No Spam

We're getting married and my fiancee just received her waiver of the
J-1 Home Residency Requirement. She's still in the USA and won't be
leaving. Do you have any advice on our next move(s) with visa's?

Also:
1. Should she get her medical exam before the wedding?
2. Will we have any trouble if the wedding takes place shortly after
her visa runs out? Wedding less than 5 weeks past her visa
expiration.
She has a D/S I94 card and has waiver in hand and marrying a US
citizen.


Thanks for all the help you've provided here!

Dcmark

How did she get the waiver? That would help a poster from yesteday.



I do not know if its ok to wait 5 weeks. But if you do, she should not
leave the US, under any circumstances, until you file AOS.



Originally posted by No Spam

    > We're getting married and my fiancee just received her waiver of the

    > J-1 Home Residency Requirement. She's still in the USA and won't be

    > leaving. Do you have any advice on our next move(s) with visa's?


    > Also:

    > 1. Should she get her medical exam before the wedding?

    > 2. Will we have any trouble if the wedding takes place shortly after

    > her visa runs out? Wedding less than 5 weeks past her visa

    > expiration.

    > She has a D/S I94 card and has waiver in hand and marrying a US

    > citizen.



Thanks for all the help you've provided here!

Hypertweeky

Originally posted by No Spam

    > We're getting married and my fiancee just received her waiver of the

    > J-1 Home Residency Requirement. She's still in the USA and won't be

    > leaving. Do you have any advice on our next move(s) with visa's?


    > Also:

    > 1. Should she get her medical exam before the wedding?

    > 2. Will we have any trouble if the wedding takes place shortly after

    > her visa runs out? Wedding less than 5 weeks past her visa

    > expiration.

    > She has a D/S I94 card and has waiver in hand and marrying a US

    > citizen.



    > Thanks for all the help you've provided here!





Yay congrats on your upcoming marriage and waiver!!

How did you guys get it?? I have heard it is HARD to get one of
those!!!

Take care and good luck on the process!!!

No-Spam

Yes, it took a long time to finally get the waiver. She is not in the
medical profession but it is still a LONG drawn out process.



Basically, if you are not in a medical field, you have a really good
chance of getting a waiver to the 2 year requirement. That is, IF your
country will be cooperative and give you their No Objection Statement.
As long as you can get that, and you have no strikes against you with
the US goverment, you are pretty much guaranteed the waiver.



Other than that, you MUST be careful and follow all the steps in the
process. Filling in all the forms correctly and sending them off.



It took us about a year to get it all completed and waiver in hand. If
we had tried harder, we could have saved maybe 2 or 2 and a half months
on that but it is just very slow.



My recommendation is that if you need the No-objection waiver, that you
call your countries embassy in Washington DC and ask them some questions
about how "automatic" it is for them to give a no-objection statement.
Ask them, "are there various skills from your country that they don't
give it to? What sort of skilled groups do they normally grant it to,
etc. From what I know, most foreign countries will give you this
statement. If your embassy seems to tell you you'll get a "green light"
if you apply, then get started on filling in the forms and filing the
fees you need.



One stumbling block to us, turned out to not be a real issue. The last
step of the process tells you to write your reason(s) for requesting the
waiver. We agonized whether we should just put that we want to get
married, wondering whether that would be good enough of a reason for
them to grant it to us. We did a ton of research and found out it isn't
really that crucial, but it is important to write SOMETHING honest down.
We ended up mentioning she wanted to study in the USA, which was very
true, plus mentioned we were getting married. I think we wrote about a
half page of reasons. Anyway, just write some truthful and reasons down
for you to request that you not need to fulfill the 2 year home
residency requirement and you'll be fine.





Once you get your waiver, you can Adjust yOur Status to other visa's,
like marriage, or your fiance(e) apply for a fiance visa to get you back
to the country. (about a 8 month process right now)

Folinskyinla

Originally posted by No Spam

    > We're getting married and my fiancee just received her waiver of the

    > J-1 Home Residency Requirement. She's still in the USA and won't be

    > leaving. Do you have any advice on our next move(s) with visa's?


    > Also:

    > 1. Should she get her medical exam before the wedding?

    > 2. Will we have any trouble if the wedding takes place shortly after

    > her visa runs out? Wedding less than 5 weeks past her visa

    > expiration.

    > She has a D/S I94 card and has waiver in hand and marrying a US

    > citizen.



    > Thanks for all the help you've provided here!



Hi:



With waiver in hand, just file for I-130/485 like anyone else. Make
sure a copy of the waiver grant is submitted.



BTW, a J-1, like an F-1,is admitted "Duration of Status".



Based upon what you post here, it sounds pretty straightforward.

