Cami123

Hi all,

I had not been around for a good long while and I have a somewhat complicated question. My wife and I (same sex couple) are living in the US on J1 visas (we came in with our own J1 each). The DS2019 and the passport visa were both valid until Feb 2019 when we entered. Mine has since been extended to Feb 2022 and I have the DS2019 with a date of Feb 2022 but the passport visa stamp has not yet been updated as we have not left the country. My wife has been granted the extension to 2022 as well.

Now our difficulty is the following: my wife is pregnant with a due date at the end of December. We have just been informed that her work will not start the DS2019 paperwork until 5 months before the expiration date, which puts it at the end of September. They also quoted us a 6 - 8 week time frame for them to process the DS2019. That would mean my wife would be too pregnant to travel back to the UK by the time she gets it in order to get the passports updated. To make matters worse, as a same sex couple I have to adopt my baby once it is born, a relatively straight forward process in the state we are in, but still - we need all paperwork to be in order for it, and with expired visas in our passports... well, that does not fill me with confidence.

So 2 questions: 1) has anyone had similar difficulties? What could we do to press her work to get us the DS2019 done earlier, so we can travel to the UK in September when she can still fly?
2) has anyone renewed their J1 in Montreal? I think we could potentially fly to Montreal and do it there, the flight is short and they may be willing to fly my extremely pregnant wife over, but we don't know the process there. Is it fast? How long approx? Is it easy? We wanted to do it in London because we know exactly how to do it there and we know the timeline, we are scared to do it in a new country where we don;t know these things. Googling has not been the most useful.

We definitely do not want to be in the country with expired Visas in our passport (despite that being the solution my wife's HR offered).

Thank you!

Noorah101

If you have your status extended until 2022, you don't need a new visa in your passport UNLESS you are going to be traveling outside the USA. The visa is just there to get you into the USA; once you are here, it's your status that is important, and you both have approved status until 2022. I don't see a problem.

Rene

Cami123

Well, we will definitely want to travel outside of the USA between Feb 2019 and Feb 2022. Our families are not here and we do not want to be "stuck" in the US for the next 3 years. We are academics and need to go to conferences etc... not renewing the passport part of the visa is not an option for us.

Rete

Well can you not wait until after the birth and mother and child are free to travel to return to the UK to get the new J visas in your passports.

Cami123

Due to the adoption process starting ideally as soon as the child is born, we would really like it to be all in place before the child is born. Of course we can delay everything, travel after the birth and do it then, but due to the miserable maternity leave conditions of the US, this would be relatively difficult in terms of time off work or we would have to stagger it. I have been saving every hour of time since Feb 2017 to be able to stay home a few months after my wife has to go back to work.

The DS2019 CAN be generated earlier since I have mine and it took no time at all, so that is the real hldup. There are many solutions to this problem that make our life exceedingly difficult, but they can all be avoided if they could generate this document a month or two early. That is my real question - whether someone knows of a way to do this.

My secondary question was if anyone had done a renewal in Canada, ideally in Montreal.

While I am grateful for people coming up with solutions for us, we are aware of things we can and cannot do - but we are also aware that my maternal rights depend on an adoption we want to start as soon as possible once the child is born and that we only get limited and unpaid time off after the birth. So being able to fix something relatively simple before it is born, would be our much preferred option.

jxv73

These two statements appear to contradict each other. If your wife has been granted an extension until 2022, then she can get a J-1 visa stamp with a validity date through 2022 by going to a US consulate, ideally your home country

Cami123

No, they do not. She needed to be granted an extension by her work - that has been granted. Her boss wrote the official letter that shows she will continue to be employed until 2022 in her current academic position - thid is the "go ahead" for the DS2019 to be updated/renewed.. The processing of the DS2019 is the next step - her current DS2019 is until Feb 2019, she needs it to be until Feb 2022. We have no doubt it will go through, the only issue is timing as the network through which she works takes a lot of time to do it and only starts processing the DS2019 5 months before it is due to expire.

B488

When I got DS-2019s renewed, my impression was that the administrative burden for the University international office was pretty low. I'd play hardball and point out that there's no technical reason for them not to do this, and that their policy is pointlessly causing people to make an unnecessary round trip to Europe. Maybe get the Dean involved and allege lack of support for new mothers?

My partner and I eventually got sick of these problems and went down the EB2-NIW route, for which you quite possibly qualify as academics. Only one spouse need petition, and you don't need a sponsor, just a lawyer, money and reasonable citation metrics for your field and stage of career. I think the relevant downtime for travel would be 2-3 months of petition preparation plus the time for advanced parole to be approved. The J1 2 year rule can delay things a lot, but you might not have that.

jxv73

Usually in the immigration context and "extension" means Extension of Status.

The timing is unfortunate but with the DS2019 she can get a new visa but not before. Other than calling and insisting and making yourselves the best friends of whomever has to push the DS2019 through in her "network", I cannot see how else to accelearte this