Tracym

Immigration consultants main function is to separate you from your money.

She needs an immigration attorney.

www.ailalayer.com

Bill_S

I agree the friend needs both an immigration lawyer and a family lawyer.

I suspect the OP got the term "immigration consultant" from the Canada forums. In Canada, Immigration Consultant is a licenced, regulated business, so it isn't necessarily a bad word everywhere. With regard to US immigration, though, I don't think there's an equivalent.

meauxna

Does she know that she can't just come over here, marry him and stay?
Does she know that he can not just come over and marry her without a visa (if she is in the UK)?

What application does she want to make?

Chick-a-dee

Yes, she knows that she can't just turn up in the States, get married and then stay there - though I think that she may have expected it to be more straight forward than it actually is.

Similarly, she knows that he can't come over here, marry her and then get a visa. Incidentally, he was deported last time he came to the UK because they suspected that he would try to stay illegally!

She isn't sure whether she will be better off applying for a fiance visa and then getting married, or getting married and then applying as a spouse.

Eitherway, the visa that she goes for is the least of her worries, given the difficulties that she will face in proving support or managing to legally remove her children.

Noorah101

In general, the spouse Immigrant Visa is the "better" visa, simply because there is no adjustment paperwork once inside the USA (as there is with the K-1 fiance visa). So if she can manage to get married first and then apply for the Immigrant Visa, that's a "better" route...but it will delay her coming here because they can't start any of the paperwork until they can meet somewhere and get married.

If she wants to start the process NOW, it will have to be the K-1 fiance visa.

Both the Immigrant Visa and the K-1 visa take roughly 8 to 10 months to complete.

Rene