I recently got offer a job my company to move to their US office for a minimum of 2 years starting 01/01/2013. It seems that I would be granted a L1A Intra Company Visa. (Working in my role for at least 1 year within the last three years + working in a senior position in the US)

I'm in a relationship with a British National, but however we are not married. We are living together for over a year now.

If I got everything right, the options for her to come over would be

1) Obviously, getting married
2) 90-day VWP
3) H1B
4) B2 Cohabiting Partners

Did I miss an option?

My preferred options would be the H1B or the B2 Cohabiting Partners.

I read that the H1B is closed until October 2013, so I was wondering, if she could come over on a B2 Cohabiting Partner visa first and then try to apply for a H1B (keeping in mind she would find someone to sponser her ).

- Which documents would help to be granted a B2 CP visa?
- When would she be granted 12 months on a B2 CP visa?
- Would she have to leave the country to be granted a H1B Visa afterwards?
- If she wouldn't be able to find a sponser, could the B2 CP visa be extended?
- What is the latest application date for the H1B visa to get a visa starting October 2013.

I'm going to consult an immigration lawyer as well. If anyone has any recommendations, please send me a message.

Thank you for your help.

Toby

Forgot to mention that I might be granted a E1 visa as well. But I don't think that I would make any difference to my girlfriend, would it?

Get married now and she applies for an L2 (if you're on L1) or E1 dependent (if you're on E1). Both come with social security numbers and the right to work on application.

All other routes are miserable for both her and you.

Ditto what fatbrit said.
If she were to come over on an H1B she would need to find a company that would apply for one on her behalf, or did you mean that you get the H1B?
If you did go that route then the company would apply next April for a starting date of Oct. 2013.
If you were to marry your gf and you were on an H1B she would be on an H4 and unable to work.

Proof that you've been cohabitating for as long as you have. The documents will depend on what you have available...joint lease, joint mortgage, joint rental agreement, joint other stuff showing both your names at the same address, and that you are in a joint relationship.

IF she gets granted 12 months (the norm is 6 months), it will be at the US POE as she enters the USA.

Yes.

An extension can be applied for, yes. No guarantee it will be approved.

Well, earliest date is April 1, 2013. Latest depends on how fast the quota gets eaten up.

Rene

Get married or break up are the realistic options.

She can search here for the millions of threads on H1B's to figure her chances of getting one and they are hard to come by someone willing to bother sponsor for it because of the cost involved.

B2 doesn't allow work and the biggest issue would be medical insurance because not being your spouse would probably mean she couldn't get on your company plan and without insurance only someone daft would consider it.

Hi all

Hope you don't mind me gatecrashing this thread as I have a similar question but didn't want to duplicate.

My situation is that my boyfriend and I are British citizens and has been offered a job in the USA on an L2 intra company transfer visa. As we are not married, we have been looking into a B2 cohabiting partner visa for me. I know this means I can't work or study but we are ok with this as it is not a permanent arrangement, we are thinking perhaps for just a year. Healthcare is not a problem as my boyfriend's work have confirmed I can be on his healthcare plan.

His company have been very generous and have hired a US based immigration lawyer to assist us. However, the lawyer has told us that me getting a visa would be "near impossible" because B2 cohabiting partner visas are for homosexual couples only. Now I am pretty sure this is not true and am now worried about the expertise of this so called lawyer.

Anyway my questions are, if anyone can help me:

1. Is the B2 cohabiting partner visa suitable for heterosexual couples? We have been living together for some time.

2. If I were in the US on this visa and we eventually got married, would my temporary B2 visa status in any way affect the green card process?

Also, I was hoping there may be someone here who has gone through this process and used a UK based lawyer or company to assist them and could perhaps recommend someone to me?

Thanks in advance if anyone can help me with any of my queries.

Then the lawyer is shit.

Get the company to use a proper, experienced immigration lawyer.

Once you're married, you'd do a change of status to L2, but you'd need to do that before getting so far down the line in the greencard process I believe, but definitely want to be married before it's granted for sure.

The B2 status is usually granted for 6 months. Sometimes you get lucky and get it for a year, but if not, you'd have to apply to get it extended, or leave and re-enter the country.

If the company prepared to keep paying for that?

And what is the cost to you to be on your OH's medical insurance? It's rare that a unmarried person would get added, it's even rarer that the company would not pass on that considerable cost to the beneficiary.

Thanks for responding Bob, you have really helped.

I thought as much about the lawyer which is why we're hoping to find a UK based lawyer on our own, one that actually knows what he's talking about!

I was surprised too about the health insurance but they have confirmed to us it can be done. It's a very successful British company and they are being extremely generous to us so money isn't so much of an object in that respect if we need to cover the costs.

I thought I would have to probably apply for an extension after 6 months so I guess it's just something I'll have to put up with.

Thanks again for your help, will continue to search for UK based legal advisors.

Immigration is federal, so it doesn't really matter where they are based, saying that, one based in London will be a lot more expensive than one based in the US.

Your boyfriend will be getting an L-1 visa. If you marry him, you'll get the L-2 visa.


The UK company is going to pay the US premiums? Wow!


The lawyer is an idiot and should be fired... and your boyfriend should report the lawyer's incompetence to the company!

Ian

I don't have anything helpful to add since your questions have been answered but I wanted to say how utterly ridiculous this is. Is this clown really an immigration lawyer?

Thanks everyone for your comments, I now feel better that I'm not the only one who thinks this lawyer is completely incompetent.

Dont get me wrong, it may well be that we have to pay for my heathcare cover but I'm just grateful that they have offered to cover me in the first place (its a gaming company based in Las Vegas so they have no shortage of cash, they have even offered to pay to ship our cat out there with us!)

Thanks again

Casino?

Or video games? Because there's only a couple there and they are as flaky as a head and shoulders commercial.

Shipping a cat isn't that expensive either and for a company transfer, pretty standard, you really should look at the wiki to see the kind of things people negotiate.

Its online gaming (William Hill to be precise, am I allowed to say that? )

Thanks for the tip, I'll check wiki out. They pretty much are giving us everything we are asking for (including flights home twice per year) so it will be interesting to see what's standard for this type of thing.