Process options (split topic)

[timus_liverpoolfc 0]

Hi, I'm in a similar situation as above; I've been reading lots trying to find out the best option but I feel like I'm not going to get exactly what I would like. I hope you don't mind me adding to this thread with my own problems ˆrobbert.

I would love some help on what the best options are for me considering the some of the context of my situation:

I'm an Australian Citizen, my girlfriend is a US Citizen; I can't exactly get transferred since my company needs my skills at my current office location. I'm finding it virtually impossible to find any other employer who is willing to even give me a job interview and sponsor me for an E3 Visa whilst I'm in another country - and it's hard to find people to even talk to you . If anyone knows anyone/any companies hiring Consultants from KPMG let me know!

My girlfriend and I are still deciding when and where we should get married but essentially we really have the aim/objective: To be together in the same city where I can in work in the US to support both of us by early next year (March/April) - or as soon as possible!

We are unlikely to be married until December/January since that is the only time our close family members can get time off to be in another country- however I am visiting her this July for 2 weeks in the US. If we get married in December 2014/January 2015 (in the US) it is unlikely I will remain in the US since I am someone who doesn't like being unemployed, I will most likely come back to Australia and apply for a job once/and if I have employment authorisation (which I don't now, hence I can't really get a job)

What are the best visa options and processes to go through; obviously getting married earlier the better - but even if we do get married earlier than December - I need to come back to Australia to work, until I get a chance to go there for job interviews/have employment authorisation (EAD?) I'm not sure which Visa option is best to achieve my goals to move to the US and work asap/be with her.

Any advice would be very much appreciated!! I've spent hours and hours on this forum trying to figure out my options but I feel a bit lost!

Edited May 12, 2014 by timus_liverpoolfc

[timus_liverpoolfc 0]

Hey N&S, thanks for your reply and advice, I figure that was my best case. I guess the easiest option for me really is the E3 Visa, if I can somehow pull off an employer to sponsor myself. Thanks again for your reply. If anyone has any other options for me, let me know?

Also - Just to clarify - it's okay for me to get married on the VWP as long as I return to Australia, right?

Edited May 12, 2014 by timus_liverpoolfc

[kehills 217]

Timus: Just did the Aussie process, so I can tell you that for us, we could have been married eight months after filing our first piece of paperwork for the K1 VISA. (We went longer for various reasons.)

Robbert000: You cannot leave the country until you have Advanced Parole, if you enter on a K1 VISA. (Well, you can, but then you screw everything up.) AP and permission to work will come at around the same time; depending on where you are in the country, this appears to be running 45-100 days. You also cannot work in the USA until you have permission to do so, either with an AP or EAD. They're really rather strict about what defines work, and do you really honestly want to be doing anything that puts staying with your sweetie in jeopardy? Think about it...

It sounds like you either need to take the longer process of the CR1, and have the ability to move over here and immediately start working, or prepare yourself for a nice long holiday with the K1.

(And to answer your question as to why it matters, because VISA fraud exists, and because they want to make sure you're moving here for a relationship and not a job, bypassing VISA limits and etc for workers, and to make sure you're not taking jobs away from US employees. If you decide to immigrate to the USA for marriage, your entire life becomes proving that your marriage is legit. So you do need to know why they throw up the barriers they do, in part so you don't get caught on them accidentally. This is one of those areas.

Yes, it's frustrating. Be prepared for a lot of frustration for a few years as you jump through hoop after seemingly senseless hoop.)

Edited May 12, 2014 by kehills

[timus_liverpoolfc 0]

Timus: Just did the Aussie process, so I can tell you that for us, we could have been married eight months after filing our first piece of paperwork for the K1 VISA. (We went longer for various reasons.)

Hey! I'm not sure what you mean, sorry? You could've have? What Visa did you go for and how was your experience/length of time waiting for the visa and employment authorisation?

- Post edit: just realised, after looking at your timeline that you applied for K1, which you received, and then obtained Advance Parole? did you have to go to the states and not work for three months to get the Advance Parole? Are you back in Australia now? Sorry I have so many questions!

Edited May 12, 2014 by timus_liverpoolfc

[kehills 217]

Timus: you can click on my name and then under "immigration" click on "timeline" to see how long everything took. You can see the dates we filed, the dates we had responses, etc.

We started the K1 VISA process in April 2013. We got to the Consulate interview by November 2013, meaning we could have gotten married in November 2013 had we wanted. (We didn't. We asked to delay things for a few reasons.) He entered the US in March 2014, we were married in April 2014, and he's doing his biometrics for his AOS today; we expect his EAD within a month (about 65 days after filing for it).

