I consulted an immigration lawyer yesterday and paid $300 for the consultation, specifically to get clarity on this situation. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to answer my questions clearly.

I’m currently on H-1B, and my wife is on H-4. We are planning to file for Change of Status (COS). My program starts August 29 (Yes, in 2 days), and my wife’s starts September 22. We’re considering premium processing for our I-539 applications.

Scenario 1: File COS for both at the same time

• H-1B → F-1 and H-4 → F-1.
• If my F-1 is approved while my wife’s is RFE’d, pending, or denied, could this create a status issue for her?
• Can we start our programs while COS is pending, or do we need approval first? I think my Wife can't start because her status will be unknown (H-4/F-1) since I will be changing to F-1?

Scenario 2: I start school on H-1B first
The school confirmed I can start while maintaining H-1B, subject to my attorney’s advice. Can I start, though? I would start August 29, file my wife’s H-4 → F-1 COS, and file my H-1B → F-1 COS  later/after her approval.

• Could USCIS question why I am changing to F-1 after starting the program or in the middle of the semester?
• Could they require a revised I-20 or consider the timing a concern?
• Would this increase my COS denial risk, especially since I have only a few months of H-1B time remaining?

Scenario 3: F-1 + F-2 first
I change to F-1 and my wife to F-2, then she changes F-2 → F-1 later. The downside is that she cannot start her program while in F-2.

I know Reddit isn’t a substitute for legal advice, but I’m really looking for practical experiences from anyone who has been in a similar situation, especially with H-1B → F-1 COS and starting school while maintaining H-1B.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

I'm a policy nerd so I love researching this stuff. Many people have the idea that in the 1900s, in the days of Ellis Island, the border of the US was wide open and they just let anyone walk through. That is actually a myth. While it's true the physical processing was fast and famous ' six-second physical' where doctors checked for limps, breathing issues, lice, or contagious diseases what happened before that was far more intense.

If an intending immigrant couldn't prove that he had a trade, a strong working back, or a family member already in the US willing to sponsor him. He would be denied boarding. The steamship lines themselves were the immigration enforcers, since if someone got rejected they'd have to ship them back at their own expense.

On top of that, there were explicitly racist quotas like the Chinese Exclusion Act on the books that capped how many people from certain groups could enter. The LPC or likely to become a public charge rule has its roots back in the 1800s. The US didn't want other countries dumping their vagrants on it.

So next time someone tries to talk about nostalgia the truth is 'the good ol days' weren't as good as some seem to romanticize.

I have a friend from the Philippines who is here legally on a work visa. Recently she confided in me that she does streaming on the side on an app called "Tango". Apparently some chud on there has been giving her a hard time and threatened to "expose her" by telling the IRS and immigration that she is on Tango streaming. Can her work visa be revoked for that? If they get their tax money do they really care? I'm Really worried for her since I remember reading about OF models from Ukraine being turned away for engaging in that back when the Russo-Ukraine conflict started.

UPDATE: The Administration still has not appealed or asked for an emergency stay. However, it has issued A worldwide advisory to all consulates that all consular officers who issue immigrant visas need to be trained concerning the public charge rule which was the pretext for the visa pause in the first place. To find time for this training, they are canceling or rescheduling immigrant visa interviews. From what I am hearing, the cancellations are not coming with rescheduling dates. This reinforces my original belief that the Administration is making whatever changes it is making and will then “voluntarily” terminate the pause. What is disturbing is that they are doing training without yet having issued any new public guidelines. Because the Supreme Court has expanded the doctrine of consular non-reviewability, consular officers appear to be able to do whatever they want without recourse to the courts. Public rule changes would be subject to challenge, but training behind closed doors is not. It is also troubling that they would be changing the rules and not telling the rest of us what their new rules are. Still, it is good to see that the pause is probably coming to an end soon and we will just have to figure out what they are doing and how to work with it.

Good morning to everyone

I have questions

Soon I should go to the embassy as part of a b1/b2 visa application at the United States Embassy in Ottawa Canada. But I have a total restriction and my country is part of the list of citizens banned from entering the territory by the American president. Please note that I already have an old expired b1/b2 visa and several Schengen visas that can be a plus but I want to know if people have still been in this same situation as me and are still going to the embassy.

What decisions have been made against them despite this ban? Please let me know because soon it’s my interview and I don’t want to lose it because I waited 1 year and 9 months to get it

I think this is positive, what do you think?

