Marriage location, spousal v fiance, and other Qs

U

UreshiiOtoko

New Member
Well, a week ago I asked the girl of my dreams to marry me, and she said yes :D
I am still euphoric, but the reality of some of the details is starting to creep into my mind, and one of the foremost of those is her immigration. I started to poke around on the USCIS site, and have a rough idea of our options, but it is a little overwhelming and I have some questions. Hopefully, some people here can provide suggestions or advice.

Here is the situation: I am a US Citizen, and a resident of New York state. She is a Japanese citizen residing in Tokyo. We plan to live together in NY once we are married. Ideally, we'd like to have the wedding ceremony in Tokyo, since it is easier for my friends/family to travel there than for hers to travel to central NY. Finally, we have some time before the wedding, it is at least a year off (she has some business commitments to honor in Tokyo, and we want time to save some money up for the wedding itself).

Now it is my understanding from the USCIS site that we have two options:
1) Have a legal marriage in Tokyo, and then file a I-130 Petition for Alien relative. If we did this, though, there would be a wait period between our marriage and when she can legally come to the US to live, right?

2) Get a fiancee visa for her. Once it is approved she has a 180 day window to come to the US, once she comes to the US we have 90 days to get married. After we are married, she'd file a I-485 to adjust her status to permanent resident (along with a petition for Advanced Parole so she could leave the US for trips abroad while waiting, correct?) If we did this, it seems like we'd have the least "separation time" ... that is once we were married in the US, she'd be able to remain here while waiting for the I-485 to go through - she just couldn't leave the US until her Advanced Parole was approved, right?

So, assuming I have my facts above relatively correct, the issue we are wrestling with is how to best coordinate the location/timing of the wedding with all this immigration fun. If we want to have the wedding in Tokyo, is our best option to have just the ceremony, and not file any marriage paperwork in Japan? (I believe the actual legal marriage in Japan takes place at a district office, and is not part of the ceremony, though we have to research this.) Then, she'd enter the US with a fiancee visa, and get our legally binding marriage.

I think the thing we don't want is to get in a situation where we are married but unable to live together in the US for who-knows-how-many months. It seems like if we had our legal binding marriage in Japan, this is what would happen.

Any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions? Are there any other options to consider?

I want to make sure we do everything correctly and legally. And as I said we aren't in a hurry to get to the wedding, so hopefully we have time to get everything worked out!
 
My take on this is - You legally marry her right now in Tokyo without the wedding ceremony. Then start a consular process. Since she has to stay in Tokyo for another year, her immigrant visa should be approved in that period of time. Then you have the wedding of your dreams and bring your wife here after. Since she most likely would have everything approved, there would be no extra separation time.
 
Thanks for the replies, and link to the guide!

I think I pretty well understand how the K-1 works now.

From the guide, it sounds like if we go for the spousal Visa option, we should pursue the K-3 visa, and if the I-130 happens to get approved before the I-129f, we can switch IR1/CR1?

Ninyte:
That is an interesting idea, thanks! Part of it will depend on if she feels comfortable having the legal marriage so far in advance of the ceremony. But that certainly would fit with our timeline of having the wedding at least a year away. If we went this route, would it make a difference if we pursued a K-3 versus an IR1/CR1 ... would on of those be more appropriate/convenient?

Also, once we submitted the I-130 and were waiting, would she be allowed to come to the US for visits as a toursit(not to stay) or would she not be able to enter the US at all?

Again, thanks!
 
From the guide, it sounds like if we go for the spousal Visa option, we should pursue the K-3 visa, and if the I-130 happens to get approved before the I-129f, we can switch IR1/CR1?
Click to expand...
CR1/IR1 is the same visa, pretty much. It's just an immigrant visa.

once we submitted the I-130 and were waiting, would she be allowed to come to the US for visits as a toursit(not to stay
Click to expand...
not unless she has K-3.
 
Basically every option suggested is viable - however, you mentioned a timeline... I think the fiance visa is going to be the quickest for you with the *least* amount of time for seperation.

I might do it like this... apply for k-1 visa, then she can come here legally, then get married in the courthouse or just have you, her a priest and a witness do it. It's kinda procedural and not too romantic, but, you can then stay together while here... then you can file a I-131 for her to get advanced parole, then travel back to Japan and have a 2nd/real wedding ceremony there for her family and your family and then you can immediately come back to the US without a wait.... problem solved? Up to you....

Check out the book I have listed in my signature.. .it was a huge help for me and will most likely be for you as well. It lists all options possible.
 
Thanks for the additional information and suggestions.
One of the main factors we have to deal with is she has business commitments in Tokyo through most of next year, so we'll have to work with the fact that she needs to be in Tokyo until at least the fall. I think we have enough info to start to figure out how to best arrange everything.

One more quick question ... I was able to find avg times for most of the forms to be processed, but couldn't find the average time for Advance Parole, does anyone happen to know this, or a good site with updated times?

Thanks again everyone!
 
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