immigration concern, please advise?

S

sweetjimmy

Registered Users (C)
I am a US citizen and last december, I came as a visitor to Canada to live with my g/f, whom I met online. Both of us have gone through divorce... now we are planning to get married this summer. Also, both of us want to move back to the States afterwards, but there is one problem that has her very nervous...

Her first marriage was also to a US citizen that she met online. She came into the country as a visitor that time, and basically cheated the system by getting married while in the states instead of doing the fiance visa. She was in AZ for two years, had a social security number and everything but ended up divorcing and coming back to Canada.

Will any of that play into whether or not she is permitted to immigrate to the States with me after we are married?

I greatly appreciate any advice I get on this.
Thanks!
Jimmy
 
You say she lived in the US for 2 years and had a social security. But did she ever overstay on her visitor visa or did she apply for adjustment of status once they were married? If so, what happened? Could you elaborate more on exactly how she stayed here and if she ever was out of status? That might help us in giving you a better reply.

But this is what I think. If she did stay here illegally (out of status) anytime, that might make it harder for her to enter the country legally now.
 
Thank you for the reply.. I'll do my best to clarify:

She was never out of status, or in the States illegally. She originally came to the US on a visitor I-94 when she should have entered on a fiance visa (at the time, she had a pretty good idea that she'd be marrying her USC boyfriend and settling down in AZ). She did apply for adjustment of status after marrying him but that adjustment did not happen prior to her divorce. After a few trips bouncing back and forth between Canada and US, she finally finalized the divorce and moved back to Ottawa. She has been working in Canada since then.


During one of those trips, I guess she met up with a very irritable US immigration officer that got in her face in regard to how she married, making her feel really bad. She has an understandable aversion to immigration officers, now. And her outlook of being allowed back into the US is pretty bleak.

Unless marrying in the States as a visitor is illegal, she did nothing wrong. She had been issued a work permit and she was actually about to be hired at a college prior to the divorce.

I guess we're just worried about red flags... that it looks like she's just meeting guys online in an attempt to marry and move into the states. I mean, any decent interviewer would realize that she has 2 undergrads and 1 grad degree and makes plenty of money already living in one of the richest countries in the world... it's not like she's going to the states to live off of welfare.
 
I think your girlfriend is fine when it comes to keeping her status. So there are no really no reasons for an officer at a consulate refusing her a visa to enter the country. It is true that you are not supposed to enter the country with a non-immigrant visa like a visitor visa when your true intent is to be an immigrant. But there are a lot of people who enter the country on non-immigrant visas (say like F-1 student visa) and end up marrying and staying on. So unless she tells them that she knowingly came into the country on the visitor visa to get married to someone here and settle down, I hope they don't giver her a hard time about it. One good thing in her case is that she didn't enter the country on a fiance/spouse (K) visa the last time. So you could apply for that this time and it may not be such a big red flag as it doesn't look like she is trying to do the same thing over and over again. But then again, you wouldn't know until you tried, right? So if you guys are serious about getting married and know the approximate time you want to get married, you should probably try to apply for the K-1 Fiance visa (that is probably the quicker one compared to the spouse visa which takes longer) and remember, you guys would need to get married within 90 days of her entering the country. But that is just my opinion and I am not an immigration lawyer :). Good luck!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
sweetjimmy said:
Unless marrying in the States as a visitor is illegal, she did nothing wrong. She had been issued a work permit and she was actually about to be hired at a college prior to the divorce.
Click to expand...
Getting married in the U.S. as a visitor is not illegal. The problem is if she entered the U.S. as a visitor with immigration intent. It could be a red flag if she got married soon after entering as a visitor and then filed for AoS.
 
running_swede said:
Actually, what makes you say that?
Click to expand...

Because of one instance when she was yelled at by a US immigration officer. She was going home to ottawa for a visit and had all the proper paperwork, but the immigration officer could tell that she married as a visitor and i guess he flew off the hook.

She was in the states (as a visitor) 3 months before marrying... hopefully that's enough time.

here's my deal in its entirety (for those of you reading, i have to say thank you for all your help and following along thus far! I'm very appreciative!)

Last year in March, my ex wife left me, citing she was not happy... needed time to herself... blah blah blah. The following May, I found out about all the other men she'd been fooling around with for the previous five years. It had not been a happy marriage, though i fought hard to make it so.

About that same time, I was frequenting a divorce support website and met Kris there. She wasn't quite so freshly out of marriage as I, but she was still hurting and we clicked as friends. My divorce was finalized in July and in August Kris and i acknowledged our feelings for one another. I visited her once in September, once in October, flying up to canada both times. Things went VERY well and in December, 2005, I came to stay for a while and was granted a full year of visitation by immigration canada. We plan to marry in Ontario this July at her mother's country home.

So... If we immigrate, it will be spousal. Bringing her back home is slightly problematic, however...

Q1- How long do I need to be working before I can sponsor her?
Q2- Can she come into the states before I am able to sponsor her, or will we have to spend some time apart?

We're in a pretty good place right now... she is working at a decent job and we don't have any kids, so we're not too terribly tied down financially or dependently. We both dislike Manitoba, though, and the job market in Ontario is crap. We are anxious to start a family so unless we want to wait another year or two for my PRS to go through here in canada, we're going to have to go home where I can support her and we can get down to business (making a baby). :)

okay... whew, i think that's all. Again, thank you... i hope i didn't put anyone to sleep. unless you wanted to sleep... then it's good.
 
you do not need to work if you have enough saving in bank, stocks, lands.. etc. working might not be necessary. however, yo have to show your capability to support her finaincally once she gets to US.

if you do not meet the min. finaincial requirement for support your spouse, and if your spouse has a decent job with good incoming, you can file the I-864 (it is required regardless if you meet or don't meet the requirement), and both of you need to file the I-864A.
if her incoming + yours do not need the requirement, you need to have a co-sponsor. if you get a co-sponsor, your wife and you do not need to file I-864A. but the co-sponsor needs to file the I-864 thou.

you can either do the K-visa to bring her to US and marry; however, you mentioned u want to marry her in Canada. That only leave you an option, which you need to do CP. i do not know if canada would accept DCF. if it would, you could file I-130 (along with all supporting documents) in Canada. If not, you need to file the I-130 to USCIS in US.

good luck.
 
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