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Hello,
I found your web site yesterday and it seems very helpful. But I got confused by some recent changes at the US embassy in Paris and am seeking your advice.
Here is our background. I am French and live with my fiancee who is a US citizen. We currently live in the US and I am here under a work visa (L1). However, my employer will soon terminate my employment which means that I will lose my visa status and will need to return to France. We got engaged before learning this situation change and plan to get married in July 2009 in the south of France (preparations have already begun!) So now, we are thinking of moving back to France and my fiancee would come with me, probably under a student visa (or so we are thinking right now). I figured we could get married in France and then she would apply for a Green Card on my behalf so that we could move back to the US (I already have a job opportunity here in the US after I get the green card). However, I saw the recent changes at the US embassy in France which states that only residents of France can apply and fill out the infamous I-130 form. It also states that people on temporary status, such as tourists and students, do not meet this requirement and cannot apply.
My questions then are:
- could she apply even as a student if she stays in France for at least 6 months (we would be moving in January and getting married in July, she will have a long stay student visa so technically she will apply after a 6 months period)?
- Is there any way to circumvent this rule or are there any exceptions that you can think of (ie. we lived together in France for over a year before moving to the US in 2006, while she was a student, don't know if that would change anything... would a good lawyer be able to help in this regard)?
- Are there any options that you can think of that would enable us to stick with our plans (going to France and getting married in July and still be able to apply for a green card afterwards... for exemple, I saw on the French consulate in Washington website that there is a "Long stay visa in order to marry a french citizen". If she gets that visa instead of a student visa would she then meet the requirements to file the I-130 form)?
- If not and we can't stick with our plans, what are our options? How does it work if she has to come back to the US to file the petition? Would she then be "stuck" in the US and me in France while we wait for the process to be over or can she just go back to the US, file the petition and come back to France and wait with me there?
Sorry if this post is way too long. I was under the impression that our plans would work and that we were taking the easiest route but now it seems that everything went down the drain...
Thank you so much in advance for any help or input you can provide.
Regards,
Greg
Post edited by: Gregoire, at: 2008/12/10 16:37
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