joe.b

Thanks for the responses, everyone! This information is very helpful. Again, while I would note that my husband's cousin really would have every intention of returning to India after a visit on a B2, beyond that, I'm not clear on if/when they plan to apply for a green card for her, so I'm not able to provide info on that. (They've said they may both be trying to move to a third country, so maybe that's why they haven't applied for the green card? I'm really not sure.) The main question my husband's cousin asked me was about a B2, so that was my focus with this question.

My husband's cousin in India is (also) married to a U.S. citizen. She and her USC husband have not yet applied for a green card for her through the IR1/CR1 process (honestly not sure what they're waiting for, but that's not my issue here). The cousin wants to come to the U.S. to visit her husband. I've read online there's not any strict rule against granting a B2 tourist visa to a foreign citizen who is married to a U.S. citizen. I had planned to tell this cousin that she could apply for the B2 to visit the U.S., but should be fully upfront about her marriage and plan to provide as much evidence as possible that she won't overstay the visa (and to be clear, she is fully intending to return to India at the end of her visit). FWIW, she has a long-term stable job with a well-known multinational company, as well as a lease of her own in India, so I think she has some good objective evidence that she will return to India after a visit on a B2. But as I search online, I'm not finding many instances of people in similar situations (still living abroad but married to a USC and applying for a B2 visa) successfully being granted a B2 visa. I don't want to tell my husband's cousin that it could be possible to get a B2 if, perhaps, in practice the odds are extremely low. Do others know of examples of people successfully getting a B2 in a situation like this? Thanks for any input.