Exploring our Options

I'm going to lay out some of the options that are available for Alex and me here, because maybe some of you might know of other options that we're not aware of, or maybe this list can help others in this situation.

As you know, Alex is on a non-immigrant F-1 visa. This means he can stay here as long as he is in school, but must leave when he finishes school. The only way to stay is to enter into optional practical training (OPT) which will allow him to work for 1 year after graduation. At the end of that period, he must enroll in another school program or leave the country.

1. We can find another country - this is the option that gives us the most control and the option we are spending the most time on at this point. However, there are roadblocks to this option. One or both of us needs to find a job, and if only one of us does, we would only be able to move to a country that allows same sex visa sponsorship. If neither of us can find a job, we can't move.

Our current search is focused around Vancouver, Canada, Auckland, New Zealand, and Sydney, Australia.

2. Alex can go back to school - neither of us likes this option. We don't want more debt, and Alex is ready to be able to work. We would like to be able to get to the point where we are saving a lot of money instead of taking out loans for school every few months.

3. Whoever hires Alex for his OPT period can sponsor him for an H-1B visa. The good news here is that if this happens, he'll qualify in the Master's degree pool, and in that pool, he is pretty much guaranteed a visa. In his last OPT period, he did not win the undergraduate degree H-1B visa lottery, so that was $2,000 in lawyer's fees down the drain.

4. Green Card Lottery - every year the US government makes available 100,000 immigrant visas in a lottery. People from around the world are allowed to apply, and those who are chosen are allowed to go through the process to get a green card. The problem is that millions apply during the month-long entry window, and last year less than 100 people from Alex's home country were chosen. He's applied for that visa every year, but has not yet been chosen.

5. Change in immigration laws - There are several laws that could be changed that would allow us to put down roots and stay here. This is definitely both the easiest and the hardest option. It is the easiest because we wouldn't have to uproot our lives to move away, but it is the hardest because we really have no control over when or if this would happen, and we have no ability to impact that timeline.

So we have some options, but none of them are really very good.

-Andy