J-1 Au Pair Filed a B-2 to "Buy Time." Then She Married a U.S. Citizen

A caller who had come to the U.S. as a J-1 au pair walked the Immigration Answer Show through a sequence she wanted reassurance about: two years on the au pair program, then a change-of-status filing to a B-2 visitor that USCIS denied, then marriage to a U.S. citizen days before her departure date. Her question was whether the green card would go through. Founding attorney Jim Hacking told her the marriage was not the problem.

The visitor filing is the weak point. A B-1/B-2 application carries the presumption under INA § 214(b) (8 U.S.C. § 1184(b)) that the applicant intends to leave, and someone who has already spent two years here on another program, then files to stay longer, fights an uphill version of it. Hacking put the odds bluntly and said he would have told her not to file at all.

The marriage-based adjustment under INA § 245 (8 U.S.C. § 1255) is still open to the spouse of a U.S. citizen, and prior nonimmigrant intent is usually forgiven for an immediate relative. The problem is a record that looks built to manufacture status. A B-2 filed to stay past her program, on advice she said came from other au pairs who told her she could “buy time,” is the kind of thing an officer reads as intent.

The fix isn’t to hide any of it. Hacking was clear they weren’t lying about anything. The work is to build the bona fides up enough to outweigh the timeline: how the couple met and dated, why the visitor filing happened when it did, and proof that immigration status wasn’t the reason for the relationship. The same “buy time” reflex sinks other cases, like the B-2 extension whose RFE turns into an immigrant-intent trap, and it’s why someone between statuses is usually better off choosing the fiancé-versus-visitor path on purpose instead of stacking filings to avoid leaving.

This is an approvable case, just not an easy one. The real marriage is what carries it. The timeline that reads like a stall is what works against it.