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confused2008

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My Husband is from the UK and currently here as a tourist. As he is from the UK he did not require a Visa to enter the US. I've been living with him in the UK for the past 6 months and we recently flew to the US to get married. At the time we entered the intention was to get married, fly to Mexico for a honeymoon, return here for 2 months before he flew back on his own to England. We had thought him returning to England would be best as we'd be able to save money by both working in our respective countries. We had NO idea that we should have notified the US that we intended to get married here.

Since we've been back in the US we've decided that we would much rather live on less money for a while than even consider separating. We've looked into the avenues of applying for him to stay here with me and that is where it seems to be confusing. We've realized that the safest option would be for him to return to the UK while I file a I-130 and a K-3. We would however much prefer to stay together.

We have found numerous successful cases of people arriving on a tourist Visa, getting married and then applying for permanent residence. In these cases however they claimed that they had no intention of getting married and petitioning for residence. We WON't lie about not intending to get married but we would like to look further into whether the planned marriage would cause major problems.

As I said earlier he had no intention of staying in the country following our marriage. I'd hugely appreciate any advise anyone may have on this. I'm desperate to keep him here but don't want to risk him being deported. I really don't know what to do.`
 
Maybe you can go to a good immigration lawyer when filing since your case may be a bit complicated. I don't see why you'd have problems though since your marriage is real.
 
confused2008 said:
My Husband is from the UK and currently here as a tourist. As he is from the UK he did not require a Visa to enter the US. I've been living with him in the UK for the past 6 months and we recently flew to the US to get married. At the time we entered the intention was to get married, fly to Mexico for a honeymoon, return here for 2 months before he flew back on his own to England. We had thought him returning to England would be best as we'd be able to save money by both working in our respective countries. We had NO idea that we should have notified the US that we intended to get married here.

Since we've been back in the US we've decided that we would much rather live on less money for a while than even consider separating. We've looked into the avenues of applying for him to stay here with me and that is where it seems to be confusing. We've realized that the safest option would be for him to return to the UK while I file a I-130 and a K-3. We would however much prefer to stay together.

We have found numerous successful cases of people arriving on a tourist Visa, getting married and then applying for permanent residence. In these cases however they claimed that they had no intention of getting married and petitioning for residence. We WON't lie about not intending to get married but we would like to look further into whether the planned marriage would cause major problems.

As I said earlier he had no intention of staying in the country following our marriage. I'd hugely appreciate any advise anyone may have on this. I'm desperate to keep him here but don't want to risk him being deported. I really don't know what to do.`
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How would USCIS know he entered to marry you unless you told them? keep it to yourself, file I-130, I-485, and I-765. People come on vacation a fall in love all the time. Maybe he came here as a visitor legally, then meet you, then fell in love?? maybe it was a sper of the moment thing for you two to get married, who is to say?? The main thing here is that he entered legally so he will be able to adjust his status.
 
Thank you for the reply Zadex.

We've already spoken to a lawyer and are waiting on a further consultation. So far they have said it is possible for me to apply for my husband to stay in the country but it is risky. They have said that as a lawyer they can only advise of what options are available however cannot really give their opinion on which one we should take. They suggested we speak to others on the internet that have been in similar circumstances and from there decide which option we want to follow.

Thanks again.
 
We don't want to take the risk of being caught in any lie. We have a mass of evidence to prove that our marriage is a real one. One of the things we have going for us is that we have pictures and video of all of his family and friends involved in our wedding. The wedding we had is not something we could have put together in the 8 days we were in the country before the wedding took place. If we lied I think it would be easy to trip ourselves up.

The other issue is that the lawyer said that we can't submit an I-485 as my husband is here from the UK. People from the UK don't need a Visa to enter as a tourist and therefore he has no status to change. From what we've read so far we think that I'd probably just have to file the I-130. Please let us know if we're wrong.

Thank you for the advice trialanderror83. We really need as much as we can get to make an informed decision.
 
confused2008 said:
People from the UK don't need a Visa to enter as a tourist and therefore he has no status to change.
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Echo what TripleCitizen - this is your clue that the so-called attorney is dangerously inexperienced in these matters. You do NOT require a visa to get status (I've never received a visa in my life, and I've been in the US in B, H, and TN statuses).

Your husband entered via the Visa Waiver Program, or VWP. It is valid B status, and he has an I-94 (actually a green I-94W) to prove it. He can adjust status, but only on the basis of marriage to a US citizen. Out of curiosity, how long ago did you enter the US?

I'd find a new attorney.
 
