shepslady

Hey guys long time since Ive been on board. Life is wonderful & oh so busy. Currently have a 15 year old foster daughter living with us & loving being a part of her life. Cant believe the differences in raising a teenage girl after having only raised boys before. Love our girls time out though, a complete new experience for this old gal!Even though Im waiting to have shoulder surgery life is still great! Hope everyone else is doing just as good.

What Im needing to know is one of my husbands workmates recently travelled to China, met a nice young lady there & married her before flying home to the US. Hes doing the immigration process using an immigration lawyer & is doing what he said is a CR=1 Visa. Obvuously this is something new to both of us so we are now wondering what this process entails. I quickly tried to do a little research on it but didnt find anything that made a lot of sense to me. Does anyone know if this process is faster or better than the old familiar I-129 & I-30 that we know about. Hes been asking us a lot of questions that unfortuantely we cant help hm with. What kind of visa would she enter on this way & what status would she be re green card etc. Hes under the impression she comes in with an automatic 10 year card & we are both thinking that cant be right. Anyone have any input on this for us please??

Cheers

Shepslady

ian-mstm

A CR-1 visa is an immigrant spouse visa for someone who has been married less than 2 years. If the marriage is over 2 years, it's called an IR-1 visa.


For a CR-1 visa, only the I-130 needs to be filed. Once it's processed and the alien has an interview, then when then alien enters the US, she will immediately become a permanent resident. In other words, the entire adjustment process takes place before entering the US.


Feel free to refer him to the Wiki. http://britishexpats.com/wiki/CR-1.


That would be right *if* she enters the US after their 2nd wedding anniversary. Otherwise, it's a 2-year card.

Ian

Noorah101

Hi Cindy!

The CR-1 visa is a spouse immigrant visa. The route you mentioned (I-130 + I-129F) leads to a non-immigrant visa (K-3), and is no longer the preferred route, as it takes just as long as the Immigrant Visa and is more headache than anything else.

Depending on how long they've been married, she might get a CR-1 (if marriage is less than 2 years old) or an IR-1 (if marriage is more than 2 years old). She has 6 months to use the Immigrant Visa to come to the USA. Even if she's issued a CR-1 visa at the interview, if the marriage is more than 2 years old at the time she enters the USA, she should be awarded the IR-1 category and get a 10-year green card. If admitted as a CR-1, she'll get the 2-year conditional green card.

Rene

jeffreyhy

sl,

Not so obvious if you've been around the forum since 2002. But anyway,

CR-1 is an immigrant visa for the spouse of a US citizen when the marriage is less than 2 years long at the time the visa is issued. Start with an I-130 petition by the US spouse, then a DS-230 immigrant visa application by the foreign spouse. With all of the associated supporting forms and documents those two require.

Regards, JEff

meauxna

Cindy, refer your friend to the forums at candle for love; it's a China-specific forum with lots of local immigration information. China is one of those places that can be very difficult; this group has unhooked from the Usenet and tends to have almost exclusively Brits now so won't have the diversity of stories.

He'll find more info if he reads about 'immigrant visas' instead of CR-1s.
If she arrives in the US after they have been married for two years, she will get a 10-year card, otherwise it's the same 2-year card = form I-751 when that expires.
It's the same kind of visa my DH came in with; you become a Permanent Resident (green card) at landing instead of applying extra as you did with the K-1 fiance visa.

shepslady

Thanks everyone that really has helped a lot & I will make sure our friend gets all this information. Im sure he will feel a lot less confused after reading all of this.

Have a wonderful day

Cindy