Richard Fox

Hi all,

I met my Eastern European girlfriend while she was here on a J1 visa as a Humphrey
Fellowship scholar. She is an employee of her goverment, and got permission to leave
her position for the duration of the Humphrey's preogram. She needed further
permission from her government to get an extension until October to work on a
contract for an international monetary organization. She originally had to sign an
agreement to return and work in her country for 2 years upon completion of her
program, which I believe is standard.

My question is what are our options to allow her to stay in this country with me and
be able to work as well. A friend told me that she can overstay her current visa and
we should get married and then apply for a new visa. Is this a smart course of action
(yes, we do want to get married). Are there other options we should know about?

Thanks very much.

Rich

Paul@HelpDesk

Looks like she needs a J1-waiver first.

It is possible that she could extend her J-1 further.


You may find the following links helpful:

http://www.isso.cornell.edu/immigration/marryusc.html
http://www.visapro.com/Green-Card-Fa...US-Citizen.asp


Paul @ HelpDesk

Sylvia Ottemoel

Richard Fox wrote:

    > I met my Eastern European girlfriend while she was here on a J1 visa as a Humphrey
    > Fellowship scholar. She is an employee of her goverment, and got permission to
    > leave her position for the duration of the Humphrey's preogram. She needed further
    > permission from her government to get an extension until October to work on a
    > contract for an international monetary organization. She originally had to sign an
    > agreement to return and work in her country for 2 years upon completion of her
    > program, which I believe is standard.
    >
    > My question is what are our options to allow her to stay in this country with me
    > and be able to work as well. A friend told me that she can overstay her current
    > visa and we should get married and then apply for a new visa. Is this a smart
    > course of action (yes, we do want to get married). Are there other options we
    > should know about?

She cannot become a U.S. permanent resident, even through marriage to a U.S. citizen,
until she has either fulfilled the J-1 two year home country physical presence
requirement, or had it waived.

She cannot obtain H-1B status either, until she has the 2 yr HRR fulfilled or waived.
H-1B is the standard temporary worker status for professionals.

She may be able to get a waiver of the 2 yr HRR through a statement of no objection.
Here are some sites on the topic: http://travel.state.gov/waiver_instructions.html,
http://travel.state.gov/j_faq.html, http://travel.state.gov/jvw.html.

If the "no objection" waiver method is not available, perhaps because of the terms of
the funding, she will probably have to get an interested government agency waiver.
The "extreme hardship" and "persecution" type waivers are very very difficult to get.

The IGA waiver is also difficult; it requires that she get a job offer such that a
government agency is willing to say that her presence in the U.S. is in the
national interest.

Even while obligated to the 2 yr HRR, she is eligible to obtain other statuses
besides H, L, or PR, if she leaves the U.S., gets a visa stamp, and returns to
the U.S. These includes F-1, if she wishes to pursue some academic program, or
O-1, if she has extraordinary ability, and a job offer which requires the
extraordinary ability.