rs1971

Personally I would stack up on ties to Columbia and stick with the 2 months... but it's really up to you.

Hi Gemmie:

Thanks for the reply though I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'stack up on ties to Colombia.'

-rs1971

Hi,

I just have an immigration related question about which some of the board members may have some insight. My girlfriend is from Colombia but is currently living in Santiago, Chile where she is a graduate student. She is off of classes from the middle of January until the middle of March and we're planning on her coming to visit me in the States on her tourist visa which is good until 2012. She has visited one other time and had no trouble with immigration but as everyone on here no doubt knows a tourist visa doesn't guarantee entry. The last time she visited,. she only stayed two weeks and what makes us a bit nervous this time is that the duration of stay (two months) might cause her problems. We're considering just buying tickets for a two week stay and then changing them once she's here. But this is a bit dangerous as it could turn out really expensive if the price of fares increase appreciably. So, I guess the question is, should she just purchase a ticket for the actual dates or is it worth taking the risk and buying tickets for a shorter stay and changing the dates once she's here? Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

-rs1971

I just wanted to take a second to thank everyone for all of the advice and information. It was all very useful.

-rs1971

Apologies in advance if this isn't exactly the right forum for this question but I didn't see anything for general Visa discussion.

So, my girlfriend and I have recently started to talk about marriage and I just wanted to get a little advice on what strategy we should pursue. I am a natural born US citizen and she is a Colombiana who is currently living in Santiago, Chile where she has just recently begun a Master's program which she will be finishing in December '09. Her not finishing her Masters isn't an option so December '09 would be the earliest she could leave Santiago (permanently).

Our goal then is to get her to the States as soon after December '09 as possible. It seems that there are, generally speaking, two options. She can either come her on a K1 and we'd get married here or I can travel to Colombia (or even Santiago) and we could marry there and then she could come on a K3. I'm having trouble figuring out the pluses and minuses between these two approaches.

One other thing I'll mention is that we'll be spending three weeks together in August, traveling through Chile/Uruguay/Argentina and she'll be most of January and February here (as things stand now on her Tourist Visa). Does it make sense for us to try to use either of these dates to help us along in the process (eg, try to get her a K1 by January, or maybe get married in Chile) or would we be better off just waiting to start the process after she finishes school? I suspect the latter, but thought I'd throw this out there. Okay, thanks in advance for any thoughts anyone might have. This looks like a great site.

-rs1971