The Right To Work
Ok I have really been avoiding this issue because frankly everywhere I looked I found contradictory information. The website has changed two or three times just during our approval process. Initially when we started the site stated the k1 visa itself was an immigrant visa and conffered the right to work for 90 days after entry or up to your change of status. I wish now I had kept archived copies of the information on the website as it changed. Now I see verbiage stating the k1 is not an immigrant visa. Some one please explain that one to me.... I suppose one could simply come here to get married on the K1 and then leave but it makes no sense. If you are not comming to stay there is no reason to even bother Uncle Sam with the details. Enter on the standard visa waiver get married and leave inside your alloted time (60 days). The whole point of going through the pain of a K1 is to come to the US in order to immigrate while you are a fiance. It holds the reasonable expectation that you will get married soon after entry (though I think 90 days is a bit short) and expires quickly. But that doesn't change the fact that when you apply for this you are doing so in order to be able to stay once you become the spouse of a U.S. citizen. But no... now even though its purpose is for immigration it is not seen as an immigration visa.....idiocy!
Anyway, presently on the everchanging US immigration website the only mention I can now find of work for a K1 visa is to apply for an EAD once you have entered on your K1. Since all you need is your I-94 to apply for the EAD you should be able to file the day you land. Still takes 3 months or so... but hey its something. Another $170 for the filing. Anyway thats the official skinny from the website and from the mouth of the official that saw us through the border in atlanta.
Evidently the root of all the various methods in which initial work approval has occured for differnt k1 entrants stems from the border officials. Border officials have the ability to stamp somone as able to work. For a while the policy at some border crossings was to stamp work approval in the passports of k-1 holders. Some were approved for the 90 days of the k1 and some were even stamped for 2 years (length of the assumed temporary permanent resident status after getting married) . Apparently this came to a halt as INS was subsumed into HLS as the most recent mention of this on the web I have been able to find was more than a year old. It also seems that JFK was the airport most likely to do this. Currently I can't even figure out if the border officials have retained this ability or if all they are doing is verifying your paperwork is in order.
My between the lines take ? I could be wrong but it seems the k1 process was initially viewed as a logical immigrant track and that change of status was supposed to be relatively quick. Thus the right to work was assumed and the 90 day coverage was supposed to be enough to get you to permanent resident status. However paperwork backlogs soared when INS got lumped into homeland security and that left lots of folks working while waiting on their change of status to take place. I saw many posts on visa pro's msg's boards of people in just this perdicament. They all spoke of the EAD application as a relatively new twist on the k1 process and the document seems to be a stopgap measure employed due to the insane waiting periods to get permanent residence cards.
The other process I have seen/heard many talk about is the easier to ask forgiveness routine. You can get a SS card once you are in the country with or without the right to work. However once you have a SS# you can fill out job applications. Even if its a number that gets returned as unable to work by the time it gets back to the employer its fait accompli and most seem willing to just play the waiting game for the paperwork to catch up with the reality of the situation. Afterall most people are willing to accept the fact the system is screwed up and that in this case looking the other way is the right thing. The only trick is if you run up against a hard ass it is a situation that can cause a lot of trouble. So it is highly unadvisable to do so. Cause in the end its breaking the law and that can trhow a huge wrench into all the time and effort that has been spent to get to this point. My advice ? Stick to the process and tough it out. Get the approval or wait for the PRC to show up and just don't mess with the russian roulette. You might get away with it. But then it might also be far more expensive than missing a couple months of paychecks.
Anyway, presently on the everchanging US immigration website the only mention I can now find of work for a K1 visa is to apply for an EAD once you have entered on your K1. Since all you need is your I-94 to apply for the EAD you should be able to file the day you land. Still takes 3 months or so... but hey its something. Another $170 for the filing. Anyway thats the official skinny from the website and from the mouth of the official that saw us through the border in atlanta.
Evidently the root of all the various methods in which initial work approval has occured for differnt k1 entrants stems from the border officials. Border officials have the ability to stamp somone as able to work. For a while the policy at some border crossings was to stamp work approval in the passports of k-1 holders. Some were approved for the 90 days of the k1 and some were even stamped for 2 years (length of the assumed temporary permanent resident status after getting married) . Apparently this came to a halt as INS was subsumed into HLS as the most recent mention of this on the web I have been able to find was more than a year old. It also seems that JFK was the airport most likely to do this. Currently I can't even figure out if the border officials have retained this ability or if all they are doing is verifying your paperwork is in order.
My between the lines take ? I could be wrong but it seems the k1 process was initially viewed as a logical immigrant track and that change of status was supposed to be relatively quick. Thus the right to work was assumed and the 90 day coverage was supposed to be enough to get you to permanent resident status. However paperwork backlogs soared when INS got lumped into homeland security and that left lots of folks working while waiting on their change of status to take place. I saw many posts on visa pro's msg's boards of people in just this perdicament. They all spoke of the EAD application as a relatively new twist on the k1 process and the document seems to be a stopgap measure employed due to the insane waiting periods to get permanent residence cards.
The other process I have seen/heard many talk about is the easier to ask forgiveness routine. You can get a SS card once you are in the country with or without the right to work. However once you have a SS# you can fill out job applications. Even if its a number that gets returned as unable to work by the time it gets back to the employer its fait accompli and most seem willing to just play the waiting game for the paperwork to catch up with the reality of the situation. Afterall most people are willing to accept the fact the system is screwed up and that in this case looking the other way is the right thing. The only trick is if you run up against a hard ass it is a situation that can cause a lot of trouble. So it is highly unadvisable to do so. Cause in the end its breaking the law and that can trhow a huge wrench into all the time and effort that has been spent to get to this point. My advice ? Stick to the process and tough it out. Get the approval or wait for the PRC to show up and just don't mess with the russian roulette. You might get away with it. But then it might also be far more expensive than missing a couple months of paychecks.
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