Margaret

I was talking to my mom's cousin in Wales not long ago via email who
was telling me that her nephew was coming to the U.S. (hopefully soon)
to work and marry an American woman. For the past several years the
nephew has been entering the U.S. on a temporary work visa to be a ski
instructor in some resort. A couple of years ago he met this lady and
got engaged. She told me he was panicking because as of now he still
has not received his work visa, was in contact with Immigration who
told him it should be soon. His wedding will be in February.

So personally I really don't care and I'm just very curious by nature.
I've been reading of what you can and cannot do when it comes to
marriage, so my question is this. Is what he doing legal? Coming to
the U.S. on a temporary work visa and then marrying?

Folinskyinla

Originally posted by Margaret

    > I was talking to my mom's cousin in Wales not long ago via email who

    > was telling me that her nephew was coming to the U.S. (hopefully soon)

    > to work and marry an American woman. For the past several years the

    > nephew has been entering the U.S. on a temporary work visa to be a ski

    > instructor in some resort. A couple of years ago he met this lady and

    > got engaged. She told me he was panicking because as of now he still

    > has not received his work visa, was in contact with Immigration who

    > told him it should be soon. His wedding will be in February.


    > So personally I really don't care and I'm just very curious by nature.

    > I've been reading of what you can and cannot do when it comes to

    > marriage, so my question is this. Is what he doing legal? Coming to

    > the U.S. on a temporary work visa and then marrying?



Hi:



This is an excellent question. If he was coming in on an "H-1b"
temporary worker, I would say "no problem." However, what you describe
is an "H-2" visa and that has a component of a home abroad with no
intent of abandonment. This appears in the B-2 visa classification
also. But it also appears in the F-1 classification -- and the Board of
Immigration Appeals ruled in the venerable Hosseinpour case that
applying for adjustment of status did NOT violate the "residence abroad"
requirement of F-1 status.



If he intends to perform the actual job duties for the petitioning
employer, I might tend to think its OK -- but this is awfully close to
"10 foot pole' territory.



Hate to be wishy-washy on this one, but this experienced immigration
lawyer can't say that it WOULD be illegal to do this, but it DOES
give me pause.

Margaret

Thanks for your response. I forgot to add that he is not intending on
returning to Britain after his marriage. That's why I was wondering
initially if he was treading on dangerous grounds.

I kind of told my mom's cousin that I hoped he looked into it all
carefully as I would hate to see it not work out for him. She seemed
to think he had it all checked out and everything was in order.

Folinskyinla

Originally posted by Margaret

    > Thanks for your response. I forgot to add that he is not intending on

    > returning to Britain after his marriage. That's why I was wondering

    > initially if he was treading on dangerous grounds.


    > I kind of told my mom's cousin that I hoped he looked into it all

    > carefully as I would hate to see it not work out for him. She seemed

    > to think he had it all checked out and everything was in order.
    >



Hi:



I understood that he had intended to remain after getting married. And
I responded with that in mind. I almost wrote "answered" rather than
"responded" when I realized that I didn't answer the question at all.
Some things just fall into the gray areas.