fester001

Hi,
I came to the USA from the UK late last year to visit a woman I had been talking to and emailing for some time.
We decided to marry within the 90 day Visa Waiver and contacted the relevant authorities to inform them and to confirm that I was legal to stay which they did confirm but advised me to complete the change of status forms at my earliest opportunity which I fully intended but during this period my finances suffered terribly (collapse of investments etc) and am now broke and cant afford to submit the forms.
We have decided that I need to return to the UK to try & get my finances together in order to achieve this. I estimate I will be there for a couple of months.
Will I have any problems re-entering the country in order to successfully make things final.(I will be taking my marriage certificate with me for any confirmation issues).
I recently had a friend recommend that we get divorced and then return to start it again when I have the finances sorted as so much time has passed! I do not consider an option!
Any advice will be greatly appreciated my only concern is any re-entry problems.

ian-mstm

Being married to a US citizen confers no special privileges. If you have overstayed your VW by even one day, you are no longer eligible to travel on the VWP - you must have a CR-1 visa. That'll take 8-10 months. So you should plan to stay in the UK for a bit longer than anticipated.

If your VW is still valid (ie still within the 90-day visit), then there's no overstay... but you need to know that it is illegal to enter the US on the VWP with the intent to stay to adjust your status.

Okay... in a nutshell: if you leave the US prior to filing for adjusment of status *and* receiving advance parole, you put yourself in a decidedly worse situation than you're in right now.


Time to get a new set of friends.

Ian

discoviking

If you never submitted any forms for Adjustment of Status, you are now unlawfully present as of the end of your VWP stay. 180 days but less than a year of unlawful presence carries a 3 year bar on re-entry. A year or more carries a 10 year bar on re-entry. The bar is triggered when you leave US soil. This means that if you leave for the UK now, you will not be allowed to re-enter until you have spent the required time outside of the US. Also, once you have overstayed your VWP entry you will be unable to use the VWP again, and you will need an appropriate visa to return.

There is a waiver available to overcome the bar, you would have to show extreme hardship to a USC or LPR qualifying relative (Spouse or parent) if you are not allowed to return to the US, or your spouse is forced to move overseas with you. However, successfully proving why it would be an extreme hardship for your wife to relocate to the UK for the next 3 or 10 years might be a difficult proposition at best.

Since you are still in the US, I would strongly suggest you attempt to adjust status here while you still have the opportunity to do so.

You can find more information about bans, why you do not want to trigger one and the hoops you need to jump through if you do, here:

http://immigrate2us.net/

discoviking

Since OP stated he entered late last year, it would seem he is already out of status and has been unlawfully present here long enough to trigger a ban once he leaves. If that is the case, I would not recommend he uses advanced parole, but rather remain in the US until AOS has been completed. Leaving before AOS is completed would still trigger a ban, and there is no guarantee he will be paroled back in.

fester001

Thanks for the prompt reply, but I was informed by an official from the INS, as was my new wife on a separate occasion that I am not here illegally and am allowed to stay as I married well within my 90 day VW period. How does anyone decide what my intentions were? as I had no intention to marry just to stay in the country. It has only been the cost that has been the prohibitive factor in submitting the forms.
I just need to know what problems I may encounter leaving and re-entering the USA to complete the relevant paperwork.

Bob

Indeed, advice above is good.

Also, might want to have a consult with an immigration lawyer to go over your facts and get clearly in your head what issues you may face and the consequences of doing things wrong as it sounds like you don't have a clue and your friends really shouldn't be listened too.

dbj1000

As you've already been told, you're now here illegally, regardless of what "an official from the INS" said. If you leave the US now, you will be subject to a ban on re-entry.

Read the advice you've been given regarding adjusting your status while you're here. Returning to the UK at this point could be a very, very bad move for you.

Bob

Aye, currently you are okay as long as you send in AOS stuff and stay in the US....if you head back to the UK, you would be in a different situation and you would have intention of then adjusting your station on coming back, which you probably won't be able to do as you probably won't be able to use the VWP and might have triggered the ban.

You would be looking for a whole new different visa process basically if you returned to the UK in simple terms, which would involve a lot longer being out of the US than a few months.

Rete

The USCIS employee is incorrect. You are not here legally. Your marriage is legal and your remaining here was legal as long as the VWP was still valid, but after its expiration you were not longer a legal alien. Marriage to a USC does not make you a legal resident until the paperwork has been filed, is pending and/or adjudicated. Once your VWP expired and you had not filed you started being here illegally.

