Journeyer

All of the posters on here who keep saying to go to Brazil to get married should use caution in their use of this forum because they are new members who seem to lack any knowledge of the immigration process. If you are both legally able to marry, the location and time doesn't matter, only the action taken to apply for immigration benefits. Any part of the process that require loved ones to be separated is painful, however, emotional responses without fact-based foundation WILL only bring our members more mental anguish or possible troubles. Please refrain from these types of comments just so that you can have a comment.

Thanks so much for that. I know that is not a factor, but I appreciate the confirmation. It is a slow and painful process to get all the documents processed and approved and get married in Brazil. My fiancee laughed when I suggested it. We can get a marriage license here and get married the same day just a couple states away, a short 7-8 hour drive for us.

These are reasons why she was suspected as wanting to live here...

Good luck!!

Thanks.

Oh, I know. I completely understand. There was never any intention on her part to do so, but I understand why they suspect it.

Can you not call customs for an extension of the visa? I know for fact that you can call or go to customs and extend. Can you GF remember the questions the customs agent asked her?

My feeling is that if he made such a big stink upon her entry in US, chances are he probably wrotte something in his magic computer-maybe something about her intent or something. Try to call and get her extended, since it is not recomended to marry on the tourist visa on the first 3 months.

If i were you i would try to find a imigration lawyer and see what they say(some even give free consultation-my free consult was helpfull)as well. If they agree to help you,maybe you can do this without having her leave the country (they are not as expensive as one would think($700-in virginia). The reason why I say this, is because they see so many cases everyday that chances are they already helped someone with the same exact issue.

If you have money, and are willing to separate for a while you can do the K1 visa-but also keep in mind that can take a while too...

People adjust status all the time, and if you think you are the only complicated case that is planing on doing this think again! There are people with long overstays, and all sorts of problems and they were able to adjust status. There will always be a risk in anything you do, even when you cross the street there is a risk that you might get hit by a car...

As you can see the opinions from our fellow vj's are so different, that makes you confused as of what should you do. Talk to a lawyer, that will shed some light on your ideeas as what can you do and can not do.

I wish you all the luck, and let us know what did you decided to do!

Thanks

Actually, we are planning on seeing a lawyer asap, because we are confused at this point. We will ask the lawyer about trying to extend and see what he/she says. I thought probably no since the IO threatened that if she stays past the one month, they will take away the B2, . But we can at least ask. What part of Virginia are you in? $700 would be pretty cheap I think for the entire process. I am in MD, so northern Virginia would probably work for us if you know a good immigration lawyer you could recommend. Unless we have to get one in our state.

Here is my point. The fact that she before was given 6 months to stay in USA it is a normal procedure from immigrations. Now, a VISITOR visa is self explained, how will a visitor stay for 4 months ???? go back and then come back in three months for another 4 months ??? if you calculate that she spent more time in USA than Brazil. The best thing to do is do things right. Go back to brazil and get married there, come back and file for her petition. We all want to be with our love ones, do not risk the opportunity to have her here a syour wife for ever and do things right.

That's all good, except, we are going to get married her, she is already here. Then we can file for the petition and she will go back to Brazil to wait. I don't see any reason to make an expensive trip to Brazil just to get married. Plus, it is not nearly as easy there to get married as it is here.

Did immigration happen to make any notes in her passport ? If they really suspected that she wanted to immigrate they may have noted her passport with something like no AOS .

There is nothing written in her passport, only the entry stamp as always. They put the Jan 14 date on her I-94 card, but that is it.

Your situation reminds me of that of my fiancee. He moved to a state where he knew no one, just about a month before I left the country. My fiancee and I are about 20 or so years younger than you but my fiancee's parents abandoned him when he was a child and he has no family aside from his grandparents who live a few states away. So my fiancee is alone in the house we shared there, filled with our memories. He doesn't easily make friends.

