Staying in This Great Country

Bringing Long-Distance Love To Life: How To Get Married To Someone From Another Country

2 October 2017

Rachel Curtis

Did you meet someone online who isn't from the United States? You may have initially started talking to this person as a friend, but connected on a different level after a while. If you're hitting it off and have started a long-distance relationship with this person, you may be interested in getting married to him or her in the near future.

However, you may not know what steps you'll need to take to make the marriage happen. It's completely possible to marry your love interest, even if this person wasn't born in the United States and has never lived in the United States, but there is a process you'll need to go through that does take some time.

Make Arrangements to Visit Your Partner

Before you can apply for a visa to get your partner into the United States, you'll need to make arrangements to visit this person in his or her homeland. It's a requirement to meet your love interest in person before applying for the visa for several reasons. There are some people who choose to go through with this process simply to get into the United States for better opportunities rather than true love.

Unfortunately, those people make it even more difficult for the people who are truly in love and want to get married for the right reasons. You'll need to prove that the two of you have been able to see one another in person and spend some time together before applying for a fiancé visa, which is also known as the K-1 visa.

It may sound like more work than just having your love interest come over to the United States, but it's genuinely a good thing for your relationship. It gives you two the opportunity to see one another face to face and discuss your future with one another directly instead of over the phone or on a computer. It'll give you a chance to make sure you feel comfortable with this person before you go through the lengthy process of obtaining a fiancé visa.

Hire an Immigration Attorney to Help

After you've had the time to visit your partner, see one another, and discuss your intentions, you may want to continue on with the process of applying for the fiancé visa to bring this person over to the United States. You'll need to fill out a lot of paperwork, which is why it's often best to hire an immigration attorney from a law firm like Tesoroni & Leroy to go through everything with you. Some of the information on the paperwork may be confusing. The immigration attorney could explain all the information in detail, making sure you understand what you're reading before you agree to anything.

The attorney will go through all the requirements with you. There are only a few requirements, but you'll need to be of legal age to get married, and you'll need to be a legal citizen of the United States. If you meet the various requirements, you'll get to start completing the necessary paperwork with help from your attorney. It'll then get sent over to your partner's homeland, where he or she will have to fill out a lot of paperwork and participate in an interview before being approved for the visa.

The approval process isn't instant, and it can take several months to go through. If your partner does get approved, he or she will get to fly out to the United States and will have a total of three months to get married to you.

If you've found love in an area outside of the United States, you may want to bring your soul mate to the country and then get married to him or her. However, you'll need to go through a certain process before your partner can legally come to the United States. Even though the process requires you to meet specific requirements and complete a lot of paperwork, an immigration attorney could help you get through these important steps to ensure you're able to bring your lover to the United States where you'll finally be able to get married.

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