Thank you Triple Citizen and TheRealCanadian. That paints a very different picture. We entered the US from the UK 5 weeks ago, left for our honeymoon in Mexico just over 3 weeks ago and then re-entered the US 2 weeks ago. Although he did have to fill in the re-entry forms on his return from Mexico we aren't sure whether his 90 days would start gain or would continue from his entry from the UK. We were also wondering if since we entered the US this time as a married couple and that the marriage took place on a previous visit, would they still hold the failure to inform them of the intention to get married against us. We honestly had no clue that we should have informed the government of our intention to marry since he had no intention of staying in the country following this visit.

What you said about us having a status TheRealCanadian is very interesting. It's a confusing one because when we were making calls to find an attorney, more than one of them mentioned that my husband would have difficulty changing status since he's on a Visa Waiver. That being said, we could not find a single piece of information online to back that up. I think I'm going to take the information you kindly gave us back to the attorney to see if she can shed some more light on the situation. If they say this was something they overlooked then I think we may need a new attorney.

Just as an extra, how much of an issue do you think the failure to notify the government of our intention to marry will be?

Again, thank you so much for taking the time to reply. It really very much is appreciated.
 
TheRealCanadian
I have done some more research on the issue and it appears that although you are correct that my husband does hold a B status, as he entered on the VWP he is not permitted to either extend his stay as a tourist or apply for a change of status.

I am still glad you brought it up as it’s obviously important to know what his status is. It raises another concern that as he does in fact have a status but is unable to change it, how can he possibly stay in the country?
 
confused2008 said:
Although he did have to fill in the re-entry forms on his return from Mexico we aren't sure whether his 90 days would start gain or would continue from his entry from the UK.
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If they gave him a new I-94W with a new expiration date, then I believe he gets a new 90 days.

We honestly had no clue that we should have informed the government of our intention to marry since he had no intention of staying in the country following this visit.
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Then why do you feel you had some obligation to inform the government of your intention to marry? His earlier visit was intended to be temporary, and since he then promptly left the US for Mexico after your wedding, it clearly was. There was no misrepresentation at all.

Just as an extra, how much of an issue do you think the failure to notify the government of our intention to marry will be?
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None.

I have done some more research on the issue and it appears that although you are correct that my husband does hold a B status, as he entered on the VWP he is not permitted to either extend his stay as a tourist or apply for a change of status.
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Generally speaking you are correct - with one significant exception. Your husband is allowed to adjust status to a Permanent Resident based on marriage to a US citizen.
 
TheRealCanadian you are an absolute star!

Generally speaking you are correct - with one significant exception. Your husband is allowed to adjust status to a Permanent Resident based on marriage to a US citizen.
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I have done some more research on this and found that what you have said is even confirmed in the i-485 instructions. This I believe removes one of the biggest question marks about our case. The only concern I have left is the fact that we got married without notifying the US government, although I’m also feeling a little happier about this too.

I have checked my husbands passport and he did receive a new I-94W giving him 90 days when he re-entered the US from Mexico. My concern about the marriage stems from reading a huge amount of information stating that entering the country with the intent to get married and immigrate amounts to fraud. Although he did not intend to immigrate I cannot find any documentation that seperates the 2. Hearing your opinion that it won’t be an issue certainly makes me feel slightly better about it.

Thanks again. I cannot tell you how much your advice has improved our understanding of the issue and thus improved our position.
 
confused2008 said:
My concern about the marriage stems from reading a huge amount of information stating that entering the country with the intent to get married and immigrate amounts to fraud. Although he did not intend to immigrate I cannot find any documentation that seperates the 2. Hearing your opinion that it won’t be an issue certainly makes me feel slightly better about it.
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Marriage and immigration are two separate things in the eyes of the law. Now, practically speaking, being married to a US citizen makes it incredibly likely that you will want to live permanently in the United States, but said presumption can be overcome. It's perfectly legal to visit the US, get married, and then leave without telling the US government.

If there's anything I'd be more concerned about, it's your husband's second entry. The first one is just fine because it was clearly temporary. How long have you been in the US, and when did you change your minds about staying here?
 
We've always thought that we'd apply for my husband to move here but did not plan on that happening for another year. If I'm honest without realizing it, I think my mind started to change about the separation while we were on our honeymoon in Mexico. As amazing as it was I spent a lot of time thinking how it was going to be harder than ever to say goodbye to him this time. When I got home I discussed it with my family before deciding that I thought it was better for him to stay. I then broached the subject with my husband and after further discussion we agreed to look into avenues of keeping us together whether it be in England or the US.

To cut a long story short, we've been back in the US for 2 weeks. We'd probably made the decision not to separate with our preference being to stay in the US within a week of arriving back here. That being said, because of the issues involved we still haven't yet decided that it is what we are going to do.

I understand that if we are 100% honest about that it may cause us issues.
 
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