Anna_Lind

I am a US citizen and my fiance is a J1 (visiting research scholar) visa holder. He is and Irish citizen, but he was born in London.

We would like to get married in the US before his visa expires at the end of his third year as a research scholar.

How soon after marrying can we expect for his status to change? We will stay in the US for the next 4 years (for my graduate school) but after that we would like to live and work in the EU.

Upon our marriage, will his status immediately change? If his visa expires while our paperwork is pending, can he legally remain in the US?

Any advice or help is very very very appreciated. We are both confused about the ins and outs of visa/greencard/citizenship.

Thank you,
Anna

ian-mstm

You can file to adjust his status as soon as you have a copy of the marriage certificate (usually only a few days). Once you file, he is able to stay in the US until the case is decided... which could take a year or so. If his J-1 is valid, he can continue to work for the J-1 sponsor, but he can also apply for an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) which will arrive about 3 months after filing and will give him the flexibility to change employers. Once you file, he should not travel on his J-1 but instead use Advance Parole (AP) which will also come about 3 months after filing.


He might want to consider remaining in the US long enough to get US citizenship - which, if you decide to return to the US in the future, will make it really easy for him to get back here. If he ultimately gets a GC and leaves the US to work in the EU, his status may be deemed abandoned which will negate everything you have done so far. You want to avoid that if possible.


It will once you file to adjust his status. But it will not be official (or final) until his GC is approved.


As long as you file to adjust his status, yes. He can remain here under "color of law".

Ian

Noorah101

Hi Anna, Welcome to BE.

First of all, does his J-1 have the 2-year home residency requirement on it? That's the most important factor.

If it does NOT, then he can apply for his adjustment of status to permanent resident (AOS) after you get married. His status does NOT automatically change after you get married. There are adjustment forms that need to be filled out and fees paid. It can take anywhere from 3 - 12 months to get the green card in hand, but filing AOS gives him permission to stay in the USA while waiting, and he can get permission to travel and work.

Best Wishes,
Rene

ian-mstm

Damn... I knew I forgot something!

Ian

Anna_Lind

Thank you for the advice and help.

We will marry 8 weeks before his J1 expires. If we file the marriage certificate, forms, and pay our fees immediately after our wedding we should expect him to be unable to work for at least 3 months (until everything is processed)?

He will also not be allowed to leave the country until the Green Card is finalized in about 12 months?

Thank you for clarification. It is important to us to properly budget for the waiting period, and to schedule our travel.

Anna_Lind

NO there is not a 2 year-return-to-the-mothership clause in his visa, THANK GOODNESS!

ian-mstm

As I said before, if his J-1 is valid, he can continue to work. Why not marry 12 or 16 weeks before his J-1 expires?


As I said before, AP is part of the adjustment package. Google will help.

Ian

Noorah101

Just curious, why wait to long to get married? Why not marry earlier, so that he can continue working on his J1 until he EAD comes in (about 3 months after filing AOS)?

Well, if you marry earlier, he can continue working on his J1 and have no gap in his work authorization.

The AOS package includes an application for Advance Parole (AP), which will give him the freedom to travel overseas while waiting for his AOS interview. It takes about 60 days to get the AP in hand. He should not leave the USA before having the AP in hand.

Rene

Anna_Lind

Now for the gory details:

We were originally planning on not marrying (right now) but switching his visa to an H1. At the end of his current contract, he planned on seamlessly transferring to a new job and changing his status.

Unfortunately academic jobs in his area of expertise (and with this economy) are proving difficult to secure. His J1 expires in 8 weeks--not enough time for the visa to transfer to a new job, even if he got one today.

Instead he will have to return to Ireland, wait for his new visa paper-work (weeks? months?) and return again to the US. During which time we have our apartment rent to consider etc. It seems like a giant waste of money.
The other alternative is to allow for his visa to expire and apply for a fiance visa which takes approximately 8 or 9 months. Another big hassle.

If I can keep him here, save the cost of flights, etc, and he can continue to to look for work I will be happy to marry him sooner than our original plan (have a wedding next year).

Although marrying him now (only 8 weeks before the J1 runs out) may not save us much--he will not be able to work until the paperwork is processed anyway.


-Anna

Anna_Lind

Only 60 days for the Advance Parole to be processed? That is great. I am going to be reading about AOS and AP and see what it entails.

Thank you very much. This has been such a rapid source of information. J1 visas are not as common as the other types of visas, and it is a big help to get specific answers for our situation.

Thank you again,
Anna

Noorah101

Ah! That puts everything into perspective!

I agree, marrying and filing for AOS as soon as possible is the way to go.

It will save the hassle of going through the visa process overseas, you can stay together in the USA while everything processes, and the fee is $1,365 plus the cost of a medical. I think it would be more cost to you if you have to factor in air fare back and forth, plus the stress of being apart for 6 - 10 months (depending on which visa you wanted to get).

Yes, he may experience 2 or 3 months of not having work authorization, but that's just the way it goes.

You can go to www.uscis.gov, Immigration Forms, and take a look at the following forms for AOS:
I-130
I-485
G-325A
I-864
I-765
I-131

Rene

Anna_Lind

Thank you! Just this morning this problem seemed overwhelming, but now we have a information and a good idea of what to expect.

This forum is amazing! :-D

Anna_Lind

I just got a quote from an immigration lawyer for $2,000 + filing fees ($1,365). Is this a normal amount? I am not sure if we need an immigration lawyer because he is here legally (on his J1 visa) and I am a regular old US citizen.

Is there a general belief that immigration lawyers are worth the money? (I make 24 k a year as graduate student so this is not a trivial amount for me!)

-Thanks for the advice,
Anna


Edit for Clarification:
Mark and I have decided to marry 8 weeks before his visa expires (this Friday). We are debating to hire a lawyer to fill out the forms that Rene has listed above and make sure everything runs smoothly. My question is a lawyer more expedient, or will I pay $2,000 for a secretary to fill in paperwork that I could do myself?

Noorah101

It really depends on your comfort level with filling out forms, doing your research, making sure things are done properly. Some people use an attorney, some do not. It really is a personal choice.

You'll need to ask the attorney how his office is run, whether he personally does the work of filling in the forms, or if he hands that to a secretary-type person to do. The lawyer will NOT expedite the AOS process, but if you run into a snag the lawyer will be there to help you fix it.

Rene

DCMark

Hi. My wife was on a J1 and we did exactly this, including getting married a year before we wanted to. We just did the civil wedding in the US and had our family wedding in France a year later.

As for the lawyer: it sounds like you two are intelligent, you are already asking the right questions here. $2000 is in my opinion a huge waste of money. The forms are not that hard to fill out and you always have this messageboard to visit to ask questions.

Good luck. It has been 6 years so I do not remember the details of how we did it. In fact, she abandoned her green card 3 years ago when we moved to Europe. Since we are never living in the US again, that was not an issue to us.

Another tip: Start working on getting your Irish citizenship right away so you can get an EU passport.