Bennett, CO Immigration Law Firms & Lawyers

A USA citizen can sponsor their spouse for a green card. A tourist can get married here at any time, and no need to wait to do so until after their fiance becomes a citizen. As long as no travel abroad is planned, immigration status should not be an issue in picking a wedding date.

The difficulty of entering the country without inspection is that you will not be able to adjust your status to permanent residence here in the country unless you have the benefit of §245(i) under which individuals can adjust status even though illegal upon payment of a fine amount so long as they had a labor certification application or I-130 petition filed by April 30, 2001. Also you are probably aware that by overstaying your visitor visa by 11 months, you are barred from the country for 3 years from the date of your leaving.Due to the limitations of the Lawyers.com Forums, Alan Lee, Esq.'s (the "Firm") participation in responding to questions posted herein does not constitute legal advice, nor legal representation of the person or entity posting a question. No Attorney/Client relationship is or shall be construed to be created hereby. The information provided herein by the Firm is general, and requires that the poster obtain specific legal advice from an attorney. The poster shall not rely upon the information provided herein as legal advice nor as the basis for making any decisions of legal consequence.

To become married, you can simply register before the civil registrar in your municipality or go through a religious ceremony. Regardless of which, you should have photographs taken of the occasion. When you later file for your wife's paperwork, an immigration officer will likely wish to see the pictures. If you have a religious ceremony, you should have the official certificate of marriage from the state before filing for your wife. Finally you should ascertain whether she is subject to a two-year foreign residence requirement because of her acceptance of a J-1 visa. That can be ascertained by examining both her visa and her form DS – 2019. If subject, the visa will say "subject to section 212(e) or the DS – 2019 will have checkmarks in the lower left section as to whether she is subject by way of a skills list or governmental financing. Being subject to a two-year foreign residence requirement means that your wife would not be eligible to file for final immigration either in the U. S. or overseas at an American consulate or embassy until she has either been overseas for 2 years or has obtained a waiver of the foreign residence requirement. We note that Peru has an extensive skills list (a listing of those skills that a country designates as wanted back). If she is subject, the first step would probably be to approach Peru’s consulate or Embassy in the U.S. to request a no objection statement to staying in the U.S.