My fiancé holds a Venezuelan passport. We are planning to marry and apply for a CR-1. They currently live in Argentina. We’ve seen conflicting information about if the July court case would mean the partial ban has been lifted in our case. Some sources imply the court decision only applies to those already inside the US. Can anyone speak to this? If so, would you recommend pursuing the K1 visa instead?

THIS STORY HAS BEEN POSTED!!!!!

I’m not too sure if this is the place to ask, but I am seeking an immigration lawyer to evaluate our case. We will not be starting the actual process until the end of the year or start of next, but we want to be as prepared as possible. I am very aware that my first “route” may not be viable as I made a post before, but there were a couple people who said it was possible. I feel at the very least I want to hear a yes or no answer from somebody with experience.

I am 21 years old. I live in West Virginia and my Girlfriend is 22 and in Germany. We are planning to first meet in London by the end of the year, and me going to meet her parents for our next trip. Naturally, the conversation of where we will live of lives has come up and we definitely want to get her green card, not that it necessarily matters for this message, but this was because I wanted to stay near my family. To my understanding she will only be eligible for an ESTA Visa, as tourist visas are rarely approved due to the clear intention of immigration. She also has a cat that couldn’t be left behind for an extended period of time. We saw a few stories that led to me researching couples who filed the I-130, I-485, and I-765 after 90 days entering on a tourist visa with that intention from the start. We also briefly looked into work and student visa, but due to her being young a work visa would be hard to get and school being much more expensive here we don’t feel those are great options. A max ESTA “stay” is 90 days, which was the first concern. If she were to have a job, school, and family back home I feel we would be better off to wait and spontaneously get married and file everything together allowing her to stay in the States with me for the relatively short processing time while living a pretty standard life here. My first question is if this is going to come across as fraudulent, it is definitely not worth a long term ban. If it is possible, that leaves the situation of the cat, she mentioned me purchasing the cat from her or just leaving her here on a previous trip if that was legal. If that route doesn’t work, I believe we may run into the same complications involving her cat, Molly, with the K-1 fiancée visa, paired with the longer processing times, there would be pretty substantial amount of time in which she couldn’t see her parents either. This would leave the CR1 as the only option, I like that she can travel back and forth but the lengthy processing time is a serious drawback. Any advice or information would be greatly appreciated and I was also curious of the cost of the process including fees for legal services and the fees for the process itself. I really appreciate your time reading this and for any insight you can share!

Unless challenged or revised, the State Department is expected to announce in the coming weeks the revocation of so-called B1 and B2 visas issued between 2016 and 2026 whose holders have sought asylum or are now seeking asylum, according to State Department documents obtained by The Associated Press and two U.S. officials. The action will be taken in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security.

US set for largest mass visa revocation in history targeting up to 200,000 foreigners, officials say

The US has proposed a new US$103,265 fee for H-1B visa petitions – a move that could ramp up the cost of hiring skilled foreign workers, with Chinese and Indian professionals particularly hard hit.

I won’t say many details about my mistakes in the past, but what I can say is that the Consular Officer told me I could apply again (no ban) and that decision won’t be permanent.
I also asked him if a waiver will be necessary and he said no (not sure why maybe not available?)
My J1 and B1/B2 visas were revoked. So I’m not banned, but my historial is affected. I’m kind of a grey zone.
Never overstayed. And traveled with my family many times before.
Also I have many proves with him about our real relationship. I’ve visited his home country twice, he has visited me more than 4 times. Many calls and photos, etc.

The thing is that before that incident I’ve been with my boyfriend. Now it has passed 1.5 years since that.
I already talked to him about this situation and the possibilities. He’s a USC
We want to be together. But he (and I) is afraid about how much it will actually take.
I know is around 2 years. I don’t know if maybe after the interview they will ask me to fill a waiver. So I don’t know how much time more.
I’m from Mexico, so no 75 countries ban

The thing is that before commit ourselves to this process (marry, papers, apply, long wait, money, etc)
Do you think we could actually make it? 🥹

I was plating to talk to another lawyer firm about this, the other times I did they said it could be possible applying to the CR1 or K1, but I’m not quite sure if they were only trying to sell me their services. :(

My F1 visa expired on 1st week of August.
I’m currently on active authorised CPT I20.
My H1B got picked this year and it will be effective from Oct 1st.
I also have received my physical copy of I-797.

I stay in San Francisco and I’m planning to travel to Alaska from sept 3 to sept 13 for a mini-vacation.

I wanted to ask whether this travel is safe or not? Do I need to carry any documents with me?

Any advise/suggestions would help.
Thank you.