Trust me on this one. When you are 20 years older, you still have all the same feeling at the same intensity as you do now. You just may move a little bit slower than you used to, but on the inside you will still be the same.

Wow, your fiancee does seem a little similar to me. I grew up with my grandparents also, but have since been reunited and have made up with my parents. I make friends easily, but not like my fiancee, she is a social butterfly for sure. But even if you are very social, this is a problem at my age. Everyone at my age just seems to be settled into their own little universe, so it is much tougher to make friends to do things with. My family is scattered to the four winds of the planet, literally. Not more than 2 of them live in the same state, or not in this country at all. I think I am doomed to a little(lot) of loneliness while she is gone. Time to man up I suppose and deal with it.

In the scheme of things, a few months is not really that long to be apart when it's the last time you'll have to be apart.

That is how we are trying to look at it now.

You are fortunate that you would be able to visit your fiancee at all while the visa is processing, many people on these boards are not as fortunate. You are also lucky that you have been able to spend as much time with your fiancee as you already have, many people are compelled to make a decision to marry maybe earlier than they would have preferred to, in order to continue their relationship and live together.

We just were not willing to do that. We have both been through failed marriages and we are older now. All of our children are grown now. We just could not really justify getting in a big hurry and getting it wrong again. But now that we are sure, it just seems that maybe our age(I am 50 and she is a few years older than I) makes a few months seem longer. I don't know. That is probably just my imagination. The nearly 4 months that we were just separated for seemed like FOREVER.

I will not be able to see my fiancee again until I have the K-1 visa. I cannot afford it as I need to save my money for the first few months I am there before I can work and I am unable to get time off work here. In addition, I would not want to risk spending the money and being turned away at the border. He cannot visit me as he also has work commitments.

I hear you about that. I have not been able to go there yet because of work commitments. I was working as an independent consultant on big projects and 0 vacation time. I got lucky and one of the firms hired me full time and now I have vacation and can finally go there to visit her. And it could not have come at a better time.

For me, the most painful part was the decision whether to leave or stay and adjust status. Once I'd made the decision to leave, I accepted my circumstance and everything became easier.

Ditto, for sure. We are very torn about this right now, and my house is not the happy place it has become for the 2 of us when she is here. We are sad and nervous. I hate this.

Yes, it is lonely here by myself without him. But I have found I have plenty to do between work and tying up all my loose ends here and spending these last few months with my family. I don't need to worry about whether my AOS will be approved, I just wait for the visa, patiently and with peace of mind.

For me too. I just took a job in a state where I know no one. This place was painfully lonely those last few months that she was away. For her, all is good, she is surrounded by family and friends when she is in Brazil.

Very well put, I really appreciate the time you just spent with your reply.

Ok.. you have 3 (three) options here. All of them legal, one of them is risky.....

Option A : Get married in USA, apply for AOS. Now, this could be risky, because CBP thinks that she intends to live in the USA. However if there is nothing written in her passport about no intent, then you can do it, and say when you found out she only had a month to stay with you, you felt heartbroken over it and decided to get married and adjust. The intent was NOT there when she entered, but after the ordeal at customs, you wanted to do it. Most likely this will not be a problem, but the risk is there.

Option B : Get married in USA, spouse goes back to Brazil, and you file CR-1. The nice thing about this visa, once she gets here, she gets a greencard and can work right away. It just means she has to stay in Brazil while it is being processed.

Option C : She leaves at the end of the month, and you file for K-1 visa. Once this is approved, she enters the USA and you guys get married and THEN adjust status (same as option A... just without the "intent" risk).

Hope this helps, and Im sorry your short visit is filled with stress like this

That helps a lot, thanks so much.

then you can do it, and say when you found out she only had a month to stay with you, you felt heartbroken over it and decided to get married and adjust.

