Hello everybody.
I would greatly appreciate your advise on the following:
I’m currently staying in the US (California) on a J1 visa, working as a trainee.
My fiance is holder of a J1 visa, too, working on a postdoctoral position at university.
The I-94 I obtained is about to expire in the midst of December. However, I’m seeking to extend my stay for another 6 months for my fiancé will not finish his research project before the middle of 2011. We are looking for a way allowing us to live another couple of months together here in the US before returning home to Germany.
I have searched through a lot of posts in this forum and figured out two basic options, about both still having a few uncertainties, though.
a) Apply for change of status to a B2 visa
In this case, I would base my whole argumentation on travel purpose, not mentioning anything about the relationship. By submitting the required letter of request, financial statement, flight ticket (to prove my intention to return to my home country), and a supporting letter I hope there would be a realistic chance to change to a B2 visa.
What I’m not sure about is, whether I would run in danger of being denied reentering the States when traveling home for Christmas and returning to the US early in January. With my I-94 expiring in the middle of December, I would remain in a “pending” status until my application for change for B2 gets approved. Estimated processing time for I-539 forms range within 60 to 80 days, so probably the change of status would not become effective before end of December. Would it be recommendable NOT to leave the US during this period in order not to face difficulties when reentering without the B2 being approved?
b) Getting married and apply for change of status to J2 visa
This is basically the only way I see right now to allow me continuing working also after change of status . I understood that as a J2 holder, I can apply for any kind of working permission to the USCIS – not only traineeship positions, but also regular jobs. Do you have any experience how long this approval takes? If I have to calculate around 2.5 to 3 months, then it would be questionable of which use a working permission would be if I (we) only remain in the States for other 4 or so months.
(c) The third but seemingly least realistic option I tried to figure out is the extension of my traineeship program. However, this seems only to be possible when staying with the initial company. A change of host companies doesn’t seem to be allowed except for extremely unusual circumstances like bankruptcy. To switch to another company, I would have to start the complete visa application process over again – requiring me to return to Germany and to wait around 3 months for the whole procedure to be completed.
In the end there seem to be two alternatives: changing to B2 WITHOUT being permitted to work or changing to J2 and obtaining a work permission (only how fast?)
Thanks a lot for any helpful advise on these questions!

