Getting Married After F-1 Expired

Hello,

We have wedding in September but my fiancee's F1 visa expires in August. She was told by her friends that it would take longer for her to get green card and cost more money if we get married after the visa expires. I think she can continue to stay in the states if she goes to school. The school provides her with I-20 and as long as she has I-20, she is not out of status.

so my question is should we get married on paper before our wedding? I do not want to do this since we have big wedding in September if we do not have to.

If it is much better to get married when she has visa, I am thinking of sending her back to her country in August before herr visa expires and have her come back with tourist visa (90 days).

What would be the best way to do this?

Any suggestion is appreciated!

In terms of coming back to marry, she should do so on a K1 (fiancée visa). The USCIS can treat somebody who enters the U.S. on a tourist visa, despite an existing intention to marry during their stay, as having committed fraud to enter the country.

Thank you for your input. I understand that if we decide to have her leave the country then we should get married on paper before she leaves so she can obtain fiancee visa.

What do you think about getting married after her student visa (F1) expires then she continues to get I-20 from school? Since we are having wedding in September and some of our family members are traditional, we rather get married on wedding date.

DO NOT LET HER LEAVE THE COUNTRY!! Hard to believe but you will suffer more headaches and it will take much longer to get her back into the county if you do the "right" thing rather than let her go out of status. If she leaves, then legally, you will have to apply for a fiancee or Spouse visa if you marry. This can take anywhere from 6 months to a year or two. If she leaves and comes back on a Tourist visa, once you get married DHS will consider her entry fraudulent because she should have done a fiancee or spouse visa.

Regardless of whether your fiancee is still on a student visa or has fallen Out of Status, after you marry you will be required to fill out the same paperwork to get her permanant residency. You will file I-130 to petion an alien relative (wire) and she will file and I-485 to adjust her status.

See this link

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/usc...0045f3d6a1RCRD

Thank you for the link but it did not mention anything about person who is out of status. I am still afraid that it will be more complicated if we get married after her status become out of status. I was told that I can call immigration but I hear that it cost a lot of money to call and often times they are not knowledgeable.

I will try to dig more information on uscis but if you know of any good link that talks about out of status, please post it.

As long as you enter legally you can seek to adjust your status on the basis of marriage to a U.S. citizen. (Which is not to say that misconduct such as entering the country on false pretenses, or subsequent criminal activity, couldn't result in a denial of your petition.)