That is uncanny accurate. That is EXACTLY what happened. We were intending to get married and for her to go back and do CR-1. But we thought she would be here over 3 months and we would get started right away to reduce the separation time. Now it looks like that long separation is inevitable apart from me making short visits there(expensive). We were both pretty devastated last night and my fiancee told me it was like a bad dream that she wanted to wake up from. I guess we should be thankful that we are together for Christmas and New Years. This is our 3rd Christmas together and if we marry and file CR-1 now, maybe we can keep it a perfect 4 in a row.

New member with 2 posts, I would look at the facts and not opinions. No one knows what the POE typed into the computer regarding her secondary questioning. I still say the POE officer did his job well, he was trained to see violations of the B2 visa and he did, now what did he record none of us will never know.

So PO, its your life, you take the risk as you see it. I don't see what is the rush, you wasn't planning on getting married until 2011, why are you rushing it for now. If it's real LOVE it will survive a small separation. Didn't you say your gf has a whole active life in Brazil, so is she ready to put everything on hold until she get her gc to go back to Brazil that could take anywhere from 5 to 8 months.

B/W I am not a new poster, I have been on this site since 2007 and have done the CR1. My husband and I were separated for the 9 months that it took us to do the CR1 and our love didn't die, it only got stronger.

We were actually planning on getting married in 2010, not 2011.

Didn't you say your gf has a whole active life in Brazil, so is she ready to put everything on hold until she get her gc to go back to Brazil that could take anywhere from 5 to 8 months.

She does have an active life there if she chooses, she can work, but she does not have to. She is definitely willing to put her life there on hold. She has spent more time here than there the last 2 years. I guess that is the problem that immigration has.

I agree with you. It is very real for us and if we are separated for 6 months or a year, it is not going to change that, but it is not pleasant.

I didn't say you were a new poster. And I thought the others posters were referring to someone else, not you?

If you are not 100% sure you ARE CORRECT when you answer, then either A) DON'T or B) State so in your answers. WRONG answers (and this statement is very wrong) can cause a lot of problems for others.

Then you should know better.

OF COURSE you can marry here if you want. Of COURSE it doesn't matter what country. If you want to do things 100% by the letter legal, marry your girl, send her home before her visa expires and file your paperwork.

AFTER your paperwork is filed, she could still try to come to the U.S. with PROOF she is filing to legally immigrate to the U.S. It doesn't mean they will always let her in, but it doesn't mean they will stop her either. You might/should still be able to visit, but it will likely be questionable or the POE officer will give her a hard time again.

Also keep in mind that just because she went through one officer who was a jerk it doesn't mean they ALL are going to be that way.

Thanks. I appreciate that. I mean, even I knew that we can legally marry on a valid B2 if she goes back on time and we go the CR-1 route. I was never questioning that. I only was really hoping we could AOS and avoid a long separation.

Yeah, she got a real clown of a IO this time. I don't think she will be willing go through immigration here again on the B2. I'll just have to visit her in Brazil while we are waiting it out if we do the CR-1.

I understand your concern and am sorry that the post of Veridiana, a user who joined TODAY, has such an impact on you.

Good luck.

I really didn't notice the join date, but I was very skeptical as it just did not sound right. I would really, really love for her to stay and AOS and so would she, we are just very nervous. It would be devastating to be permanently separated. Both of us had failed marriages and years later at this point in our lives we feel very lucky to have found something so special as we have. We don't want to lose that.

Dont get married here!! Immigration will consider a fraud!! Do the painful and long K-1 visa. or marry over in Brazil and go for AOS!

So, it is fraud to marry here and apply for CR-1? Even as confused as I am about this, I am skeptical about that. Marrying in Brazil would make a difference? Why?

This thing is clear as chicken broth!

Traveling to the US on a non-immigrant visa, such as a B2 with the intent to adjust status is foul play. But since intent is difficult to prove as much of it happens in the brain, the Adjudicator's Manual tells the I.O.s that intent alone is not a sufficient reason to deny an AOS petition. The happiness of the US citizen is more important to Uncle Sam than figuring out if the foreigner had unclean thoughts.