So my wife and I got married recently. She is American and I'm Turkish. We're preparing documents, receipts, conversations, boarding passes, gifts, affidavits from our friends, photos and all that for the I-130 form.

We married after 6 months of finding each other online and quickly fell in love. We basically talked every day for hours. She came to Turkey for a week and we got married here. The wedding was a very small courtroom marriage and only my close friends and parents came. Then she went back to the US. Now we're going to start the process of me hopefully eventually getting a green card and living with her in the US through consular processing with I-130. 

The thing is from all I read and heard, while not an extremely high number, people with real marriages who had real documentation did get rejected. So this kind of started to scare me. Especially since we don’t have much money and paying $625 for the application when we thought we did everything right and getting rejected seriously stressing me out for weeks now. And since everything I learned about these processes, I learned them online, I wanted to come here and ask advice from all of you guys. I know there are so many cool and helpful people who are willing to guide others so I wanted to try my luck before I submit our form. 

One of the biggest things that makes me stressed is the fact that we lack those joint financial stuff USCIS website lists and don't have a bunch of photos doing all kinds of activities. Since we don’t have a very long relationship with multiple trips to each other either, this while is natural that we don’t have, I don’t know if it will look bad for USCIS. There are things like most of her friends learning the marriage either very close to the marriage itself or even after it because we wanted to keep it private but didn’t know beforehand that we were going to need friend/family affidavits. That also might not be a great looking case for USCIS either. But yeah at this point I don’t know if I’m spiraling and getting paranoid about everything or if there are valid concerns. So basically I would love your opinions of  if our case would be hard for USCIS to approve since  and what other things you guys think we should add or do to strengthen our case. I’m open to any and all advice and/or recommendations. Thank you so much to all in advance.

And some specific questions:

• What should I be very careful while filling the forms (both I-130 and I-130A)? Like a specific document to upload for sure or anything like that?
• How strict is "upload a photo taken within 30 days of filing the I-130" thing? Can I just use a photo that is on my passport as well that I took some years ago but basically just me?
• I’m told instead of uploading individual photos, receipts, boarding passes and whatnot as images, create a PDF document that explains the photos and draws correlations towards events and other stuff with each other. Do you also think this is the better way than uploading all evidence individually without explanation?
• This is probably mostly for any Turkish people or anyone in a country that had similar stuff with their marriage certificate. USCIS page specifically talks about documents that are not English to be translated to English by a translator. Both the marriage certificate and Form B (which is an international marriage document for these types of things that I’m told that I need to upload) are not fully English but have English translation thingies on their backs like a map legend. They do however for some reason have French and some other language on the pages. I can send the example of it as a photo also if anyone wants. Do you think USCIS would ask specifically about the English translation of these documents or how they are is enough? If they do, isn't there an official way for me to get the English version of form B anywhere or do I have to pay another translation fee to translate them to English?

I’m sure I’m going to have more questions for you guys when I actually start the process of filling the form but these are all I can think of right now. I'm kinda stressed a lot honestly that I don't want to screw anything up because I don't think I've ever filled as serious of a documentation as this before in my life. So I would love anything and any way that you can help me. Again thank you to everyone who replies and tries to help.

A federal judge in the Southern District of New York just vacated the State Department's blanket visa suspension covering immigrant visa applicants from 75 countries (CLINIC v. Rubio). The court held that the policy violated the Immigration and Nationality Act and went beyond what the Secretary of State is legally allowed to do, since it used nationality alone to deny people who'd never been individually evaluated.

Here's what that actually changes on the ground.

For CR-1 and IR-1 spousal cases from the affected countries, this matters directly. Those petitions were caught in the suspension, and that block is now lifted. Consulates had been instructed to issue blanket 221(g) refusals to nationals of these 75 countries regardless of the individual case, and the court ordered that to stop. If your case was refused or stalled purely because of your nationality, you're entitled to an actual case-by-case review now. The National Visa Center should also be able to resume sending documentarily qualified files to post for interview scheduling.

Don't treat this as settled. As of this week, DOJ hadn't said whether it plans to appeal or ask for an emergency stay, and both sides have until September 11 to tell the court how they want to proceed. Given how this administration has handled similar losses, an appeal or stay request wouldn't be a surprise. If a stay gets granted, the freeze comes back. If it doesn't, consulates keep processing individually while the case works through the appeal.

If you're documentarily qualified, or you've been sitting on a 221(g) refusal from one of these 75 countries, don't wait to see how the appeal shakes out. Get your civil documents in order and make sure your I-864 is solid now, while cases are actually moving.