Looking for help from my compatriotes

[kimandfred 0]

Hi everyone,

Kim and I met 9 years ago when I was styudying in high school in the US for a year. We kept in touch the whole time to finally realize we were in love with each other (yes, it took some time and is a little movie like but oh well...) We applied for a K1 VISA on March 2007. It's July 2007 and we don't even have the hard copy of the NOA1. The check has been cashed and we have a tracking number and everyone who filed in this timeframe is in the same situation (some received the hard copy though) but this is way too frustrating. On top of that Kim doesn't have vacation time anymore, she just came to visit me in Paris for the 1st time last week. I do have more vacation time because we, lucky french people, have 5 weeks/year. However, there is the risk of being denied as you all probably know about. My first question would be how many of you visited your fiancé while in the process? I'm thinking about coming to be with her for 3 months waiting for the K1. I won't be able to work and will have to spend some of my saving but I don't have a choice. However, I can't take the risk of quiting my job and being denied.

Then we're also looking into having Kim coming to marry me in France and us living in France. We're up to a point where we don't care where we live, we don't care how hard it might be, we need to be together. So I was wondering if those who got married in France could let me know what is the procedure and what have you done to make it happen. From what I could get for information, even if the US and France are part of the waiver program, she would need to ask for a long stay VISA (great, another application...) that would take about 2 months to be issued by the french consulate and then she could come to France to marry me and then we could ask for a carte de séjour.

So please, if anyone can help us, give some tips, some advice anything, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot and thanks for starting this thread!

Fred

[jundp 191]

Hi Fred,

I just saw this topic, and thought this might help you:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=67796

It appears that you can visit before you get your visa, while awaiting an interview at your embassy. The important thing is to bring proof of ties to your home country, in case the officers at customs question your intent to return home vs. your intent to fraudulently immigrate.

Hope that thread helps you. My fiance and I plan on him visiting me before his interview date is scheduled, as we would otherwise have to go 6 months without a visit.