What would be a dealbreaker is misrepresentation, however.

If the CBP Officer at the P.O.E. suspected immigration intent, and apparently there is some indication that this was the case, her response on having no intent to live in the US could have been recorded. If so, there should be something to that effect stamped in her passport. If not, the CBP officer just tried to scare her, and that's it and AOS should be no problem.

Drifting into "relaxed" mode.

Understand this (purely hypothetical) scenario: gal arrives at the US. CBP dude is rude and interrogates her. She has zero intention to get married and file for AOS on this trip. A week later comes a surprising (for her) proposal. They get married and file for AOS later. Even in such a case she would have told the truth. She had no intention to do this, but got caught by surprise.

'Nough said.

I keep reading posts very similar to what you just told me. But, then, I hear the exact opposite(see next reply after yours). This is very, very confusing. We do not want to do anything wrong, we just want to be together.

Interesting question about something being written on the visa. There is nothing written there, only the stamp for the valid entry on B2. The bad thing is he gave her the card with the January 14 departure, where the have always given her 6 months. Which really sucks because now it is going to cost us $600 to buy a new return ticket.

If our situation is indeed this complex, maybe we need to see an immigration lawyer.

She was VERY lucky to be admitted on a B2.

I would expect that you marry and adjust. I would not hang around.

They were actually going to send her back! But somehow she talked them into letting her in, if only for a month. She's a lawyer and is very good at arguing and winning, I should know, , too bad her English is not quite fluent yet. That was the hardest thing for her. The guy refused to speak more patiently with her, and told her it was her problem. So she was at a little disadvantage because of that. She was also very nervous as you can imagine, the person was trying to be as intimidating as possible it sounds like.

Does anyone know if the incident she experienced with immigration will have a negative impact on our CR-1 being approved?

You can marry anywhere you wish. Lots of people that just have to have a star trek wedding go to Vegas just for that no problem. Use whatever visa you have to be here legally and marry away.

Now once that is done. The legal thing to do ( if your visa wasn't a K1 ) is to return to where ever you are from once you approved stay in the US is done and wait out a family based visa ( You can also legally send in the I 130 papers before she leaves )

What is illegal is to say I have a B2 visa and I think I will go get married then stay in the US.

What is allowed is to enter the US with a B2 visa and while you are here your hormones get a jumping and you spontaneously co-join ( marry )

The difference is the intent when you first packed your bags.

Your issue is that an immigration officer has made note of frequent use of a B2 visa for long periods of time ( standard wisdom is same amount of time out of the US as you spend in the US and you may not raise eyebrows ) To try to prove that she wasn't intending to stay when she just swore to an immigration officer that she was leaving to not get refused entry probably isn't going to fly. Safe route is marry where ever , file the I130 , LEAVE and wait. The other route you are risking being accused of lying to not be refused entry and having a big expensive problem in your future.

Thank you. Looks like a CR-1. We were not even intending to do anything wrong, it's just all so confusing and so we wanted to explore all of our options. I hope this really does not take 8 months or more, but looks like there is not a choice,

She is not here on a Visa Waiver, it is a valid B2 visa good for another 8 years and she has never overstayed. If we are going CR-1, wouldn't it just be easier for us to marry here since she is here now and start the CR-1 immediately? Just curious.

Understood. Maybe the only option is CR-1.

Ok, from what I can gather, the smartest and safest thing for us to do, is marry now, and start down the CR-1 path. We could still do that K-1, but I have been hearing with increasing frequency that the K-1 is much more costly, cumbersome, and really not much faster than CR-1 these days? Also, considering the fact that she is already here legally.

Maybe your best course of action would be to travel back to Brazil with her and get married there. Then you could file your CR-1. That negates the idea that she may have entered the US with the intent to get married on a tourist visa.

It seems that they are putting AOS from VWP on hold currently until the law can be clarified and that may also be the case in your situation. Whatever you do you don't want to risk a ban or the need to try and get an elusive hardship waiver.

