I have a question that I hope someone here might have some knowledge about. I am a dual U.S./Swiss citizen married to a Swiss, living in Switzerland, with three dual citizen children. In the years before children, we lived in the U.S., and my spouse had a green card, but that was given up when we moved here. Now that our children our school-aged, we would like to take advantage of a one-time paid no-strings-attached sabbatical opportunity that my spouse has and spend six months in the U.S. The plan would be to spend one third of that time traveling and the remaining time settled somewhere for the girls to attend school, and so experience something of the culture in which I was raised. Ideally, so that we (the parents) are not bored, we would like to do the schooling portion somewhere near to family and friends, with possible informal work collaboration for both of us (we are both academics). As a U.S. citizen, this is not a problem for me, but my spouse would need a visa of some sort to stay in the U.S. for six months, whether any collaboration is done or not. (There would be no U.S. source compensation, of course, since it is a paid leave.) I am having a bit of difficulty figuring out exactly which visa that might be. The J-1 seems to imply that the collaboration relationship must be formal as does the B-1. But I am concerned with the B-2 that the U.S. might not be too pleased with any sort of work or collaboration being done at all, regardless of the lack of compensation. Is this correct, or am I missing something? If anyone has any words of enlightenment, they would be most appreciated!
Thanks in advance!
Thanks in advance!