Does my wife need a green card to enter USA for work?

M

MrSheepish

Registered Users (C)
First, let me say that this looks like a very nice forum, and I am very happy to see that so many people are volunteering to advise people with their difficult visa issues! This is my first post, and if there is anyone who can give any advice I would of course be very grateful.

Here is the situation:
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I am an American citizen, my wife is a Turkish citizen, and we both live legally in France at the moment. We have both been offered jobs in the same city in the USA and we would like to move there. I naively thought that this would be an easy thing to do, but we are now being told by the state department that a green card is her only real option, which will mean a delay of ~a year before she can accept the job. My question: is a green card really her only/best option?

If she were not married to me this would be straightforward for her: she would just get a J1 visa from the employer (the job is at a university). But since she is married to an American citizen the state department has told me that the J1 visa would probably be denied. Apparently in the J1 interview they would think her intention is to immigrate, which is of course not the purpose of a J1. Even if we could convince them that this is not our goal, immigration is something that we are seriously considering so I would like to keep that option open and not rule it out in an interview.

If anyone has any advice we would really appreciate it. If possible we would like to be able to take these jobs in less than the time it takes to get a full green card.

Thanks!
 
How long since you are married?Why was GC process not started immediately after wedding?...........Looks like you may need legal help.
 
Nancy Mervin said:
How long since you are married?Why was GC process not started immediately after wedding?...........Looks like you may need legal help.
Click to expand...

Hi Nancy,

Thank you very much for the reply. We have been married for two years now. In retrospect I certainly should have started the GC process immediately. I did not do this because we were not sure that we wanted to move to the USA, and because I had thought that I would have the option to do a DCF if I did decide, which looked like it would be pretty quick. It seems that the DCF has very recently been discontinued, however.

I keep hoping that I will find some way for us to be able to apply for a green card, and to have her accept the job and go to America on some parallel visa while we wait. That seems so logical, but I have not seen anything yet that makes that seem like an option.

I probably will check with a lawyer as well unless we find some straightforward alternative in the next day or two.

Thanks.
 
An H1B visa is another option, if she has the qualifications and the university offers her a job suitable for that kind of visa. H1B allows immigrant intent, and universities are normally exempt from the H1B quota, so she doesn't have to wait until October 1 to obtain and use the visa.
 
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Hi Jackolantern,

I just did a quick search on this: it looks like a possible option! From one website (if it's correct) it seems that this is even a case where it is possible to apply for H1B and the green card at the same time. My wife and I are now leaning towards immigration, so that might be worth doing if it works. We will look into this more. Thank you for the suggestion!
 
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