Conditions for getting married in USA

[binitp18]

NJ or PA

As soon as we announce my wife pregnancy, My mom(I am citizen here) applied for her Visiting visa from India. She got her visa for 6 months. she wanted to attend the baby shower.
after she got her visa My sister (21 years old never married) also wanted to come to the baby shower. so she also applied and got visa.

they come to gather. they are going to stay for 6 months.

Now in the baby shower she met some guy (Citizen) that we invited him with his family (Guy's father and My father were friend and 3rd cousin in India) they liked each other. and family decided to get engagement done. (of course with guy and girl permission). now because my wife is pregnant, we did not want to wait for long. so just with in 30 days of the baby shower, we had arranged the engagement party which had about 230 people. expense was paid by both parties. we took pictures, videos and done the ring ceremony.

now they want to get married here in the court.

my questions are

1. Is it possible? (Are there any conditions ?)
2. Does she has any restriction because she has visiting visa only? (I do not think so- Just want to make sure)
3. which document she will need to show in the court?
4. After registering marriage, how long it will take to file her petition for conditional green card?

I know the answers for few of this questions but just want to make sure.

which is a better option?

that she go back to India and guy also go to India and get married and file petition for her from India OR is it better to do the same thing from here?

 

[ecmst12]

Getting married on a tourist visa is a big no-no and can get her in trouble. She needs to see an immigration attorney as soon as possible. She may need to go back to India while waiting for a fiancee visa to be approved.

 

[Proserpina]

I second the suggestion of seeing an attorney, but getting married on a tourist visa is not nearly as dubious as it once was. This is from NOLO:

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/fiance-marriage-visa-book/chapter1-5.html

Gregor's scenario isn't unusual and surprisingly NOLO also overstated the matter of being illegal while changing from tourist to resident.

This might be clearer, actually:

http://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/can-you-get-married-visitor-visa.html

The key is "intent" and even if your tourist visa expires you can successfully adjust your status when there's no intent, and it's not too soon after entering the country.

Now that's not saying it's automatic - it's absolutely not. USCIS will spend more time than usual looking at the case, but getting married on a tourist visa is, if the criteria are met, not illegal.

They wouldn't use a K1; they'd just use the usual AOS paperwork.

 

[binitp18]

why go back?

what kind of trouble? I just want to understand more. she is been in the country for over 60 days. got engaged after 45 days after arriving. so it does not apply to 30 or 60 days rule for immigration. And this is an 1000% in good faith. if I show their pics to any 100 random people, they will defiantly say that they look good together. its not one of those fake or fraud marriage. they speak the same language, last name same, age different 1.5 years basically it's all good. they go out on dates, go out with family, talk on phone, guys family's family invite our family to upcoming events like birthday party. So I do not see anything wrong here. I am not expert but i did some search on this type of situations, if getting married on purpose like preplanned and get married withing few days of landing.... in those cases it's more trouble. but this was not the case. please advise with little more info.

 

[ecmst12]

I don't know that much about it, I just have a friend who started dating a guy from Canada and he came here planning to stay 6 months to see if they would work out long term. He ended up proposing less than halfway through and he's now back in Canada waiting for their visa to be processed. Apparently they didn't think they'd be able to adjust his status without him going back.

 

[Proserpina]

This explains things far better than I can:

http://www.visapro.com/Immigration-Articles/?a=1252&z=36

(I wish I'd found this earlier - it answers a whole bunch of questions)

 

[LdiJ]

I just want to make one point that is important.

It is NEVER illegal to get married. Doing things in the wrong order can have a negative impact on immigration proceedings but the act of getting married is never illegal unless you are committing bigamy or incest.

 

[I'mTheFather]

I just want to make one point that is important.

It is NEVER illegal to get married. Doing things in the wrong order can have a negative impact on immigration proceedings but the act of getting married is never illegal unless you are committing bigamy or incest.

Those are most definitely not the only circumstances in which marriage may be illegal. The other circumstances may not apply to this situation, but it doesn't appear that those two apply here either.

 

[Proserpina]

Apologies.

I assumed that it went without saying that the marriage itself wouldn't be illegal outside of the obvious exceptions.

 

[binitp18]

sample video of their engagement party.

I have over 500 pics with families and friends. 10 to 15 videos, guy's speech and girl's dance performance. this is just to show that nothing has done with fraud intention. bills for the engagement party. again they are just engaged. not married yet. this whole post was posted to see if there is any conditions apply or not. All basic conditions and requirements that i read from USCIS and some other state's web site. they match it very well. I hope there will not be any issues as we have all the proofs and documents that are required for this entire process.

thanks everyone for their reply.

 

[not2cleverRed]

No one here needs to see video of their engagement party.

And USCIS is not going to care whether or not the couple looks cute together. (Granted, if this couple gets to the point of being interviewed, having those photos can be useful. But, depending on who's doing the interview, s/he might not even glance at them.)

The issue is IMMIGRATION LAW and doing things in the correct order. Pro has REPEATEDLY given you links - follow them.

And yes, sometimes returning to one's home country before getting approved is required - if that applies in this case, then jump through the hoops and be done with it.