There are caveats to our situation (Aussie immigrant has a PhD, is white, no co-sponsor was needed, etc), but as a general rule, Aussie immigration is on the low-risk side, and seems to be relatively fast compared to the higher-risk countries.

[timus_liverpoolfc 0]

Ah, I see! Thank You!

It actually makes a difference if he is white?! My full name is far from anglo-saxon, do you think that would actually make a difference?

[Ryan H 3,795]

***Posts split into separate thread as poster is posting about their own situation and not replying to the OP of the other thread. If you have a question about your own circumstances, please start your own thread instead of hijacking someone else's. One reply to poster in other thread quoted below.***

To Timus:

I don't think what you are planning to do is feasible. You have basically two options: Get married as soon as possible (either in the US or in Oz or wherever you fancy meeting) and then apply for the spousal visa CR1 - this will allow you to move to the US in a time frame of about 1 year from filing and you'd be allowed to work more or less straight of the bat from when you get there. The other route is to file for a K1 fiance visa (currently I believe around 9 months all in - depending which service center your application goes to), the move over there, get married and apply for AOS. Once you have filed for AOS (and you'd want to file for EAD and AP together with this, i.e. work authorization and travel authorization) it takes 3-4 months for you to be allowed to work. You CANNOT leave the country during that period - or at least you will then not be able to come back because your greencard and work authorization application will be considered abandoned, so you won't be able to sit out the time you're not allowed to work in the US back home. That is the big drawback of the K1 visa, but it gets you there faster. As mentioned above you might be able to get a work authorization expedited by the local USCIS office if you can show a job offer, but as you don't have a company lined up it might be more difficult for you to get one as a lot of companies would want prove of work authorization before extending an offer. I know this is not what you want to hear but that's the available options...

[kehills 217]

Timus - does it make a difference what colour your skin is? I'd like to think it doesn't, but I also don't think we live in that reality. I do think people from areas that are considered high-risk face a much harder scrutiny than those from a low-risk country, as unfair as that can be. And when you get right down to it, an upper middle class white male with a doctorate from Australia is pretty far down on the risk category. It's the combination of descriptors and location, rather than a single descriptor, though.

[timus_liverpoolfc 0]

Yeah, I definitely understand the high-risk thing, just a shame that someone's name will make a difference - it's not like i chose my own name anyway!

So I keep being told I can apply for the K1, and then the K3 once that is pending? or I can apply for the CR1 and then the K3 and move quicker AND work whilst the CR1 is pending?

Am I wrong?

Edited May 16, 2014 by timus_liverpoolfc

[kehills 217]

I have no idea, sorry. We applied for a K1 VISA so my now-husband could enter America so we could get married. We got married, and are now adjusting status. With that came the permission to work forms, and we're waiting on that; right now, they're running about 70 days (so he should get it about three weeks from now). My husband is an academic, so the work season runs on a different timeline than for folks just looking for work in general.

It looks like the permission to work on a K3 VISA is the exact same form, including wait time, for a K1 - so I'm really not sure what the point would be. It looks like it might be easier in terms of income the sponsor is required to have, but I'm not sure. You'll have to ask other folks.

Like I think others have told you, the K1 is faster, but there will be a delay in working the CR1 will be longer, but you'll be able to work right away. You need to figure out what your priorities are...

That said, have you visited the US? Do you know if you will even be able to get a job here? Are your skills in demand? Are you familiar with how much less you will likely earn here? (For example, our minimum wage is $7 something an hour...) Are you sure that you will be able to bring in enough money to live like you want to with your work experience? Is there a reason you're not looking for her to immigrate to Australia? (And that's a really very serious question; that was the question the Consulate wanted the most detailed answer on: why are earth are you leaving a socialist paradise for THAT country?) Are you aware of what it's going to cost to move here, and will you be able to save enough for all the immigration costs, wedding costs, and have money to live on in the time frame you are looking at? How will you handle insurance?

All things to consider, especially when moving from a country that in many ways has a better quality of life than America.

[kehills 217]

- Post edit: just realised, after looking at your timeline that you applied for K1, which you received, and then obtained Advance Parole? did you have to go to the states and not work for three months to get the Advance Parole? Are you back in Australia now? Sorry I have so many questions!

Ah, sorry, just saw this question. No, AP comes after the marriage (as does the employment authorization). We purposefully delayed when the K1 would be granted because the Australian wanted to be in the United States for Christmas (so he could meet my family, spend the holidays with me, etc), but had to be in Melbourne for a visiting scholarship at Monash in the first of the year. He received the K1 during that time (flew from Melbourne to Sydney for his interview, etc), and then immigrated to the US after his contract ended. He entered the country mid-March, we were married the 1st week of April, and then we filed to adjust his status. With that comes filing for AP and employment authorization, which should come in a few more weeks.

