I am a US Permanent Resident from Nepal. My girlfriend (soon to be wife) is a student doing her MBA and is in F-1 visa (student). She is graduating in May 2015 and will start her OPT soon after that.
We are planning to get court married real soon (within a month) and file for her green card soon after that. Once she gets her green card, we'll go home and get married with all the religious ceremonies. <p>
I had few questions about the green card process for my wife. I looked through various threads of various forums and I am more confused than before on how exactly this process works. I got conflicting answers for these questions. So, I am posting these questions so that I could get the correct answers from the expect himself.
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I understand that for my wife's GC, first I need to petition I-130 and she needs to wait until her priority date becomes current (which the people say can take several years to be current), then she needs to apply for Adjustment of Status. <p>
1. Could you go briefly on the whole process from start to finish? <br>
2. Some of the threads on the other forums said that the Congress changed the law so that there is no wait time for Spouse of Permanent Resident to apply for her green card. How much truth is in this statement? <br>
3. Some people who applied about a year or two ago said that they got their GC on hand within 6 months. How is that even possible when the wait time to just apply for GC under this category is several years? <br>
4. What happens if she applies before her priority date becomes current? Will her application be denied or will it just sit in a queue (first come first serve) until the priority date becomes current and then it will get processed? <br>
5. If she starts her OPT in May 2015 and the OPT lasts for 1 year (till May 2016), would that be enough time for her to apply for GC through my petition?
See clip from Attorney Rajiv S. Khanna's conference call video that addresses this question.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvnIAm0nQJ8#t=99
FAQ Transcript
My sister is in India and the prospective groom is a US citizen. They have concerns about how to proceed with marriage and relocation of the girl to US in a timely manner (prefer not to wait more than a year for marriage/ living together post-marriage for personal reasons) Current fiancé visa processing time seems to be 15 months. It was not this long pre-covid, realistically can this processing time reduce this year? If they do marriage in India first, what’s the quickest way for her to come to US and how long would it take She has a valid B1. Can she travel on that to US post-marriage for 5-6 months only without any risk to her green card application? She is trying to get an L1-B visa through her current company. Will that visa approval be affected if they get married in the meanwhile? In short, what is the quickest path for her marriage & relocation to the US right now?
She can travel with a B-1 visa as long as she tells the truth. L-1 and H-1B visas are the quickest paths.