She is not here on a Visa Waiver, it is a valid B2 visa good for another 8 years and she has never overstayed. If we are going CR-1, wouldn't it just be easier for us to marry here since she is here now and start the CR-1 immediately? Just curious.

Base on your post above it seems as if the officer at POE was correct, she was trying to live in the USA on a visitor visa. This is why I wouldn't suggest that you'll try to AOS from a visitor visa you'll can't keep your story straight. .Based on your posted facts"

Understood. Maybe the only option is CR-1.

If you have only spent a few weeks in Brazil, did she have some other type of visa?

No, she has been coming here on a B2 on and off for a little over 2 years now. They always gave her 6 months before, but now only one. It seems their issue is they are saying she lives here because of how much time she spends here. But her permanent residence is in Brazil, she owns an apartment there that she just remodeled last month, all of her family, bank accounts, income, all of that. But they did not want to hear any of that. They just insisted that she lives here now.

You just could apply for AOS if you guys knew each other here in the usa for the first time and she didn't come back to her country.

But like you said, you guys have been in love with each other for a couple of years and she did come back to her country and now she's back with another visa, not K-1 visa.So obviously you just can file for CR-1 visa so that it wont make a fraud marriage.

She's back with the very same B2 as the first time. It is good until 2018, it is a 10 year visa.

I am hearing that can take 8 months or longer. That is the only reason we were thinking of AOS. We have not been apart more than 3 months since we met over 2 years ago. I can go visit her in Brazil but I can only stay a couple weeks at a time because of work. Seems like immigration do not care about things like that, but it was a nice thought to not have to be apart so long.

Sounds like that she has to go back?

I am assuming that when they mark that date on the I-94 form that means staying longer is an overstay. I read here in a couple of posts that an overstay would be forgiven if we were married and filed AOS before she overstayed, but now seems like that is not true. This is very confusing.

She didn't have intent at POE but it sounds like they suspected it. She needs to remember every question she was asked and how she answered. If she said something that can't be refuted in an AOS interview that could cause her problems.

She didn't have intent to stay here and do AOS. Our intent was to get married, file the forms for starting the CR-1 process, and for her to return to Brazil and wait to get her change to immigrant CR-1 status as spouse of US citizen. I don't want to do anything risky, but I hear a lot of people saying that they just stayed here and filed for AOS after marrying a US citizen with no overstays or other issues. This really is a bad deal also for us because making her change her tickets from April 5 to January 14 is a $600 hit. Seems this immigration person has it in for her now, and from what is being said, it is our word against theirs and we can't really win that if they want to persist.

Entering he USA with intent to immigrate on a visitors visa is visa fraud. DON'T DO IT!!

If immigrations suspects visa abuse, they CAN and DO deny AOS resulting in deportation and possible bar on future re-entry.

DO THE RIGHT THING, file the I-129F for a K-1 visa. What you are talking about is MIS-Use of a visitor visa with intent of immigrations, this is visa fraud. This is what the K-1 is for, if B-2 visas were intended for this use, there would be no need for K-1 visas.

I am hearing a lot of conflicting information about this. We are still also considering getting married and filing for CR-1. What would be fraudulent about that? I am just wondering whether it is best for her to stay here and attempt AOS, or file the forms for CR-1 after getting married.

Hi,

This is kind of a cross post so I apologize for that in advance. I had been posting over at the K-1 forum because that was my original intention, but things have changed a lot since then. What I am wondering is if it is possible to change status for my fiancee if we get married now. She is here on a B2 but ran into problems this time with a very rude and cross immigration officer that has only given her one month for this stay. Here is some details that I posted in the K-1 forum, but I am not getting replies. Maybe it is off topic.