So yes, by the time his EAD comes in, he will have been here approximately three months, and it will be around 2.5 after the marriage. He did not leave after entering the country, as that would have been silly and pointless after all the work we did to get him here.

And I'll be honest: I think that time is REALLY valuable. If you've never lived with your girlfriend before, you're going to need to figure out how to share space. Who does the laundry? How do you split up chores? Do you guys clean the same way? Now add all the stresses of figuring out how to live with someone on top of the stresses of getting married (and it doesn't matter how small your wedding is - ours was 10 people, including us - it's still stressful), and that time to just relax into it and figure things out is really useful. (And that's not even including all the issues of immigrating and cultural shock and adjustment; the lack of taxes factored in to prices, the different units of measurement, and a lot of small little things that you don't think are a big deal until you realize how much they stack up.)

[timus_liverpoolfc 0]

Thank you so much for that reply - and all those questions to make me think twice - but thankfully I could answer them all!

I'm a very career-orientated and prudent person when it comes to my personal income. I know my skills are in demand, and I've been to the US a couple of times already for long periods of time.

I'm not worried too much about getting a job but the idea of being unemployed for even 2 months in a completely new country is scary when my career here is in good stead. That's probably the only thing i'm worried about. In terms of leaving Australia, I have plenty of reasons (the state of the economy, government, also getting bored of the culture) I've been in this country for over 20 years and I just need to get out! My girlfriend doesn't mind moving here either but she wants to undertake grad school in the US and her parents and cousins all live in the US. Hopefully the consulate understands that answer - and considering I don't receive any social benefits per-se I feel like the US works similar to my ways.

Anyway, it looks like there is no getting around the K1 or CR1 - if i wanna work it's gonna take at least a year after marriage! That, or I'll have to risk being unemployed for 70 days! The things we do for love... sigh

Anyway, thank you again for your help - and congratulations on getting to where you have today!

[NikLR 13,220]

Thank you so much for that reply - and all those questions to make me think twice - but thankfully I could answer them all!

I'm a very career-orientated and prudent person when it comes to my personal income. I know my skills are in demand, and I've been to the US a couple of times already for long periods of time.

I'm not worried too much about getting a job but the idea of being unemployed for even 2 months in a completely new country is scary when my career here is in good stead. That's probably the only thing i'm worried about. In terms of leaving Australia, I have plenty of reasons (the state of the economy, government, also getting bored of the culture) I've been in this country for over 20 years and I just need to get out! My girlfriend doesn't mind moving here either but she wants to undertake grad school in the US and her parents and cousins all live in the US. Hopefully the consulate understands that answer - and considering I don't receive any social benefits per-se I feel like the US works similar to my ways.

Anyway, it looks like there is no getting around the K1 or CR1 - if i wanna work it's gonna take at least a year after marriage! That, or I'll have to risk being unemployed for 70 days! The things we do for love... sigh

Anyway, thank you again for your help - and congratulations on getting to where you have today!

Actually with the CR1 the beneficiary is granted a green card upon entry and can work as soon as they want to. The CR1/IR1 visa path doesn't require an adjustment of status. Yes it takes longer, but perhaps if the USC can get a qualified joint sponsor they can take time off to visit for an extended period of time in Oz as well.

Hubs and I chose the CR1 route because a) I needed to be able to travel if needed ASAP, b) the cost was significantly less, c) I could work right away, and finally d) if he decided to move to Canada (which was the initial plan) it's easier as a spouse than as a common-law or conjugal partner.

[timus_liverpoolfc 0]

Actually with the CR1 the beneficiary is granted a green card upon entry and can work as soon as they want to. The CR1/IR1 visa path doesn't require an adjustment of status. Yes it takes longer, but perhaps if the USC can get a qualified joint sponsor they can take time off to visit for an extended period of time in Oz as well.

Hubs and I chose the CR1 route because a) I needed to be able to travel if needed ASAP, b) the cost was significantly less, c) I could work right away, and finally d) if he decided to move to Canada (which was the initial plan) it's easier as a spouse than as a common-law or conjugal partner.

What do you mean by "Take time off" by having a joint sponsor? Also apologies if this is a stupid question but what is the USC?

Thanks for your response so far!

[NikLR 13,220]

What do you mean by "Take time off" by having a joint sponsor? Also apologies if this is a stupid question but what is the USC?

Thanks for your response so far!

USC is US citizen

Have you looked at the sponsorship requirements yet? If not I suggest looking at the I-864, the I-864 instructions and the poverty guidelines form I-864p on the USCIS website.