Getting married while girlfriend is on an F1 VISA

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Lucubrate

Registered Users (C)
My Chinese girlfriend (for the past two years) is on an F-1 visa and attending school full time.

1. Are we permitted to get married and she stays on her F1 visa ?

2. Are we required to notify "immigration" of this marriage ?

3. What happens after she finishes school in four years and we will have been married for over two years ?
 
1. Yes.
2. No.
3. You have not indicated what you want. Are you a citizen? Green card holder? Chinese citizen? Do you both want to go back to China after that or live here? No body cares about marriage by aliens unless they want an immigration benefit. So you can provide more details for an answer. The way you ask, well, once she graduates she can happily return to China.
 
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del0175 said:
1. Yes.
2. No.
3. You have not indicated what you want. Are you a citizen? Green card holder? Chinese citizen? Do you both want to go back to China after that or live here? No body cares about marriage by aliens unless they want an immigration benefit. So you can provide more details for an answer. The way you ask, well, once she graduates she can happily return to China.
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I was born in California and am a USA citizen. When she is finished school in three to five years, we both live together married and stay in California. So when she no longer attends school, what should be done?

Will I need to go through the interview process, proof of support, etc. ?
 
Actually, as soon as you have the financial means (either directly or through your family members), as soon as you legally marry, you should sponsor her for a green card (if you visit the USCIS website, you will see that you can do the paperwork yourself. The sooner she is a permanent resident and citizen the better it is for you both. Good luck.
 
Thank you, but why ?

Why is it better for her or us to get a green card sooner ? Why not just get married and later change her student visa to marriage ?

Can a woman on a student visa get married and stay on her student visa ? What is it called when a woman on a student visa for four years while also married to a USA citizen, then changes her status to that which is appropriate when married ?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
<<Can a woman on a student visa get married and stay on her student visa?>>
Yes.

Actually, she can be on her student visa as long as she is studying and apply for GC before it ends, so you have the time to do it.

I don't understand, though, why you do not want to start the GC process right away. Don't you both have the money to support yourself? She should be already supporting herself because otherwise she cannot get the student visa? And since that must be the case, her finances can be used towards financial support documentation.

A GC will make her life easy by not having to bother with student visas and related paperwork. She can also work while she is a student. Since she is from China and needs visas for almost every country, a GC will make that process easier and might even eliminate need for visas for countries like Canada. In addition, after just 3 years, she will be able to file for citizenship. So in your case just the fact that she will be able to work legally anywhere she wants, travel easily, and start building a new life in America is enough to start the GC process.
 
The previous users basically has answered all the benefits of getting your girlfriend and getting GC ASAP. Hence, I will try to shed some light on the risks of not doing so. I was in a similar situation as you are and I ran into all sort of headache by delaying. So here are the risk

1.) Potential long delay in your case. Potential RFEs are high nowadays. USCIS is a government agency and you know how efficient they are. My case was like yours US citizen sponsoring spouse mean processing time about 6 months. Mine drag for more than a year!

2.) Lost documentation of file. Happened to me as well, USCIS lost part of my paperwork.

3.) Potential changes in regulations and filling fees.

So, item (3) may not be so compelling but my advice is to get it done asap, unless you have other no immigration/uscis issues for not doing it.

All the best.

TungFong
 
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