Immigration Options For Children of K1 Visa Holders

[J-Mc 0]

My fiancee has a 13 year old son that would like to finish a school program that will last a few years before he enters the US. We were curious about the best way to deal with his immigration paperwork. In other words, can he stay and study in Ukraine, possibly visit the US during Summers, then eventually immigrate later, or would it be too difficult to get him visitor visa's each Summer, in which case he needs to stay and complete his school before choosing an immigration option?

What I assume our options are at this point:

1. Her son has up to 1 year after she receives her K1 visa to use his K2 visa and immigrate permanently to the US

2. Follow To Join (I-824) - Which still seems a little confusing to me, but I believe we can apply for this a couple years after the initial K1 and it takes around 4-8 months to get approval and costs around $400

3. I-130 - This seems unnecessary if we have the Follow to Join option, but maybe someone can fill me in on the difference.

4. Are visitor visa's an option for children studying abroad that will eventually immigrate to the US? Maybe there's a specific program setup for such scenarios.

As many of you know, the process is very confusing and the USCIS doesn't provide much help, so it's great to have a forum for these questions. Thanks in advance for your advice.

-Justin

[Dana-Mića 51]

A lot of people I know go to school back home and come here for the summer and winter vacations which is about 4 months when you put it together. It might not be right but its the way they have done it for a few years straight. Check your possibilities, and maybe others who have more experience with this will have better answers.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

My fiancee has a 13 year old son that would like to finish a school program that will last a few years before he enters the US. We were curious about the best way to deal with his immigration paperwork. In other words, can he stay and study in Ukraine, possibly visit the US during Summers, then eventually immigrate later, or would it be too difficult to get him visitor visa's each Summer, in which case he needs to stay and complete his school before choosing an immigration option?

What I assume our options are at this point:

1. Her son has up to 1 year after she receives her K1 visa to use his K2 visa and immigrate permanently to the US

2. Follow To Join (I-824) - Which still seems a little confusing to me, but I believe we can apply for this a couple years after the initial K1 and it takes around 4-8 months to get approval and costs around $400

3. I-130 - This seems unnecessary if we have the Follow to Join option, but maybe someone can fill me in on the difference.

4. Are visitor visa's an option for children studying abroad that will eventually immigrate to the US? Maybe there's a specific program setup for such scenarios.

As many of you know, the process is very confusing and the USCIS doesn't provide much help, so it's great to have a forum for these questions. Thanks in advance for your advice.

-Justin

Before answering anything else, I will say we had a 13 year old that came with us and he has done outstandingly in school here. My FIRST option would be to explore his education here.

Complexity goes up from there exponentially

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

A lot of people I know go to school back home and come here for the summer and winter vacations which is about 4 months when you put it together. It might not be right but its the way they have done it for a few years straight. Check your possibilities, and maybe others who have more experience with this will have better answers.

It can be done and it can be done RIGHT. I do not believe it can be done right with a 13 year old for about 300 reasons, the largest being how does a 13 year old maintain plausible evidence of maintaining US residency while he is abroad...as a 13 year old?