joheli

He will need to be in Juarez for his medical exam and the final interview. Then he may have to wait a day to get his final sealed packet that he will have to cross the border (to El Paso) and be received into the US officially at the border. He can take a taxi from his hotel or from the US Consulate - some taxi drivers can cross the border with him. At the border he'll have to wait a while to be processed -- usually they do a large group at the same time. There's also special parking for this purpose. Our taxi driver waited for us (with all of our luggage) until we were finished and then drove us to our hotel in El Paso.

In your husband's case, he can either stay in El Paso and fly from there, or he can go back across the border into Mexico.

I'd go for either the Cr-1 (filing for both child under 18 and your wife) or file the I-130 for your wife and then the I-129F for a K-3 and K-4.

And I think Jim is right, the 18 year old will be more difficult since the marriage must occur before the 18th birthday.

But no, it does not look like you can DCF.

Good luck.

I don't see why it would be difficult for the 18-year old -- looking at this page:

http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/ty...93.html#qualify

This page states a K-4 applicant is the "unmarried child under 21 years of age of a qualified K-3 visa applicant." He is under 21, and is the child of the Applicant (my wife). I don't see any requirement that says my marriage to the applicant has to occur before the child reaches 18. Am I missing something? Has anyone tried this route and failed?

Thanks,

Joheli

Hi Everyone!

Very happy to find VJ today. From reading the guides and the posts you all are a very helpful group!! (I hope this is the right forum to post this in -- apologies if it's the wrong one.)

First, some background info on us: I am a recently divorced US citizen, my GF is a Mexican national, our 9mo daughter has both US & Mexican passports now (which wasn't easy). My GF also has an 18 year old son from her first marriage (she was divorced several years ago and has custody). We are all living in Mexico, but will hopefully move to the U.S. within a year. (I am living in Mexico on a Tourist visa, and travel back & forth to the US for my job (officially working in US, not mexico).) GF's son will hopefully be granted a visa along with his mom, since he's < 21.

We would like to get married ASAP (for various reasons, including being able to put her on my company's health insurance). We don't want to wait until we move to the U.S. next year -- we'd like to do it in 2009.

Here's our dilemma (as we currently understand the process):

If we go the K1 route (fiance visa), we have to go to the US for the wedding, and since she can't travel easily on the K1, we would have to move there at the same time. (Unless her B2 is still usable -- see other question below.) We don't want to do this, because we want to wait till her son finishes school (next May).

If we do the K3 (spouse visa) -- we still have to get married in the U.S. (since we can't legally get married in Mexico until I've been divorced for 1 year). This would mean that she would have to use her B-2 visa to travel to the US, then we get married and come back to Mexico (is this a problem with USCIS??). Then we wait and hope that a K3 is approved, hopefully by May, 2010.

If we try to get her a CR1 -- is this better/cheaper than a K3? Would that be a better/quicker alternative?

We can't do the DCF route since I am not a legal resident of Mexico. (This seems to be a strict requirement.)

Also, what happens to her B2 (Tourist) Visa if she gets a K1 visa (which does not have multiple entry rights) or if she is denied a K1 or K2? Is the B2 visa canceled, or does it continue to be valid? (This is a BIG question for us -- I can't find any information about this on the net.)

Thanks very much for all your suggestions and ideas!

JohEli

P.S. We have an InfoPass appointment next week in the US - and may use it as an opportunity to ask questions or maybe even file an I- form to get things started.