I'm American. My wife is Argentine. We live in Argentina in large part because when we wanted to marry in 2006, we couldn't get her a permanent visa to live in the USA.
Her fiancee visa was in fact quickly approved, pending an interview at the US consulate in Buenos Aires. We waited and waited, called, had our lawyers call, and the response was always "when the consulate is ready to make an appointment, they will call you." They never called, leaving us in limbo for over a year and saddled with thousands of dollars in legal fees.
Eventually we grew tired of the uncertainty. I moved to Argentina, we got married, and we've lived here ever since.
Argentina is not perfect. But the legal status of foreign residents here is much clearer than in the USA. As the husband of a citizen, permanent residency was automatic provided I didn't have a criminal record in my home country (I don't). I am allowed to vote in municipal elections. And, now as the father of an Argentine citizen, citizenship is also automatic if I want it.
You might think that Argentina can afford to be generous with immigrants because it has nowhere near the load of foreign residents that the USA does, and to an extent that's certainly true. But on the other hand, Argentina has fairly large immigrant communities (from Peru, Paraguay, Bolivia and China), more social welfare services (basic healthcare is free here), and a lot less financial resources than the USA.
Having now lived somewhere else and been on the "other side" of the immigration issue, I feel indignant and outraged when I read about how my country treats non-citizen residents.
I married my wife overseas in 2007. In 2008 we applied for immigration at a US embassy (I sponsored her as my spouse), waited a couple of months, and received an appointment date. My wife was granted a visa at the appointment. I made a comment during the interview on how the process was so painless and the consulate basically said, "well, you guys are married". 3 years later, she is a US citizen. I think the fiancee visa route plays second fiddle to family immigration. That and maybe the Buenos Aires consulate needs to get their act together. It's a shame you spent so much money on lawyers as well :| Good luck to you...you may want to try again now that you are married.
Glad to hear you had such a better experience. There are definitely a lot of factors to consider.
Luckily since our initial terrible experience, we've had nothing but good ones with the US Consulate in Buenos Aires. So I'm hopeful that if we ever decide to move back to the USA, being married for 5 years and having a child will count in our favor and make the process much easier like it was for you.
As it is though, I've grown pretty comfortable here and don't know if we'll ever move back. All's well that ends well, I suppose. :)
Yes. Marry over-seas then apply for the visa at over-seas consulate --should take about 3-months or so.
I know a handful of couples like that. It was pretty painless --so long as they married prior to coming to the US. So they were legally married overseas, then applied at overseas consulate and green card was granted --citizenship can be applied for a year after arrival, and (I'm under the impression) most have been granted citizenship within one to two years. No fuss, that I've heard of.
Now, (you) working overseas (not in the US) as a non citizen can get tricky for US citizens --you have to be sponsored, of course, but in some countries, like Argentina, you (or employer most likely) would have to prove there was no local available to fulfill the job requirement. That can be a tough hurdle.
Actually, after a year you apply to have "conditional permanent residence" removed. Then after three years you can apply for citizenship. It may be less for members of the military though.
Is this a personal experience that you are generalizing or it is actually faster to get a wife to the US vs a fiancee? Any link to actual law is appreciated.
I've spoken with several couples in Tokyo that were told by the US Embassy here that they should get married before trying to move to the US, since marrying afterwards would be a nightmare.
My understanding also is that its way way way way better to get married overseas and then try to get into the US. Sorry, I don't have any links for you.
It will still probably take a few months to a year. Which is probably going to make it difficult to have a job lined up in advance.
In any case its better because it doesn't require you and your spouse to be separated.
Does "fiancee" even have any legal defintion in the US? Nobody signs anything when they propose and I'm pretty sure that states don't recognise it as a legal status, at least not until various common-law cohabitation conditions comes into play.
It's a particular type of immigration Visa the K-1 is a "Fiancee Visa". Note that you are required to get married within 90 days. The point of it is to allow US Citizens to get married within the US to non-US Citizens.
Nobody is going to dispute that the immigration laws in the US are draconian. They're a patchwork sown together by various special interests and make very little sense. However, in the past, they were rarely enforced. Only in instances where someone committed a felony or something of that nature. Over the last decade and especially during the Obama administration, ICE stepped up enforcement. If I had to guess, I'd say it's related to the recession? I honestly don't know why.
