wendyb

My English sister married an American about 12 years ago. She is now a US citizen. She filed the I-130 last year for me and I live and work in England. Does anyone know how long the wait is for the I-130? I now have a Business and IT degree so will this route allow me entry any quicker?

tbiller

I have a horrid feeling that the waiting time for family-based sponsorship might be up to 10 years (anyone else shoot me down here please)

One faster way is via a working visa (H1-B) which means that you (or rather, your prospective US employer) has to justify hiring you in preference to an American citizen. Not that easy as others here will testify. Or you could apply to study in the USA (F1 category) but there is a time limit on that and it's not an immigration visa anyway.

Or your employers could transfer you to their American office (I think that's an L1 visa) but that's also non-immigrant in that like the F1, you would have to leave if you ever resigned or were fired/made redundant.

Alternatively you could do what your sister did 12 years ago.

Good luck.

Hnchoksi

    >Subject: I-130 dilemma
    >From: wendyb [email protected]
    >Date: 8/8/03 4:46 PM Eastern Daylight Time
    >Message-id: <[email protected]>
    >My English sister married an American about 12 years ago. She is now a
    >US citizen. She filed the I-130 last year for me and I live and work
    >in England. Does anyone know how long the wait is for the I-130? I
    >now have a Business and IT degree so will this route allow me entry
    >any quicker?
    >--

The wait for sibling sponsorship is 12 years. You can try to get a job offer
and H-1. However, know that IT jobs are hard to come by these days..