

Article 11533 of soc.culture.china:
Path: bsu-cs!iuvax!mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!watmath!watdragon!violet!rzhu
>From: [email-masked] (Rupert Zhu)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china
Subject: Passport Problem: Case Discussion  (Q-6)
Keywords: From J-2 to F-1;  Change J-1 to F-1 outside US
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
Date: 14 Feb 89 17:45:04 GMT
Sender: [email-masked]
Lines: 104

=============== Information from Xiaoping Yuan's Friend ==================

The message delivered here are for your information, correction, supplement
and comment.  Read all posting on the series to get entire information.

For the LISTING OF COMPLETE COLLECTION of the series, see <<Passport Problem,
Q & A: A Few Word From The Author (G-3)>> posted on 26th of January 1989.

I am neither an US INS officer nor PRC officer, following case discussions
are based on the information I have.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Case One:
~~~~~~~~
       My wife came to US with a J-2 visa.  Now she have got an offer for
being a graduate student with full financial support from the university.
(1) Can she change her J-2 to F-1?
(2) Can she make this change within US?
(3) Will she be subject to the two-year home return rule after the change, 
    since she is originally in J-2?

Discussion on Case One:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(1) Yes, she may have her status changed from J-2 to F-1.  If she is admitted
    to your school, it might be difficult to change because they know your
    situation and how/why she came here (she came here as your dependent, so
    she is subject to the same regulation as you are, you may look at her
    visa stamp on passport to verify it).  If she is accepted by another
    school, she may ask them to issue Form I-20, then she switches to F-1
    "status" (not visa).  Presume that school doesn't care her present J-2
    status because they are not INS (most US school doesn't care it).  In most
    case, the matter of change only depends on the school's opinion, actually
    they have no obligation to ask INS what form should be sent to the foreign
    students admitted, they just follow the rule.  How they follow it is up to
    their understanding and interpretation of the rule!

(2) From above (1), she may do it without leaving US.

(3) According to the US IA and US INS's comments on the issue of PRC J-1's who
    came here after July 12,1984, any J-1er, if he/she is on the Skills List 
    of PRC, is subject to two-year home country stay rule no matter who sponsors
    the student.  As coming here as a J-2er, she is closely related to you. 
    Only after you get the waiver of the rule, can she get it.  Even if she 
    changes to F-1, it doesn't help very much for the future.  She won't have 
    trouble until she applies for green card.  See the case (1) in the Part III
    (T-3) of the series.   The guy mentioned there came to USA before July 12,
    1984 and got changed to F-1, but still got trouble when he applied for 
    green card.

>From US INS Code and its practice, we can find they concern everyone's original
status very seriously when they process immigration cases.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Case Two:
~~~~~~~~
Is it possible to change visa from J-1 to F-1 in Canada right now?
I am holding a dark brown color passport right now but I have enough evidence
that my staying in US is not sponsored by Chinese government.  The problem is
that I have to registered to a new university before Feb. 3 of this year.
Do you think the Jan. hearing will have some effects on J-1?  I am in the same 
condition as those J-1 visa holders except I came here after 1984.
Is there any other way in your opinion?

Discussion on Case Two:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Theoretically, it's always possible to get a F-1 visa outside US in any US
embassy including Canada.  Practically, it's said difficult to get the change
done in Canada because the first few successful cases blocked the way for the
successors.  If you apply visa outside US, you are not applying for "changing
visa" but applying for a new one! Because when you leave US, your J-1 visa 
expires and need a new one to re-enter US.  Sometimes, a short tour to Canada 
or Mexico may be OK and you don't need to have a re-entry visa.  As for F-1/J-1
/J-2 visa, sometime one can get a multi-entry visa. (mine is multi-entry visa.)
The bearer of the multi-entry visa still needs the valid form I-20 or IAP-66 
to re-enter US.

As for the consequence of "get a F-1 outside US but was J-1 before" and how
to change your status in US (you will switch school in spring, it's a chance),
and what's the possibility if you can prove you are self-supported PRC student.
See Part III (T-3), Q-5 and Q-7 (to be posted soon) for detailed discussion.

I have no idea about the result of the J-1 hearing, but I believe many SCC
netters are watching the hearing closely and will post relevant information.

There might be quite a few potential ways to change one's status or apply for 
the waiver of two-year home country stay.  However, I don't think any of them
can be universally available to everybody everywhere.  In this series, I tried 
my best to provide you the successful cases I know.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Coming-up Information:   Passport Problem
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
General Information:  G-*, US visa definitions from A through P

Case Discussions:     Q-*, Change J-1 visa to F-1 visa within the US
                      Q-*, Prepare documents for applying for waiver of
                           the two-year home stay rule.
                      Q-*, Can we stay in US with our ABC if we are on
                           J-visa?

==========================  THE END OF Q-6  ================================