Bringing fiance to the U.S.

[luckythirteen]

Hi. I'm a Canadian citizen with a green card. My fiance is a Canadian citizen. I will be attending grad school in the United States for four years, after which I will likely return to live in Canada. My fiance would like to live and work in the United States for these four years so that we can be together. What are our options?

Thanks.

[Steven]

If you qualify for it, apply for US citizenship, then after you're married, sponsor her for LPR status on an I-130 (with the required additional forms). You can file an I-130 as an LPR but it takes years to get a visa number in that situation, not terribly practical. You have to have been in LPR status for five years and spent a minimum of six months out of each year in the US to get citizenship. Citizenship applications are quite quick at the moment, usually take five months. I-130 processing in that situation takes about seven or eight months.

Because you're an LPR she doesn't qualify for any derivative non-immigrant status. I suppose if you are really sure you don't want to live in the US you could surrender LPR status by filing I-407 and then apply for F-1 status and she would get F-2 as your spouse. But people on F-2 can't work, and work authorization on F-1 is very limited.

She may qualify for some sort of work authorized non-immigrant status in her own right, such as TN-1, depends on her qualifications and whether she can find an employer to sponsor her. The snag with that one is that because she would be married to a US LPR, CBP may decide she doesn't have non-immigrant intent and deny her entry.