International Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Marrying a Foreigner XP
I am an American and my fiance is a Canadian (I know it doesnt seem foreign but legally it is) and I am currently incredibly confused about the entire marriage process. We both live and work in the U.S. and he has been working in the US on a TN for 3+ years and living here for 2+ years.
I have been trying to read the government websites and understand what the best corse of action is but I am just getting confused. Is it better to get the Fiance visa (K-1 /K-3) or get married and than go through the green card process? If anyone could explain there experiences and what is entailed I would really appreciate it. Thanks!
Re: Marrying a Foreigner XP
Can you explain the visa he's currently on more? Is it temporary or permanent? I don't know what TN means.
IIRC the K-visas are for the foreign spouse to travel to the US and get married. If your fiance is already there legally this wouldn't be necessary.
According to uscis.gov, TN = NAFTA temporary professionals from Mexico and Canada.
If he's already in the U.S., it's probably best if he stays in the U.S. I believe you can get married and apply and then just adjust his status. If he leaves and then comes back on the TN with the intent to immigrate, that could cause trouble.
I believe www.visajourney.com has a forum on adjusting status from work, student, and tourist visas. There's probably a more specific board out there for Canadians that you might search for as well. I imagine this is a common scenario?
We did all the immigration paperwork ourselves, but found it helpful to have an initial consultation with an immigration attorney to make sure we were on the right track.
Good luck!
I'm not sure if it's different for someone on a TN, but my ex was on an H1B work visa, and when we were told by the immigration office that the Fiance Visa was only available if he was outside the US.
I've been there done that.. I'm a CDN married to an American.
We got married and then went through the green card process. This is after we spoke to an immigration lawyer and he told us which forms to submit. For us it was the easiest way. Except I couldn't work until I got my Green Card since I didn't have a Social Security # yet. If he has a Social Security # in the US I'm sure your situation will be slightly different.
Either way I recommend going to an immigration lawyer and asking what he recommends. I do know that it varies so much depending on how difficult of an immigration situation you are going to be in. We were told mine was going to be simple and I had my Green Card in 3 - 4 months from the day we filed.
If you have questions feel free to PM me.
ETA: Also just want to add we did it ourselves w/o a lawyer but not until we had talked to one first. I highly recommend talking to an immigration lawyer first before you decide what you are going to do!
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I have a great immigration lawyer in Boston that I would be happy to refer you to. It is more expensive to go through a lawyer of course, but in our case we had to because we did things "wrong" (we got DH a B-2 visitor's visa instead of a K-1 for a really complicated reason, and you're not supposed to be able to adjust status from visitor to permanent resident, but we went for it anyway and it worked...but only because our lawyer basically talked them into it!)
In any event if you can even remotely afford a lawyer that is definitely the way to go. We saved a lot of anxiety by using one.
I would at least get some information on this from a lawyer first too. It not as straight forward as some of the other visas. I used viajourney.coma lot too when we were in the process.
DH and I got married in Switzerland and filed a CR-1 visa from there. We did it all on are own with reading the information on the US government website and visa journey. But ours was pretty straight forward all of DH's US visa's were expired and he was living outside of the US.
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Ditto Jen's situation. I'm American, DH is from Ireland. DH was over here on a work Visa when we met; we married about 4 months before it expired.
Once we married, we contacted an immigration lawyer who helped us file for a temporary residence card for DH. Our case got a little complicated in that after we filed, we found out that MIL was ill and not expected to live long. Per her request, DH went over to visit her and came back before his work Visa expired; our lawyer was able to track down the paperwork and have it held up (if it went through while he was abroad, he wouldn't have been able to get back into the country). We re-filed once he was back, but then we got the "get home as soon as you can call." Since the paperwork was moving forward at that time, I ended up getting my local state representative's office to help us get a temporary travel card for DH. Thankfully we had Immigration offices in our city; we contacted the state rep on a Wednesday and we were in front of Immigration on Friday getting the temporary papers signed; on a plane home on Saturday.
MIL passed 3 weeks later and DH was able to get back to the US with no trouble. Without having a lawyer, I know this would have been so much harder on us.
Also, I believe having a lawyer helped us when it came time for our interview a couple of months later. DH had no trouble being issued a temporary greencard. (Also, our lawyer had us bring any and all wedding photos, photos of us together from previous years, leases or bills with both of our names on it, etc.) Two years later, when the card was up for renewal, I downloaded the paperwork myself and petitioned on his behalf for his permanent card. It all worked out.
Good luck!
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