Get marriage registered in US or overseas for fiance's greencard?

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ff56k

New Member
Hi, pretty sure this may have been asked many times before, but I am a US citizen, with a foreign fiancee and we may decide to reside in the US. We are wondering whether we should get our marriage registered overseas or in the US in the future.

I have heard that getting a marriage done in the US gets the green card process for my fiancee a lot faster, but I have also heard that doing so is more expensive and has downsides (she cannot leave the US for the duration of the application etc.)

She is currently visiting me on a B2 visa, and we do not have plans to get married here, and I plan to travel to her country for a few months. I am wondering if it would be a good idea to get registered here before we leave to speed up the application process, or whether we should do it when we go to her home country.
 
ff56k said:
I have heard that getting a marriage done in the US gets the green card process for my fiancee a lot faster, but I have also heard that doing so is more expensive and has downsides (she cannot leave the US for the duration of the application etc.)
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There will be a window where she cannot leave, but it's more in the 30-90 day range.

She is currently visiting me on a B2 visa, and we do not have plans to get married here, and I plan to travel to her country for a few months. I am wondering if it would be a good idea to get registered here before we leave to speed up the application process, or whether we should do it when we go to her home country.
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Once you get married in the states, she won't be able to return (if she leaves) until the entire GC process is done.

Let's start with how you want to do things. Ideally, when would you want to get married, and where? We can figure out a process from there.
 
Hi, thank you for the quick reply. Ideally we are planning to hold the big ceremony in her country, it has been the plan all along, and we were planning to do it when I go back with her. i also have dual citizenship with that country, and have lived there a fair bit.

The only reason we are considering a registration of marriage here in the US is to speed up application time. We heard that if we do it overseas, the whole GC process becomes very long and tedious. Is that true?

She will be here with me for a few more months, before we return together to her home country. We will be having a wedding ceremony there regardless a few months later. Would it be advisable to hold a marriage registration in the US before we leave? or is it better to go with the GC application from overseas?
 
See below. You are a bit misinformed. Since you are going to get married there, you cannot do the process here. They are two different paths.
ff56k said:
Would it be advisable to hold a marriage registration in the US before we leave? NO! She will NOT be able to return until the green card is approved or is it better to go with the GC application from overseas? Yes
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ff56k said:
The only reason we are considering a registration of marriage here in the US is to speed up application time. We heard that if we do it overseas, the whole GC process becomes very long and tedious. Is that true?
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It is true in some circumstances, probably including yours.

Getting married removes the option for the fiancee visa, and marriage to a US citizen makes it more difficult for her to enter the US with a tourist visa. So if she gets married outside the US, that could result in her having to wait outside the US for the entire green card process until the interview at the consulate, which would be about 6-12 months. With the fiancee visa, the wait outside the US would be about half of that, but the fiancee visa would require delaying the marriage until after the visa is approved and she's entered the US with it.
 
ff56k said:
The only reason we are considering a registration of marriage here in the US is to speed up application time. We heard that if we do it overseas, the whole GC process becomes very long and tedious. Is that true?

She will be here with me for a few more months, before we return together to her home country. We will be having a wedding ceremony there regardless a few months later. Would it be advisable to hold a marriage registration in the US before we leave? or is it better to go with the GC application from overseas?
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If you get married overseas, your wife cannot come back to the US unless she has a GC, a K-3 visa or an H or L visa. As a practical matter, the K-3 takes about as long as the GC so it's not worth bothering with. I suspect your best bet is to get married in the US, remain here until she gets her GC then do a religious wedding in your home country.

It's worth noting that the second "wedding" will have no legal standing; only the first.
 
Thank you all for your prompt replies. We have decided that we will get registered here asap. I wanted to talk to an immigration lawyer first, but being in a small town, there are no immigration specialists in any of the local firms. My question is this. She came here for travel, and I am an american citizen, and if we were to get registered here right now, she would be registering under a b2 visa and not a k1 fiancee visa.

What are the implications of this? What would we have to do or what documents would we have to provide to go ahead with a registration under these circumstances. A marriage here was not premeditated, so I am unsure how to proceed with it as I never planned for such an event. Once again, thank you all for all your advice. Also, anyone knows of a good immigration lawyer in the southwest region of Michigan, it would be greatly appreciated.
 
ff56k said:
Thank you all for your prompt replies. We have decided that we will get registered here asap.
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Do you mean get the marriage registered in the US, and also go through the green card process in the US?

Once you get officially married in the US, she can choose to pursue the process inside the US, or leave the US and pursue it outside the US through a consulate in her country.

If she pursues the process outside the US, there will be a 6-12 month wait before she gets a consular interview and is able to return to the US, but the initial green card paperwork can be filed while she's still in the US and then she can remain in the US for the rest of the 6 months allowed by her visa. That reduces the time of separation while waiting for the interview.

If she pursues the process inside the US, she'll be stuck inside the US for the first 2-3 months while waiting for Advance Parole, but after that she still has to be in the US for the interview. That could be problematic if the ceremony abroad is going to be an elaborate one that needs months of planning; you don't know if the interview will be in 3 months or 6 months or 9 months, and the interview date may conflict with the ceremony.

She came here for travel, and I am an american citizen, and if we were to get registered here right now, she would be registering under a b2 visa and not a k1 fiancee visa.
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Fortunately, they are lenient with that for spouses of US citizens, so USCIS will probably hold their nose and approve the application. However, if she pursues the green card process inside the US from a B2 visa that may make it more difficult for her family members to get tourist visas in the future.
 
My wife and I got married here in the US at the county courthouse. At the time we got married she was under a non-immigrant visa, and we did the GC process here in the US with no problem. In fact, she was approved in 82 days and had the GC in hand 10 days later, but each case and processing timelines are different so there is no guarantee that your case will be as fast or as easy as ours. We then traveled to her home country about 10 months after being officially married by US officials here and had a traditional wedding ceremony there.
 
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