Richard III

Hypertweeky -



There are apparently a variety of ways to get a J-1 visa. My wife got
hers as a result of being awarded a grant by the US government. She is
a teacher of English as a Second Language and American Studies with,
now, 20 years experience at the secondary school level. She and 30,000
other teachers from all over Russia applied for this grant and she was
one of 30 who received the grant after advancing through a series of
interviews with US education officials. She then came to the US and
studied at the University of Delaware for three months. Then she
returned to Russia, where she tought for 14 months, before returning to
the US to study American culture. It was going to be way too costly in
terms of time and money to get a waiver for those last 10 months, so we
simply decided that it would be best if she were to go back and resume
teaching in fulfillment of her obligation under the terms of the grant.
I wish you good fortune.



Richard III



Originally posted by Hypertweeky

    > Yay congrats on your upcoming marriage and waiver!!

    > How did you guys get it?? I have heard it is HARD to get one of
    > those!!!

Take care and good luck on the process!!!

No-Spam

oops,

I should have mentioned that someone wanting to get out of the 2 year
requirement with a J-1 visa, also may have real problems if they have
government funding. Your post reminded me of that.



In our case, my fiancee didn't have any government funding, and her
country didn't have a problem giving out No-Objection statements.



You're probably right in thinking when you have government funding, the
odds are against you, and to just finish out the 2 years and be done
with it. Honestly, with the time delay and the money and paperwork
involved in getting the waiver, it may make a lot of sense in just going
back to the foreign country for 2 years and be done with it.



I wish the law were changed and it was 18 months (or 12) instead of 24,
that would be a step in the right direction for a lot of people.

Dcmark

Why should the law be changed? The spirit of the J1 visa with home
residency requirement is not to make it easier to immigrate to the US.





Originally posted by no-spam

    > oops,

    > I should have mentioned that someone wanting to get out of the 2 year
    > requirement with a J-1 visa, also may have real problems if they have
    > government funding. Your post reminded me of that.


    > In our case, my fiancee didn't have any government funding, and her
    > country didn't have a problem giving out No-Objection statements.


    > You're probably right in thinking when you have government funding,
    > the odds are against you, and to just finish out the 2 years and be
    > done with it. Honestly, with the time delay and the money and
    > paperwork involved in getting the waiver, it may make a lot of sense
    > in just going back to the foreign country for 2 years and be done
    > with it.


I wish the law were changed and it was 18 months (or 12) instead
of 24, that would be a step in the right direction for a lot of
people.

No-Spam

Originally posted by DCMark

    > Why should the law be changed? The spirit of the J1 visa with home
    > residency requirement is not to make it easier to immigrate to the US.
    >



Actually, the spirit of the J1 visa with Home Residency, is to learn
something, then bring it home to your country and show others. The fact
of the matter is, most J1 visa holders with HRR are here for 3-4 months,
then required to spend 24 months in their country. A lot of those
holders don't have anything much better than a office job doing simple
low end tasks. They don't learn much.



After living through the J1 waiver process I see it a different way.

My main reason for the law to change is due to the length in time for
processing a waiver. It took us about a year. If the government can't
process a request within a reasonable amount of time, then they
shouldn't hold that "carrot" out there.

We need to reward people that abide by the laws instead of break them.



In addition, reducing the time frame to 1 year or even 18 months is
sufficient time to return home, and tell everyone in their country about
what they learned. Most people would say, "You can spend a year in your
country, no problem." but it's harder to get someone to go back home
for 2 years. What does that lead to? I think it leads to people
staying illegally.



The shortened time required outside of the USA, would reduce the number
of waiver requests, calls to governments and paper pushing.

Dcmark

I disagree with you and I do have experience with a J1. A minor office
job should NOT result in a 2-year home requirement. Then you applied
for the wrong type of J1.



When you enter into a contract with the citizens of the United States,
you should be required to abide by it unless there are extreme
circumstances. The J1 is not for immigration, its for learning and
taking that learings home.





Originally posted by no-spam

    > Actually, the spirit of the J1 visa with Home Residency, is to learn
    > something, then bring it home to your country and show others. The
    > fact of the matter is, most J1 visa holders with HRR are here for 3-4
    > months, then required to spend 24 months in their country. A lot of
    > those holders don't have anything much better than a office job doing
    > simple low end tasks. They don't learn much.


    > After living through the J1 waiver process I see it a different way.

    > My main reason for the law to change is due to the length in time for
    > processing a waiver. It took us about a year. If the government
    > can't process a request within a reasonable amount of time, then they
    > shouldn't hold that "carrot" out there.

    > We need to reward people that abide by the laws instead of break them.


    > In addition, reducing the time frame to 1 year or even 18 months is
    > sufficient time to return home, and tell everyone in their country
    > about what they learned. Most people would say, "You can spend a year
    > in your country, no problem." but it's harder to get someone to go
    > back home for 2 years. What does that lead to? I think it leads to
    > people staying illegally.


The shortened time required outside of the USA, would reduce the number
of waiver requests, calls to governments and paper pushing.