You will not have a problem leaving the US, they will be pleased to see you go. Viking is 100% correct, that you cannot use the VWP again and if your overstay (time after the I-94 in your passport expired) amounts to 180 days or more, you have incurred a ban and will need to file a waiver of inadmissibility along with your paperwork for an immediate relative visa. Your wife files the I-130 here in the US and when that is approved it is forwarded after some back and forth paperwork with the National Visa Center between your wife and them and then forwarded to London where you will start the process for the immediate relative visa.

My suggestion: Beg and/or borrow the money to file the paperwork while you remain in the US. At least within 90 days (probably much less) you will be given an employment authorization card which will allow you to work. Once you are working you can repay the loan.

discoviking

You are out of status once the expiration date on your I-94 passed, regardless of what an USCIS official told you. Until you adjust status, you are unlawfully present and subject to deportation.

That's irrelevant at this time. It will become a very relevant decision for the adjudicator to make once you get to your AOS interview.

You won't have any problems leaving, but you will have big problems returning, especially if more than 180 days have passed since the expiration date on your I94. Get those AOS forms submitted now.

Just Jenney

The INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) no longer exists and hasn't for several years. If you try to look up the INS at http://www.ins.gov, you won't find it. It's now USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) and their website is http://www.uscis.gov. I recommend bookmarking it.


You were here legally for 90 days. If you spoke with this official within that 90-day period, then what he told you was correct -- at the time. If you spoke with this official AFTER that 90-day period, then what he told you was INcorrect. Since you mention in your first post that you "decided to marry within the 90 day Visa Waiver and contacted the relevant authorities," then I'm going to wager a guess that you spoke with the official BEFORE your 90 days was up. If so, then that assurance became invalid on Day 91.

A very important lesson for you and other newbies to learn here is that USCIS officials DO NOT always provide 100% correct information. In fact, USCIS has a 1-800 helpline which is frequently referred to around here as the 1-800-Misinformation line for a reason -- it's staffed by contract employees who read from a script. There have also been loads of stories posted on here throughout the years by people who were told flat-out wrong information by immigration officials at the border/port-of-entry. So kids, don't assume that you can fully trust what you hear from USCIS officials -- and worse yet, if you follow their wrong advice, YOU are the one who has the deal with the consequences!


Hmm, interesting. Here's the thing: There's nothing illegal about entering the US on the VWP with the intention of getting married. People do it every day (Las Vegas, anyone?). But it IS illegal to enter the US on the VWP with the intention of staying in the country. So based on your own comments, you violated the law regardless of whether you got married because you had immigration intent from the get-go.

So anyway, what does this all mean for you? Your best bet, at this point, is to do everything you can to scrape together $1000-$1500 so you can file your paperwork ASAP. If you were planning on paying cash for your ticket back to the UK, then you're at least half-way there already.

~ Jenney

meauxna

By my estimate, you will be there for more like 3-10 years.
You *really* need to do some studying before you make another move.

discoviking

Putting the potential ban issues aside for a minute, showing up at a POE with a marriage certificate, no immigrant visa and the intent to file for Adjustment of Status once inside the US will almost certainly guarantee you a seat on a flight right back to the UK. Bad idea.

jeffreyhy

f,

Incorrect information given by a government official does not change the law, and it's you, not the government official who gave the bad information, who pays the penalty for following the incorrect advice rather than the law.

Regards, JEff

discoviking

This part of the process will take approximately 8-10 months, and will get you to the London embassy for a visa interview for an immigrant visa. At that interview your visa will be denied if it is determined you have overstayed your VWP entry by 180+ days, and you will be informed as to whether or not you are eligible to file a waiver. You can not submit a waiver until you have been denied a visa. If you and your wife has already carefully prepared your waiver and supporting documentation you may be allowed to hand it in at the end of your visa interview, or you may be required to make another appointment. Once the waiver package is submitted, you wait for a decision. How long that will take depends on your individual case and the level of extreme hardships to the USC petitioner (your wife) can be to proved. It should be noted that simply being separated from a spouse is not in itself classified as an extreme hardship for the purpose of a waiver.

So if you have overstayed by 180+ days from the expiration date on your I94 and leave for the UK now, you are looking at a best case scenario of 8-10 months for a visa interview plus the time it will take to process the waiver and get an approval, or a worst case scenario of 3 or 10 years until you can return to the US if the waiver is denied.