Fiance Visa or just get married?

[wwwmg]

I'm US citizenship and I like to marry my girl friend (divorce with no children) from Hong Kong. She has a 10 year travel visa (with 6 month stay each time) to the US. We've been told that we have two choices, first is applying the finace visa in Hong Kong and wait 6-9 months and she comes here to get married within 90 days. Second is to just come here with travel visa and get married here regardless. But this choice would make her status become illegal in 6 months and she cannot come back to US if she leaves within a year after marriage. In both cases, she will receive a temporary green card after marriage.

Are the above information correct? Which way will she get the citizenship faster?

Also, we are concerned that she cannot pass the medical exam for the fiance visa because she had cancer two years ago, although she's been fully recovered now. Is it more risky with this route?

Thank you for any advice.

[nichole]

Fiance visa information is correct.. After she arrives and you marry, she applies for a greencard I-485 application.

The other is all about her intention when she enters the US. If she plans in advance to enter on a tourist visa for the purpose of immigrating, then she has committed fraud on the use of the visa. But if she comes as a tourist and after a few months here you suddenly decide to marry then that's different. People marry and file the I-130 petition and the I-485 greencard application at the same time. Once she has the greencard, then she is free to visit her country. It shouldn't take a year. Doing it that way is taking a risk. because if denied for some reason, she is probably in overstay of her visa by then. They were cracking down on approving these kind of situations for awhile this year, but it seems to have settled down now. It's more stressful wondering if she will be approved but people are often successful..

Either way she does it, she is eligible to apply for citizenship 3 years from the date her greencard is issued if she remains married to you. And she must maintain her permanent resident status by living in the US and only visiting outside for short times. Long periods out of the US are deducted from her 3 years so it would take longer to get to 3 years status if she left for 8 months during that time. The citizenship clock stops while you are out of the country. Also they can revoke her greencard if she leaves the US to live elsewhere for a long time.

That's a general explanation. I'm not going to go into detail about if you leave for 6 months, but less than a year. That's another topic for you to research if she doesn't plan to stay and live in the US. There are specific rules about maintaining residency.

[wwwmg]

Thank you for your advice!