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Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2005 01:28:31 -0800
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Immigration is a serious matter. It is MUCH less expensive to cancel your
flights (or postpone them for 6 months later) and instead take your 3 month
vacation in USA. There are many beautiful places to see within the USA. Do
not go to Canada or Mexico either. You may get stuck there for many months.
I'm not a lawyer, but my opinion is that if you want to return to USA in
April but have no visa and no green card, you will not get back in. The
safest is to not exit the USA in the first place. The lawyer is right. If
I were you, I'd process your immigration status completely while on US soil.
Several reasons why they probably won't let you back in:
(1) You have a green card in process, J-1 expired, so your status is in
limbo (dangerous to cross a border)
(2) You are married to a US citizen and therefore can be assumed to have
intent to immigrate (can't come back in as a tourist)
(3) You no longer qualify to get in as a tourist on the Visa Waiver Program
(assuming you are Swiss) since you already have intent to immigrate
My wife recently immigrated to USA. It was expensive and time-consuming,
but unavoidable. During that whole time she was unable to cross the US
border. We had a nice vacation in Colorado. Luckily, now she has a green
card (which isn't even really green).
In case you are in the SF Bay area, I have a good recommendation for an
immigration lawyer. She's not cheap, but she's good.
-chris
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Received on Fri Dec 23 2005 - 03:54:07 PST
