hi there
thought i'd post here and ask for some advice from people who have done this stuff before. i'm british and i'm getting married to an american in february, in the UK. then we're planning on filing a I 130 back to america so that i can eventually immigrate there and live with him. i understand the process takes a long time, and would like to hear from people who've done it, just how long it took before you could move over to america. the annoying thing is we have friends who did the same thing, but from belgium, where you can file the I 130 direct to their us embassy in person, and they were together, living and working in the states in less than a month! i wish i lived in belgium!! so much quicker and easier it seems. but would like to hear from anyone who's been through this process in the UK and hear first hand how long it will take, if there's anything we can do to speed it all up, and also any advice.

one specific question is what if my fiancee comes into the uk to get married on a fiancee visa? would this qualify him as a 'resident' in the UK and therefore able to take his I 130 directly into the london embassy???

any help/comaradery greatly appreciated!!

thanks,
emma.

Hi there,

When you apply at the embassy, this is known as DCF (Direct Consular Filing) and usually you can only do this once you have been married for 2 years and have ILR (Indefinite Leave to Remain in UK), If your fiancee comes to the UK on a fiancee visa and you get married, you then have to change his visa to a spousal visa once you are married and before the fiancee visa expires. Once he has his spousal visa he has LLR which is Limited Leave to Remain in the UK, which means that he can stay and work in the UK for 2years, once the 2 year period is over the restrictions can be removed and they can stay longer (ILR), at this point you can DCF.

If you dont wish to wait to DCF you will need to file at the USCIS office that looks after your fiancee's principal residence in the US. This process can take anywhere from 8+ months, just check out other peoples timelines. There are various requirements that you will need to meet, I suggest you read the guides section of the website as im sure it will answer most of your questions...

Good luck to you both on the rest of your journey

I think the residency requirement for a DCF in London is at least six months, so I don't think you'd be any better off...though you'll want to check with them to be sure. UK fiance(e) visas are easy to get and take very little time to process, though.

The others were right about getting married on a tourist visa, BTW. This is from the US Embassy in London:

http://www.usembassy.org.uk/cons_new/faqs/...a_iv.html#iv036

It's slightly taking the piss though because if you are planning to take up permanent residence in the US you have to have a K-1. Marrying under the VWP in order to go for a faster-to-process visa looks like a loophole since they're not planning on staying permanently ON THAT ENTRY, but they're planning to stay permanently EVENTUALLY. Gotta love it.

To DCF you are supposed to have ILR in the UK, this is only possible after 2 years on LLR

Thanks for that; for us it was never a question since my ILR was issued in 2002 and we didn't apply for hubby's visa until 2005. We never researched it.

I guess they're making people stay on LLRs for 2 years now, eh? Mine was valid for only one year and I was eligible to go ILR after only one year in the UK.

I think that it depends on the duration of the marriage not length of residence... i.e. you had been married for over 2 years.. it didnt matter that you had only been in the UK for a year

Nope, that's not how I did it!

We decided in early 2001 that we would get married. My fiancee visa was issued in March 2001. I moved to the UK in April 2001. We married in June 2001. I applied for the LLR in June 2001. It was issued in July 2001 with an expiry date in 2002. I applied for ILR in 2002 and the visa was issued in October 2002. (The application was delayed because the Home Office lost my passport, then claimed I had not sent it to them and returned the application.)

Thats interesting.. thanks for your post.. just goes to show that all cases are different... and its important to get a varied input..

Take care

thanks for your replies guys! ok, yes i see this info is out of date... it's tough finding these testimonials on the web that get your hopes up!! anyway, have been giving it a lot of thought today and i think it seems that the only way we can avoid a loooong seperation after getting married (which i really don't think i could stand, been through way too much of that already!) is to get married in the states. guess i'll be shipping across friends and relatives! so i think i'll be going for the K1 visa. the only thing that's bothering me is that i heard you couldn't leave america until your green card comes through (like 2 years?) but my fiancee found this page today:
http://www.visajourney.com/faq/k1k2visa-outline.html
that says you can apply for "advance parole" in case you want to travel before you get your green card! anyone got any experience of this they'd like to share??
thanks

Alternatively, you could do what my USC Fiancee (now wife) did - which was to apply for a UK Fiancee Visa (took about a week to get the appointment and got the visa the same day at the embassy), then get married in the UK, and apply for the CR1/K3 from here. As long as you maintain an address in the US you will be fine (we're using her parent's old house which they still own but don't rent out to anyone at the moment). Your USC Fiancee can get the British Equivalent of a CR1 (called FLR) within a couple of weeks (as we did). Although this means you won't be living in the US, you will be together. Feel free to message me if you have any questions about how we did this.

I should also add that unfortunately this option isn't cheap - it was £260 for the Fiancee Visa, and then £500 for the FLR (because we wanted it done the same day - unfortunately the entire computer system went down the day we had our appointment, so we still ended up paying the higher fee, but had to wait longer, and the Home Office refused to refund the difference.)

it may not be cheap, but it's still my favorite

Well, I got mine four years ago; they might have changed the rules between then and now.