# Moving to the US with my US citizen girlfriend (as a UK citizen)



## dubluke (Mar 12, 2013)

Hi all, new to these forums so apologies if this has already been covered in various other guises, I have had a read through the initial sticky thread at the top to get some background.

I will sum up my situation below and if anyone can offer useful advice or assistance that would be appreciated.

I am a UK citizen and passport holder born in the UK and with full right to work here, I have no criminal convictions and no diagnosed diseases, I do have a diagnosed mental health disorder of mild ADHD (aka ADD) which I am not on any form of medication for. I have never been arrested or cautioned by the police and do not have any form of criminal record.

Essentially I have been with my girlfriend for coming up to 2 months having met her earlier this year, she is a US citizen and US passport holder who is visiting (and not employed/working here) the UK on a temporary basis (less than 6 months) so is not required to hold any form of visa. 

She will be returning to the US in 2 months time. I appreciate it is early days for our relationship which I’m sure many of you will recommend I bear in mind before making any drastic or expensive moves to other countries, I am of course giving this serious consideration, but we both view the relationship as serious and having definite long term potential.

Given that she is due to return to the US soon I have had to start thinking about what steps both of us can take to be able to stay together, be that her moving to the UK or me moving to the US. I will cover the UK side of things for her in the appropriate forum but if anyone can advise me on my potential for gaining a US visa that would be much appreciated.

Obviously I know there is the potential of marriage and fiancé visas, realistically although our feelings are strong for each other we are not at a stage where either of us is ready to talk marriage and although I know people do it I am not really keen on the idea of getting engaged purely for the purpose of me getting a US visa and then just waiting to see where the relationship goes from there. I am also aware that this imposes restrictions whereby we would need to actually be married within 90 days.

So my main thought was the prospect of getting a work sponsored visa. To put you in the picture with my situation, I am not degree educated and would not say I do not have specialist skills or training in any areas. I do have a solid working background with no gaps in employment and 3 years worth of sales experience. I am interviewing for a company at the moment who do have US offices I could transfer to at some stage – does anyone know if you have to have worked for a company for a minimum amount of time to be able to apply for a US visa if you are transferring to their US offices? Or is it just down to company policy and how soon they would be prepared to make that application?

On a related note – the company I am applying for has only one US office that is actually in a different state to where my girlfriend will be returning to live. If say I was to secure a transfer and visa to work in this one US office, and then shortly after arrival in the US wanted to start looking for roles with other companies who are based in the actual state my girlfriend lives in – would it be possible for these other companies to just take over my work sponsored visa? Or would they have to justify using non US citizen staff again to the home department?

Alternatively – if I was to apply from the UK for similar roles to my current one in sales, but based in the US – what are the chances that a company would be prepared to take a chance on me and cover my work sponsored visa costs given that I do not have specialist skills and there are most likely US citizens who could do that role? My gut feeling is that it’s pretty slim but if anyone has any experience with this that would be greatly appreciated.

Apologies for writing such an essay of a first post, but any help would be greatly appreciated. I really want to scope out all the possibilities for one of us being able to relocate so we can stay together, I have honestly never loved a girl like this before and can’t bear the thought of having to end it just because of not being able to secure employment/visa in another country. I appreciate we will probably have to put things on a bit of a hiatus while we make these arrangements as they can take some time, but if anyone has any suggestions or input initially I would be extremely grateful.

Thanks in advance.


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## twostep (Apr 3, 2008)

Why do you not start by researching the various US visa options in detail? travel.state.gov is an official site, everything is broken down from soup to nuts. 
With the scenario given here your only option is marriage.


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## snehavyas (Mar 20, 2013)

If you want to know how long it will take to get your visa, the U.S. Department of State provides an online tool showing visa wait times in all Consular locations.


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