United States Visa(4) Change of Immigration Intent
In the last issue, we introduced the differences between non-immigrant visas with no immigration intent, non-immigrant visas with dual intent, and immigrant visas. So, if I have a nonimmigrant visa with no immigration intent and want to change it to a nonimmigrant visa with dual intent, or an immigrant visa, do I have to leave the United States first and then submit a new application to come back? If not, is the conversion between different visa types completely free? Or do I need to follow some special restrictions?
Today we will learn about the changes in immigration intentions.
20 Lessons on US Visas, Let Your Company Easily Enter the US. I am an American lawyer, Attorney Liu, and I will provide you with an in-depth interpretation of the legal logic behind entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley.
1. USCIS’ 90-Day Rule
To understand the change of immigration intention, the first concept to understand is the USCIS 90-Day Rule. The original English text of this rule is
Let's interpret this rule:
The first keyword of this rule is temporary visa, which refers to non-immigrant visas without immigration intention, such as business travel visas (B1/B2), student visas (F1), etc.
The second key word is if it is within 90 days after entering the United States, there is nothing much to say about this
The third key word is getting married or applying for a green card. Note that this means applying for a green card, not getting a green card. That is to say, once you submit your green card application within 90 days of entering the United States, the visa officer can directly determine that you are committing visa fraud without even looking at it.
2. Scope of application of the 90-day rule
In the last issue, we talked about three types of visas classified according to immigration tendency:
The first category is nonimmigrant visas without immigration intentions, such as business travel visas (B1/B2) and student visas (F1).
The second category is dual intent non-immigrant visas, professional and technical personnel work visas (H category), and multinational professional managers visas (L category).
The third category is immigration visa, including employment-based immigration (EB category), family immigration (FB category), etc.
2.1 Converting a nonimmigrant visa without immigration intent to an immigrant visa
Thus, we can interpret USCIS's 90-Day Rule as prohibiting the direct conversion from the first category to the third category within 90 days. This leads us to examine deeper implications."
2.2 Converting a non-immigrant visa with no immigrant intent to a non-immigrant visa with dual intent
If one converts from the first type, which is a nonimmigrant visa with no immigration intent, to the second type, which is a nonimmigrant visa with dual intent, does one not need to comply with the 90-day rule?
For example, if I have a student visa (F1), and I am hired by a company as soon as I arrive in the United States, and the company is willing to issue me a professional and technical personnel work visa (H category) or a multinational professional manager visa (L category), can I accept it immediately? Or do I have to wait 90 days?
It should be said that there is no limit in theory, but in reality, lawyers will still strongly recommend that you try to follow the 90-day rule when converting a non-immigrant visa with no immigration intent to an immigrant visa with dual intent. Otherwise, the immigration officer will still wear tinted glasses and examine your situation very strictly.
2.3 Converting a non-immigrant visa with no immigrant intent to a non-immigrant visa with dual intent
We have already seen the conversion from the first to the third, and from the first to the second. Some people ask, what about the conversion from the second to the third? In other words, does it take 90 days to convert a dual intent nonimmigrant visa to an immigrant visa?
The answer is, absolutely not.
Why? What is the 90-day rule designed to prevent? It is designed to prevent people who actually have immigration intentions from pretending not to have immigration intentions and then applying for a more difficult non-immigrant visa, but then being exposed after arriving in the United States and applying for an immigrant visa again.
What about the dual intent nonimmigrant visa? It originally allows immigrant intent. So it doesn’t matter when you apply for an immigrant visa.
This is why many international employees often use the Day-1 Green Card as a negotiation condition when negotiating salaries in the United States.
3. Visas with immigration intent cannot be changed within 90 days
What we just talked about is the scope of the 90-day rule, which means that it can be converted, but it just takes 90 days to do so. So are there some visas that are useless even after waiting for 90 days? That is, after completing the mission of the visa itself, you must leave the United States.
3.1 Type C Transit Visa
A person with a C transit visa is only allowed to stay in the United States for a short period of time in order to complete a transit (for example, transferring from one international flight to another) and must leave immediately after the short stay.
3.2 Category D Seaman/Crew Member Visa
When seamen or airline crew members enter the United States on a D visa, they are only allowed to stay in the United States for a short period of time to perform their professional duties and must leave immediately afterwards.
3.3 K-1 Fiance Visa
A K-1 visa holder must marry his or her sponsor (a U.S. citizen) within 90 days of entering the U.S. If the marriage is not completed within 90 days, the K-1 visa holder must leave the U.S. It is not possible to switch to another nonimmigrant visa type (such as an F-1 student visa or an H-1B work visa).
3.4 M-1 Professional Student Visa
As we briefly introduced before, the M-1 visa is a student visa for chefs, hotel management, etc., so this type of visa is called a professional student visa, or a short-term student visa. Students holding this visa must leave the United States after completing the course and cannot convert to an F-1 academic student visa.
3.5 J-1 Visa
Many people should know that the J-1 exchange visitor visa has a two-year service period limit, which means that not only must you return to your home country immediately after completing the J1 mission, but you must also stay in your home country for two years before you can return to the United States for other reasons.
Lawyer Liu, what you said is too far away from our lives. We will never use it in our lifetime. Okay, let's talk about something closer to everyone's life. Have you heard of the business travel visa (B1/B2)?
What did you say? Can a business travel visa (B1/B2) not be converted after 90 days? According to the US Immigration Service, if a business travel visa (B1/B2) is to be converted into another visa type in the United States during its validity period, it will be subject to very strict review.
You said that Lawyer Liu is wrong. I heard that someone came to the United States on a business tourist visa (B1/B2) and then changed to another visa.
Yes, today we talked about all the visas that cannot be converted after 90 days in the last part. It is not absolute. Even the two-year service period of J1 can be exempted, right?
20 Lessons on US Visas, Let Your Company Easily Enter the US. I am an American lawyer, Lawyer Liu, and we will see you next time.
