This is where I am as of now: not
knowing whether to get married in the U.S. or Argentina in order for my
boyfriend to legally live with me in the United States. Becoming a resident of
the U.S. is hard enough, without everyone giving you different opinions on the
best way to go about it. This is how the adventure of my boyfriend and I
getting married and applying for U.S. residency began. When he was visiting,
about 6 months ago, from Argentina we set up a consultation with a lawyer to
get his opinion on how to tackle the lengthy process of becoming a resident of
the U.S. through marriage. The lawyer, I’ll call him lawyer#1, made us feel at
ease. He told us to simply get married in the U.S. and apply for residency.
After hearing this news, we came up with some more questions regarding working,
getting a driver’s license, etc. Since I would soon be going to live with my
boyfriend in Argentina and to teach English for a year, I decided to make my
second consultation appointment before leaving the states. This second lawyer,
I’ll call him lawyer#2, was very accusatory, asking questions such as “Are you
marrying him for love or so he can get a green card?” and “Did he enter the
U.S. legally the last time he visited?” The other unsettling thing about
lawyer#2 is that he said it is, and I quote, “fraud to come to the U.S. with
the intention of marrying a foreigner,” and I should “get married in Argentina
and apply for U.S. residency there.” While this may be true (how would I know,
I’m not a lawyer), I was very shocked to hear this as lawyer#1 had specifically
said to get married in the U.S. and that getting married in Argentina wouldn’t
matter, as the U.S. wouldn’t recognize us as husband and wife if we were to get
married outside of the states. When I explained this to lawyer#2 he told me
that whoever told me that either did not know what he was talking about, or was
not an immigration lawyer. But lawyer#1 was an immigration lawyer... so who was
I to believe??
This is where lawyer#3 comes in. I
figure he or she can be the tiebreaker. I have made an appointment with a third
lawyer and my Mom is coming along. Since I am fairly young (22 in less than a
month) I figure having an older adult with me will make people take me more
seriously. Plus, it will be helpful to have another person there who is not as
emotionally invested so they can ask questions I may not have thought of. If
you or someone you know is in a similar situation such as this here are my suggestions
based on what I have learned so far:
1.
Ask family and friends if they are familiar with
this process at all, or know someone who would be (It would be optimal if
someone had referred me to a lawyer rather than searching for one on the
internet)
2.
Go to the lawyer’s office with questions already
written down
3.
Have your significant other and possibly a third
person come to the appointment with you
4.
Get more than one professional opinion
Those tips may seem basic, but it’s
nice to have them laid out. As far as the legal process, I am still becoming
familiar with it and I don’t want to tell you anything until I get multiple
opinions and do more research. As my boyfriend and I continue our journey, I
will update this blog with our experiences and tips (legal and practical) to
hopefully ease the process for anyone trying to obtain residency in the U.S.
through marriage!
