Hi, my girlfriend and I are going to get married she lives in the US and I live in Ireland. We plan on either getting married in the states and living there or getting married here in Ireland and moving to the US after a year or so. We have checked out as much as we could on each way of getting married and which would be the least amount of fuss and hassle. Getting married in Ireland seems the easiest and less drawn out process but we aren’t sure how much we would have to go through when applying to relocate to the US down the line. I know if we go to get married in the US she has to apply for the wedding and then months later I will have to go for an interview here in Ireland and if it all goes well we get approved and we have 90 days to get married. After that I’m not sure if once we are married if i can start working straight away or do we have to apply for the initial 2 year green card and wait in america with out being able to work until we recieve the green card. Any information letting us know about the american process step by step in simple terms would be great and for the irish way then relocating too. Hopefully someone can help us to understand this better.
Legal advice is best suited to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
All I can say (IANAL, and know nothing about immigration law and policy beyond my own situation), is that it’s apparently much easier for the non-citizen, non-resident spouse to get a green card (i.e., permanent legal resident status) if that person is already in the U.S. legally when the marriage takes place. In that situation, it’s really not at all difficult. At least not in my experience, and in the experience of several other people I know.
I’m married to a non-citizen who was here legally on some kind of non-tourist visa (but not a permanent resident). After we were married, we really didn’t have any trouble getting a green card for my spouse.
On the other hand, I know Americans who married their spouses overseas somewhere, and then had a fair amount of difficulty getting their new spouses into the country and then getting them permanent resident status.
Roughly speaking, I think you have three obvious options:
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Marry in the US. You return to Ireland and apply for a CR1 visa. Once that’s issued, you can go back to the US to live, and you should have Conditional Permanent Residence for two years. If you show up in the US (on a Visa Waiver) with the stated intention of marrying a citizen, please make sure you can demonstrate that you will leave within the 90 day limit.
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Marry in Ireland. She returns to the US and you again apply for a CR1 visa. Not sure how this would play with Irish Immigration, but I suspect lots of Americans travel to Ireland to get married.
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You apply for a K1 visa as her fiance. Once you arrive in the US you marry within 90 days and then you apply to change your status to Conditional Permanent Resident.
Options 1 and 2 have the advantage that you will arrive in the US with the right to work there. Option 3 will probably minimise the time you spend apart but you will be in the US for a while (several months at least) with no right to work and possibly not even to drive a car, as most states want you to have a GC before they’ll issue a license and will only let you use a foreign license for, say, 90 days.
To get married in the US you could:
[ul][li]apply for a K-1 fiancé visa for you. [/li][li]Once your K1 visa is approved you have 90 days to get married once you arrive in the United States. [/li][li]You can apply for the temporary right to work (form 1-765) upon entry to the United States, even before getting married. Right to work is temporary, only valid for the same 90 days you have to get married.[/li][li]You can then apply for an Adjustment of Status to change your visa status and remain in the United States while your application for conditional permanent residency (temporary green card) is processed.[/li][li]You can file an I-765 to apply for an extended right to work simultaneously with the Adjustment of Status application for permanent residency.[/li][li]Once you have been married two years you must file form I-751 to remove conditions on your green card and obtain a permanent green card.[/li][/ul]
If you get married outside of the United States then you would generally need to go through the entire application for conditional permanent residency (conditional green card) before you can enter the United States. Even if you come from a country that normally does not require a visa to travel to the US as a tourist, US Immigration authorities might refuse you entry as a tourist if you are already married to an American on the fear that you might intend to overstay a tourist visa and remain the the US with your American spouse.