nacho1 said:
Thanks , Pianoplayer.
To tell you the truth , we have been online friends for about a year,
and I entered US with a dual purpose , my business visit and actual encounter with her. Now that we have decided to get married, we are
weighing which way is the quickest and safest to marry and file.
Someone advised us, if we did get married in US , we should do it only after
my 60 days of stay in US.
She is a CPA and is employed with a firm; it is hard to take 3 months off
but will do it if DCF is a better option.
It is a very serious relationship ; nothing sham about it.
1. Is a dallas area drivers license enough to show residence there?
2. Does my USC GF have to show residence in dallas too?
3. Will I be legal if my B1 stay expires and DORA processing is still not complete?
Hi:
I am not going to lecture you on the "dual purpose" issue --- I really do not have enough facts to know whether you came here intending to marry. Note that the law requires you to enter the US on a nonimmigrant visa with nonimmigrant intent. Entering the US on a nonimmigrant visa with intent to get married is illegal. However, based on what you told me, it is not enough to say that you intended to get married. It is quite plausible for someone to come on a business trip (i.e. valid for the purpose of the visa) and to meet up with someone he/she met online, provided that there is no actual immigrant intent at that point.
If you truly did not have immigrant intent, you should be fine. It may raise a red flag, but you should be fine ultimately. However, be careful with your use of the words "dual purpose". If you just came out for the business trip and wanted to meet her at the same time, say exactly that. You don't want legal semantics to ruin it for you.
Note: Many on here will tell you that even if you came with the intent to marry and immigrate, that you will be fine. In reality, yes, more and more these days USCIS overlooks this issue, but just be sure that it is technically ILLEGAL and it can pose a problem.
Now finally, your 3 questions:
1. The DL is important, but it is not necessarily sufficient. You must prove
that your reside in the district. You will have to at least show an
apartment lease/mortgage etc.
Note: it does not require you to be DOMICILED (versus a resident) of the
Dallas district, and therefore a DL is not a technical requirement. Since I
own property in CA and go to school in TX(renting), I do not have a TX
DL. The interview was conducted with my CA DL and my wife's TX DL.
However, it was easy to prove that we were both RESIDING in the Dallas
district (at least for the next couple of years!).
2. Likely you will both have to show residence in TX. Most married couples
reside at the same address, which in your case has to be in the Dallas
district. This is not an absolute requirement, e.g. if you can show
compelling reasons why you need to live separately for now, and you can
document regular visits, you may be OK, but it is harder to show.
Note: in effect, you will both have to move to TX. It will be hard to show
that you moved to TX, but she still works in another state etc. Therefore,
I would not advise that you stage a 'sham move' just to file DORA. While
there may be some resourceful people who can get around it in sneaky
ways, you pretty much have to LIVE in the Dallas district.
I have known a couple who moved to Dallas for a year just to file DORA.
But in their case, they actually sold their house and really moved to Dallas
for a year. And in the end, they ended up staying, since it was too much
effort for them to move again.
3. As soon as you file AOS (i.e. have DORA upfront interview), you are in
pending AOS status. Once you receive your receipts in the mail (approx.
2 weeks or so later), you have proof of that status and the clock stops
ticking for unauthorized stay. The clock does not stop ticking only when
you are approved.
To sum this all up, you have to decide a couple of things:
1. Did I come to the US with immigrant intent, and if so, do I want to risk
taking the illegal path of filing for AOS in the US?
2. If you did not come with immigrant intent, still decide whether you want to
do consular processing (with some inconvenience) or file AOS in the US?
3. If you want to file in the US, do you want to move to Dallas (at least for a
while) and file DORA (with some inconvenience, giving up jobs, house etc.)
or file regular process?
Best of luck.