My fiancee just made it back from Brazil, after several things came up causing her to delay getting here. So, she is back, that is great. But unfortunately she ran into a really mean immigration officer in Miami. She was very shaken up by the incident, the guy was a real rude. He insisted on saying she lives here. She tried politely telling him that she does not live here and tried talking about her ties in Brazil, which are very real, and that she was returning in April, which is also true regardless of whether we would have got married or not. So then he starts yelling at her and saying he is sending her back to Brazil immediately. I guess after arguing with this guy for a while, he finally told her she could enter, but only for a month or he will take away her tourist visa, and to not return here again quickly or he will deport her. I was really baffled by that last statement because how can you deport someone if you don't let them enter? Maybe he was talking about a ban. At that point she was so upset, she got a little confused I think. Anyways, she has never overstayed so I am not sure what the deal is. It only seems to be that she comes here so often. What is illegal about that?

At this point I just wish we would not have procrastinated so long. We had planned on getting married Nov. 17, but she was unable to return in time for that, so we just thought we would do it sometimes between now and April and start the CR-1 process. Well now, we only have a month, and we really cannot bear the thought of being away from each other for a long time.

Anyways, I need quick advice, please if anyone can help. I think I will consult a lawyer in the next couple of days but would really, really appreciate any advice from the knowledgeable here. We are going to get married within the next couple of weeks, since we only have a month. I am not sure what to do. I have been reading some posts here, but we are really scared. She is afraid to leave and afraid to stay both at the same time, and I share those sentiments. I don't know if it is best to just have her remain here after we are married and attempt status change(I am a US citizen), or let her go back and start the CR-1. I am not sure what effect the incident with immigration has on all of this. She has never overstayed and yet this officer in Miami insists on telling her to stay only a month and not to come back quickly(whatever that means), she had been in Brazil for nearly 4 months before coming back this time.

What is the date stamped in her pp?

Just looked, the date stamped on the passport is Dec, 15 2010, the date of entry. But the form I was referring to, I think is an I-94, and they only gave her one month. Before they always gave her 6 months.

What is the date stamped in her pp?

She's still sleeping, so I don't know where it is to look. The only thing I do know is that April 5 was the day she was to return, but she showed me some kind of card they gave her that has Jan. 14 on it. I guess that is synonymous with the one month deal.

Ok, I think we have a real problem now. My fiancee just made it back from Brazil, after several things came up causing her to delay getting here. So, she is back, that is great. But unfortunately she ran into a really mean immigration officer in Miami. She was very shaken up by the incident, the guy was a real jerk. He insisted on saying she lives here. She tried politely telling him that she does not live here and tried talking about her ties in Brazil, which are very real, and that she was returning in April. So then he starts yelling at her and saying he is sending her back to Brazil immediately. I guess after arguing with this guy for a while, he finally told her she could enter, but only for a month or he will take away her tourist visa, and to not return here again quickly or he will deport her. I was really baffled by that last statement because how can you deport someone if you don't let them enter? Maybe he was talking about a ban. At that point she was so upset, she got a little confused I think. Anyways, she has never overstayed so I am not sure what the deal is. It only seems to be that she comes here so often. What is illegal about that?

At this point I just wish we would not have procrastinated so long. We had planned on getting married Nov. 17, but she was unable to return in time for that, so we just thought we would do it sometimes between now and April and start the CR-1 process. Well now, we only have a month, and we really cannot bear the thought of being away from each other for a long time.

Anyways, I need quick advice, please if anyone can help. I think I will consult a lawyer in the next couple of days but would really, really appreciate any advice from the knowledgeable here. We are going to get married within the next couple of weeks, since we only have a month. I am not sure what to do. I have been reading some posts here, but we are really scared. She is afraid to leave and afraid to stay both at the same time, and I share those sentiments. I don't know if it is best to just have her remain here after we are married and attempt status change, or let her go back and start the CR-1. I am not sure what effect today's incident has on all of this. She has never overstayed and yet this bully in Miami insists on telling her to stay only a month and not to come back for a long time.