jspall

Thank you all for your feedback so far, I am beginning to put the pieces together, and I am taking into consideration what everyone of you are saying believe me, I don't want to rush anything but I guess, I'm just trying to keep a positive attitude that things will work out between us and it wont be just a fling type relationship. I am still doing more research on this and also looking into everything all of you are saying to look at. If anyone else has any other suggestions are input I'd love to here them, hopefully I can get this all sorta out by next week, we are trying to plan her first visit at the end of June / early July. And all of you are helping to make this a lot easier for me. So thank you yet again I appreciate it so much!

Well. Now that you have publicly voiced this idea of yours, it suddenly all became a bit more complicated.

I believe Norway is a VWP country - which means she can come under the visa waiver program and stay for 90 days, but she will then have to leave. If she comes here under the VWP with the intent to stay, marry you and immigrate - well, that's visa fraud. Whether or not you would "get caught" of this, who knows. Personally, I would not risk it.

To get a student visa, she will first have to apply to a program, be accepted, then apply for an I-20 from the school which includes showing adequate finances to pay for her studies and for her living expenses while she is in the US. Applying for a student visa with the intent to marry and immigrate is also a no-no. Again, whether or not you would get caught, no one can say. If the person who would interview her at the US consulate in Norway got the idea that this might be her plan, they would not issue the student visa.

You can apply for a fiance visa for her. That will take about 7 months to get - once she has that, she can enter the US with that visa, and then you will have to marry within 90 days. After that she can stay in the US, and eventually you will do what's called AOS - adjustment of status - to get her a green card and a permanent resident status. However, to be eligible for K1 you have to meet in person first.

She can come here under VWP, you can marry, she goes home, and you apply for the CR1 spousal visa. I believe it takes a bit longer than the K1, but it is cheaper and does not include an AOS process, which means that once she gets the visa, when she enters the US she immediately becomes a permanent resident.

However - and I have to say this, even though it is none of my business - are you sure you're not jumping the gun with the marriage? You said you have never met. What if she came here first just to visit with the VWP, stayed for the three months it allows, and then returned home and you two figure out the best way to go about this. I definitely believe in online love, but it is hard to really know how compatible you two are when you have not met in person at all - not to mention ever lived together. This is just my personal opinion, you can take it or ignore it.

The visa options are pretty much those I mentioned - for all of them, you can find a guide here on VJ that you should read to really get an idea of the different processes, timelines and cost.

The intent on what we are trying to do is not just have her come over and get married. We of course want to see what happens first, But we are both open to the idea. With the VWP if we were to say get married during that time frame would our marriage be void and prevent her from being approved for a green card to stay? and also could she get a extension on the VWP if that is the case so she doesn't have to leave during the process?

And based on what you told me about those other ones this seems like it may be our only option as of right now.

Yes, you are most certainly right about that we have no idea what will happen when we meet. Both of us are unsure of that, but I do know that we are very open minded and care for each other very much. I do believe we have a strong enough bond to make it all work no matter the obstacles but anything can happen.

I just want to get everything kind of planned out and have some sort of direction to this whole thing assuming everything goes well. I'm not trying to go into it blindly and next thing I know she cant come to the US again. We are just trying to cover our asses basically.

Thanks again for the info so far, you have already managed to help!

Hello everyone,

I am writing this post in attempts to seek help with this issue I have, hopefully someone out there can help. I have done a lot of research on this already and still a little confused about this process.

So this is the situation. I am from the US. I have this girl from Norway that I'm beginning to become romantically involved with. We have yet to meet but we talk everyday and interact more with each other then anyone else we know in our lives. So I am trying to have her come to the US so we can meet, and possibly start our future together. I asked her if should would be willing to move here and after a few weeks she has finally said yes to it. Now I am trying to plan this out so if everything goes well and we both share the same feeling that if we want her to stay here permanently and/or get married that we don't run into issues. We are looking into a few different ways of doing this.

We are trying to figure out what type of visa would be best to come over with student, work, or tourist. Upon here being here within a few months we might get married if all goes well. However we don't want her to be able to only stay for 3 months then have to leave if we decide to get married.

So basically what I need help with is.

Whats the best visa type to get? And how long does that allow someone to stay in the US?

Should I hire a lawyer to go about this process? (I am trying not to spend a fortune on this process if I can do it myself)

And if we do get married during her stay how can I go about keeping her here while her green card gets processed?

I hope someone can help... and if you need any other info please feel free to ask.

Thank you,

Justin