US Citizenship by marriage

S

stlouisblues

New Member
Hi all !

My sister in law (natural citizen) has been dating a student at her college who's here on student visa from St Kit. He's a really nice guy, educating himself, motivated... The kind of guy that makes you GLAD immigration is possible here, ya know? He'd be an assed to our society.

BUT... he has EXTREMELY suddenly proposed marriage to her.
The family's concern is that he may be simply trying to gain citizenship easier.
my question:
DOES marrying a US citizen while here on student visa make it easier to be a citizen ? what kinda process would still be instore for him after marrying a citizen ?

thanks a bunch..
Scott
 
Thanks for the quick reply.

So.. purely out of curiousity..
how much of the process does someone in this situation get to 'skip' ?
3 years ? maybe I have no concept of what immigration takes. But it doesnt sound like THAT much of a time-saver.
 
When making a decision to remove the decision to a.) grant a conditional permanent residency (PR), b.) remove the condition on PR after 2 years of staying married to that same person, and c.) accepting citizenship applications within 3 yrs by being married to the same person, the immigration authorities do extensive background checks and personal interviews to make the determination. Included in these checks are joint income tax payments, inclusion of each others names on bank statements, number of separate accounts maintained and also personal interviews about each other and possible existence of children with each other and so on. Also with recent occurences of "convenience" applications of these kind, the immigration authorities have become very smart about detecting these. So unless both people are in cahoots or one is extraordinarily scheming, such manipulations are very likely to be detected.
To look favorably at that student or not is ultimately your family decision, but there are lots of checks and balances in place to make sure someone does not take advantage of this system.
HTH
PS - I'm one of the family based applicants myself.
 
stlouisblues said:
Thanks for the quick reply.

So.. purely out of curiousity..
how much of the process does someone in this situation get to 'skip' ?
3 years ? maybe I have no concept of what immigration takes. But it doesnt sound like THAT much of a time-saver.
Click to expand...


He saves time over other options onlyif those other options are available !
In his case those options are probably not available so when he finishes college he will likely have to leave the US as his visa is presumably only for studies,. It is possible that he could on graduation get a company to sponser him for a work visa and then an emplyment based green card. These days that is tough as comapnies first have to prove there is no qualified citzen/green card holder available to take the job and that is a challenge these days.

He may be sincere she has to figure that our, but he cetainly does get immigration benefits if they marry it would appear.
 
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