It's "get tough" politics. Unions donate billions to Democrats, and they are unhappy with immigration in many industries. (ie. Meat packing, whose union membership has declined dramatically as a result of companies being allowed to exploit undocumented labor.) On the other side, you have conservatives, who are always up in arms about the immigration "crisis". These folks are balanced by the business-focused republicans, who need immigrants to make money.
The end result? Instead of allowing legitimized, orderly immigration from Mexico and Central America, we pretend that that it isn't happening, and then spend billions on needless social services and draconian law enforcement.
Both sets of my grandparents were immigrants to the United States from Ireland. On my mother's side, my grandfather had a 7th grade education (common in rural Ireland) and my grandmother was pregnant when they immigrated here after WW2. All they needed to do was scrape together a few buck and fill out some forms, and they arrived in New York as legitimate resident aliens, able to get jobs and function fully in society.
Today, my grandparents would be accused of moving here to give birth to an "anchor baby" and would probably be here illegally, unless they won one of the elusive green card lottery slots.
Plenty of blame for both sides here, I've heard a whole bunch of immigrant bashing at, well... every Republican event in the last 5 years. Way more than Obama typically does.
My read on it was Obama stepped up enforcement for political cover when he gets accused of things like that by the Republicans, which is still plenty of stupid and weak on his part. Especially since they'll never agree to actually do comprehensive immigration reform if it would be perceived as a victory for Obama.
Take this with a grain of salt, since this is conjecture, but don't underestimate the weight and inertia of gigantic bureaucracies.
ICE was set up during the later years of the Bush administration, and now they've hit their stride after ramping up. The Obama Administration could expend political capital to do something about the issue, but that's probably not a winning political stance.
I am convinced the economic climate plays at least some part into it. How big of a part, I am not sure. But looking at the history of all kinds of countries, you can see that when there are issues like high unemployment rate, then the sentiment towards foreigners tends to not be the most welcomeing.
Also the worse the situation, the more radical the actions to turn it around will be - no matter if those actions actually help or make it worse.
Took me more than a year and a letter from my congressmen to get a fiancée visa for my wife.
- Even when we finally got an interview the visa was rejected at first because I was living there, with her, instead of back in the USA, alone. They said I had not maintained 'domicile' in the USA and therefore did not intend to return home.
- When we finally received the visa it listed my father as the sponsor instead of me. We had to get a new one.
- Somewhere on the USCIS website it actually stated that applicants were 'guilty until proven innocent'
- In the waiting room, waiting for the final, correct visa there were a group of Americans waiting to adopt. They were given a nice instruction session on what to do, how to fill out the forms, how to deal with the Chinese adoption policies. I, however, felt I had been actively refused help at every turn in a deliberately opaque bureaucracy.
You see, it can be very difficult to fire high level bureaucrats. If you don't have faith in them it can be more dangerous to leave them in place.
Transferring them to South America is a popular solution. It's nice enough that they won't fight the transfer, and safe enough that they can't mess things up too badly.
That's to ensure the marriage wasn't a false one for the purposes of immigration fraud.
Honestly, as long as your brother-in-law got his permanent residency in a timely fashion and could work in the United States and live with his family, I don't think there's anything to complain about here. I went through the same process - apart from the naturalization at the end, which I've got no desire to do.
Her fiancee visa was in fact quickly approved, pending an interview at the US consulate in Buenos Aires. We waited and waited, called, had our lawyers call, and the response was always "when the consulate is ready to make an appointment, they will call you." They never called, leaving us in limbo for over a year and saddled with thousands of dollars in legal fees.
Eventually we grew tired of the uncertainty. I moved to Argentina, we got married, and we've lived here ever since.
Argentina is not perfect. But the legal status of foreign residents here is much clearer than in the USA. As the husband of a citizen, permanent residency was automatic provided I didn't have a criminal record in my home country (I don't). I am allowed to vote in municipal elections. And, now as the father of an Argentine citizen, citizenship is also automatic if I want it.
You might think that Argentina can afford to be generous with immigrants because it has nowhere near the load of foreign residents that the USA does, and to an extent that's certainly true. But on the other hand, Argentina has fairly large immigrant communities (from Peru, Paraguay, Bolivia and China), more social welfare services (basic healthcare is free here), and a lot less financial resources than the USA.
Having now lived somewhere else and been on the "other side" of the immigration issue, I feel indignant and outraged when I read about how my country treats non-citizen residents.