Fiance's Son wants Visa to US to visit/work which is correct?

[nastra30 1,968]

Op, just ask your step son straight up, would he want to live in the US permanently, work, continue school etc.  Because at this point the clear winner for him is to follow his mom on her K-2 which will eventually lead to greencard (permanent resident of the US). All other visa options are going to be very difficult for him to obtain due to reasons laid out by others above already.

[Neonred 3,444]

8 hours ago, Roel said:

In my opinion his chances of getting a visitor visa are less than 5%. Even if, he cannot work.

So ask your step-son what his choice is - either live in the US permanently or nothing.

I think the chances of getting a visitor visa are much higher than that.  We went through this with my wife's daughter.  She came on the K-2 but didn't stay and went back to attend university.  Decided she wanted to come to visit mom and was able to get a visitor visa without issue.  Her mother wanted her to live here permanently so later we applied for immigration visa.

[SusieQQQ 11,584]

17 minutes ago, Neonred said:

I think the chances of getting a visitor visa are much higher than that.  We went through this with my wife's daughter.  She came on the K-2 but didn't stay and went back to attend university.  Decided she wanted to come to visit mom and was able to get a visitor visa without issue.  Her mother wanted her to live here permanently so later we applied for immigration visa.

It’s well documented that people who had and gave up an immigrant option find it easy to get visitor visas after that, as they have effectively disproved the immigrant intent assumption. It’s much harder for those who might be suspected of wanting to shortcut the process. Remember by law immigrant intent must be assumed.

[millefleur 5,035]

1 hour ago, Neonred said:

I think the chances of getting a visitor visa are much higher than that.  We went through this with my wife's daughter.  She came on the K-2 but didn't stay and went back to attend university.  Decided she wanted to come to visit mom and was able to get a visitor visa without issue.  Her mother wanted her to live here permanently so later we applied for immigration visa.

Not sure why but Ukrainians have a much higher B refusal rate than Russians: 40.97% for Ukrainians and only 14.89% for Russians based on data from 2018.

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Non-Immigrant-Statistics/RefusalRates/FY18.pdf

 

So his odds at getting a B probably aren't that great, especially with an LPR mother in the US...also the J-1 Work and Travel visa is notoriously difficult for Russians to get with a much higher refusal rate than approval, I would assume it is similar for Ukrainians. Best bet is to seek the K-2 if he has plans to work in the US...he can always give up LPR status later if he decides to leave.

[Boiler 43,395]

I think it was a Pew report?, something like 1/3rd of the Ukrainian population have left, forget the actual numbers but remember that it was expected that the population would be down to half soon.

[WeGuyGal 1,052]

A very recent article I read on Ukraine brain drain. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/brain-drain-devastating-ukraine-n976936