Visa help!

[jechancolvr 0]

Hi,

My girlfriend is in Toronto and is planning on moving out here in the spring to take a course in April that is needed to be a dental hygienist in California, and then the clinical exam required for RDH's in June. By mid-to-late July she will be legally allowed to work as a dental hygienist in California.

My question is: which visa should/can we get before she is allowed to work as a hygienist?

Employment-based (EB) visas are tricky and slowly processed unless you have a job in the area of your education. Should we get some kind of student visa that holds over until she passes the clinical exam? And then get a more specific EB visa? I know canadians have 6 months to stay here w/o a visa (or at least i think that's how it goes?), but she needs to have legal proof to be here and take the course in April. And the fact that she's taking the course shows her intent to stay and work in the u.s., so that eliminates non-immigrant visas...

As you might tell, I'm pretty overwhelmed and just want to know if anyone has any insights or suggestions as to how to go about this. Thank you all for your time and input

[Asante Maroon 0]

Hi,

My girlfriend is in Toronto and is planning on moving out here in the spring to take a course in April that is needed to be a dental hygienist in California, and then the clinical exam required for RDH's in June. By mid-to-late July she will be legally allowed to work as a dental hygienist in California.

My question is: which visa should/can we get before she is allowed to work as a hygienist?

Employment-based (EB) visas are tricky and slowly processed unless you have a job in the area of your education. Should we get some kind of student visa that holds over until she passes the clinical exam? And then get a more specific EB visa? I know canadians have 6 months to stay here w/o a visa (or at least i think that's how it goes?), but she needs to have legal proof to be here and take the course in April. And the fact that she's taking the course shows her intent to stay and work in the u.s., so that eliminates non-immigrant visas...

As you might tell, I'm pretty overwhelmed and just want to know if anyone has any insights or suggestions as to how to go about this. Thank you all for your time and input

Do you plan on marrying your girlfriend? What other visa are you considering?

[jechancolvr 0]

Hi,

My girlfriend is in Toronto and is planning on moving out here in the spring to take a course in April that is needed to be a dental hygienist in California, and then the clinical exam required for RDH's in June. By mid-to-late July she will be legally allowed to work as a dental hygienist in California.

My question is: which visa should/can we get before she is allowed to work as a hygienist?

Employment-based (EB) visas are tricky and slowly processed unless you have a job in the area of your education. Should we get some kind of student visa that holds over until she passes the clinical exam? And then get a more specific EB visa? I know canadians have 6 months to stay here w/o a visa (or at least i think that's how it goes?), but she needs to have legal proof to be here and take the course in April. And the fact that she's taking the course shows her intent to stay and work in the u.s., so that eliminates non-immigrant visas...

As you might tell, I'm pretty overwhelmed and just want to know if anyone has any insights or suggestions as to how to go about this. Thank you all for your time and input

Do you plan on marrying your girlfriend? What other visa are you considering?

Yeah we plan on getting married in a year or more from now. But, the K-1 is only good for 90 days.

The EB, student visas are the only ones that i can think of right now...if you know of any others, feel free to tell me

[jechancolvr 0]

It turns out that she can take the course w/o any type of visa.

[jechancolvr 0]

It turns out that she can take the course w/o any type of visa.

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Now we just need a visa that will allow her to work in CA as a hygienist. The employment-based visas take forever, so maybe we'll just wait until we get married in '09 and then bring her over on a K-3? I don't know, just throwing options around...