Me (norwegian) and my girlfriend (american citizen) are doing a long distance relationship. She is currently an au pair in Germany, this to give us more time together in the same timezone, as she recently graduated college. I am in my last semester of my engineering bachelors, we are both 22 years old, born 2001.
We both want to get married and are looking into ways to live together in america, since that is where we want to live. We have looked at both the K1 and CR1 visas and thought that K1 visa seemed like the fastest and best way to quickly get me to america, but after looking more into it, it seems that the approval of the K1 visa is as slow as the CR1? and people say that they would have chosen to do the CR1 instead of the K1.
Our biggest worry currently is the timezone difference, hence her being an au pair. There is a 9 hour difference between Norway and Oregon, and the times do not overlap well when it comes to working. It has been working great up till now due to both of us studying and having more control of our schedule, but when my girlfriend starts working her work times would basically be at the times we would be able to call and spend time together.
We have some general ideas of what could work for us if the wait time is long: Her getting a remote job where she can clock in at hours of her choosing or us just using the small time frames where none of us work to just talk, and spending time during weekends.
Some questions we have right now about the filing and approval of either visas are:
Does my girlfriend have to earn the required amount of money when the application for the visa gets submitted, or would it be fine if she gets a job by the time the visa is approved and I can move to america? If it is possible to prove that she can have a job by the time she gets back would that help? Another question would be if she has had to work x amount of time and have x amount of money available, or does just the annual income matter?
How long would it typically take for the visa to get approved when my girlfriend is from Oregon? We saw that the closest USCIS office is in California, and they had the longest approvement time out of all the offices. Would the application go to them, or is it possible to choose ourselves?
We are grateful for any input and feedback any of you might have