K1 Visa vs Aupair (J-1) Visa

[zic10 0]

My fiance and I are trying to decide the best course of action to take to get married. She lives in Thailand and I live in the United States. She has been to the USA before back in 2014 on a work exchange program for 3 months. We started talking in April of 2015 and I've visited her two times back in Sept 2015 and Dec 2015 at which point we got engaged. We are looking for ways to get her into the United States. Before we got engaged, she was planning to leave Thailand to come to the United States as an aupair through an aupair agency. We've started to fill out the forms and steps necessary for the K-1 visa. However it does seem that this visa can take a while to process ( between 5-8 months typically). The big question we are trying to answer is would it make more sense for her to come here as an aupair and we get marred later on after she has been established in the United States for a couple of months and scrap the K-1 visa? The benefits to this approach is I can visit her in the United States over weekends or days she is not working ( assuming the host family is supportive of this). This would put less stress on our relationship and bridge the distance gap. I've googled this quite a bit and just would like to get some advice/perspective from the community on what the best course of action should be. K-1 visa or Aupair and get married before end of work contract?

[Pitaya 2,576]

Welcome to the forum.

A J1 visa is a nonimmigrant visa. After a J1 visa (work contract) is completed the visa holder is to return to their home country. To use a J1 visa with the intent to immigrate to the US is immigration fraud.

Pitaya

VJ Moderation

Moved from K1 Process to What Visa Do I Need Forum~

Edited January 14, 2016 by Pitaya

[zic10 0]

Hi Pitaya, thank you for responding. If we did not meet each other before her coming here as an aupair, and we met after she was already an aupair then got married, would that not be considered immigration fraud? Is the fact that we have a premeditated plan to get married once she is here as an aupair considered fraud?

[Pitaya 2,576]

You have received the appropriate answer to your question. The last sentence in my response says it all. To continue on this line of inquiry could represent a VJ Terms of Service (TOS) violation. You agreed to abide by the TOS when you joined the forum. The TOS can be accessed here: http://www.visajourney.com/content/terms . Your current line of inquiry borders on a specific TOS violation:

Condone or instruct, either directly or indirectly, others on how to commit fraudulent or illegal immigration activities in any way, shape, manner or method.

I would encourage you to look at the K1 visa program, if you and your fiancee want to get married in the US; or the IR1/CR1 spouse visa if you want get married overseas and then bring your spouse to the US>

Good luck on your immigration journey.

~This thread will now be closed, and this topic is not to be re-started in another thread.~

Pitaya

VJ Moderation