here for the wedding. So, at least I got to see my son.

 

Again, that might have been over cautious but I didn’t want to risk not being able to finish my school and my job offer, and most of all being separated from my now husband. But honestly, there is no 100% definite answer to the question. 

 

[geowrian 22,337]

6 hours ago, Riley and SP said:

However, I am in law school and we had one initial free consultation with a lawyer. We went to talk about the AOS in general - again I didn’t even imagined travel would be a problem. When the lawyer told me yes AOS is not a problem so long as you don’t travel out of the country,

we were shocked. You can imagine all the plans, my son telling me every day that he counts the days till we go for Christmas. I cried my eyes off. I consulted another lawyer - he wasn’t so sure travel would be a problem but said there is a risk of visa fraud if the officer of entry asks me questions - for example what my plans after graduation are and as I was in my last year that was a plausible question. I spend hours and hours researching the issue myself and couldn’t find definite answers - apparently there are people who have done it and then adjusted without issues. But technically,

it could be considered a visa fraud. 

No could - it clearly is. Well, not necessarily "fraud" as defined by the INA, but it clearly violates INA 212(a)(7)(A)(i), making one inadmissible to the US.

Ignore the F-1 part of it. It could a B, F, J, etc. visa.

Assessed at each entry, if you intend to stay within the US, then you must be in possession of a valid immigrant visa as you are not qualified for a non-immigrant status.

 

If you can find a way to avoid INA 212(a)(7)(A)(i), great. But I cannot, and lack of evidence is not evidence itself.

Although there are plenty of people who are denied entry for specifically that reason. Some even get an expedited removal alongside it. There are plenty of stories on VJ to review. Again, the specific status you're entering on doesn't matter (except certain L/K/H/V/U visas, which are exempt).

 

Also no doubt whatsoever that people have done it then AOS'd just fine. They just didn't get caught and preconceived intent alone is not a sole reason for denial of AOS as the IR of a USC.

 

As for the other lawyer saying he wasn't sure it was an issue unless you made a misrep upon return, that was 100% a plausible deniability play. He didn't explicitly tell you to do anything illegal. And once you're in the US, what happened prior to entry doesn't matter in terms of intent.