Hopeless? REALLY need help...

[Fritz]

Ok, I REALLY hope someone reads this soon and can give me some sort of useful advice. I'm a 19 year-old Canadian and I want to move to the U.S. to be with my gf. Just to clarify, yes this is serious, we've known each other for well over a year and she's 24 and has two kids. She lives in Memphis, TN. I know it could take a LONG time to get citizenship, so basically I'm looking for a way to just stay down there and be with her and work. Just get a work permit? What do I do? How can I stay down there legally to work for as long as possible? Can I do this while I'm waiting for other applications for citizenship to get approved? The thing is, I have no real job skills or training...we've done ALOT of research on this already, but it'd be alot more helpful if someone could just tell me whats what...please tell me there's SOME way to do this

[immihelp]

You can't get citizenship directly. First you have to get green card. Once you get married, your wife has to apply for I-130 for you. Once that is approved, you have to go Montreal to get green card. Once that is approved, you can stay in US legally.

If you had some job skills, you could apply for either TN visa or H1 visa which some employer would sponsor for you.

[Fritz]

So marriage is the only way that I can be down there with her? I was kinda hopin' there'd be a way I could get some crappy job and work down there for a while first...but it sounds like there's no way to do that...? Ugh...well, thanx for the reply