Olddirtywizard:
It depends on many variables. But let me give you just one example.
2buffagain left Nigeria for US to pursue graduate studies on F1 Visa.
(a) if married before he left Nigeria, he could send documentation to his wife/children to schedule F2 visa interview, and come over without much hassle.
(b)Otherwise, he would need to go home, marry and then bring his wife along etc.
You can't work on F2 visa but can live in US as long as your F1 partner is in status. Your wife can even apply for change of visa status from F2 to F1 without leaving US and also pursue graduate studies.
Let's say, 2buffagain got his PhD or masters and landed an offer in one of these good companies. He will move from F1 to O/H1B and his dependents would be issued O/H4. Dependents can still not work, but have full rights to live in US as long as principal visa holder is in status. 2buffagain and his dependents can then move from O/H1B to green card.
Many serious folks got their PhD within five years, and then green card, two years after graduation.
Bottomline, don't date losers!

Admitwithschola:
You were against absolutes and I agreed with you..But you have made an absolute here..I'm referring to the 'you have no business....'
It is actually possible to get partial (not full) tuition waiver and work your way here while you study...I say this because the friend I referred to in my earlier message did this, and a family member did it too..But three bad things fit happen..1) Grades will suffer, 2) The person can overwork and thus destroy their social security records and 3) The person can be frustrated out of schooling..
But in terms of possibility, it's possible. I know so. However, in general, your point holds a lot of water...E go harrrrrrd. The partial funding needs to be close to 100% to increase the possibility of pulling it off.
It is much easier, as you said, if people came to the US fully funded, i.e if dem get tuition waiver plus monthly stipend. Many Nigerians get such opportunity - a lot. Abi me I get am for 2009/2010..Lol.

OluDare01:
But some of us have decided to take a longer route by going through the rigors of grad school.
I don’t blame people that marry Americans because of papers. It is different strokes for different folks I guess.

grossintel:
Read! He said USA! Bros he said USA! U.S.A (Say it slowly). The process is a lot difficult there!

2buffagain:
Ladies and Gentlemen in Naija, I'll be 100 with you...
If you are dating someone and they are trying to migrate to USA with a non-immigrant visa, and they say they are coming back for you....chances are you are better off just freeing them and remaining friends while you face your life where you are.
I bet you neither you nor them knows the challenges that will have to be faced along this road.
Not every US Visa is a migration Visa. There is schooling visa, visiting visa, etc.
And visas are very restrictive about what you can and cannot do, and if you can even be allowed to apply for any other visa.
When a person has at least a green card, that is US permanent residency, and they are on a home run to US citizenship.
A green card means a person has no serious limitation within the US besides voting (you can do that when you become a citizen).
It is also at this GreenCard level that your trans-atlantic lover can BEGIN the process of sending for you.
But the road to a green card is long and uneasy if you didn't win a US diversity lottery..
Seeing as Nigeria is one of the countries banned from the Us Visa lottery (a program whereby people gamble to win a US greencard), no Nigerian as at some years back can get a quick GreenCard through that route. They have to go the looooong route.
There are various do-able long paths to the US greencard e.g:
- Naija -> School in US -> OPT -> H1B -> Eb2/Eb3/Eb4 employment based GreenCard
- Naija -> School in US (PHD) -> Lots of exploits -> extra-ordinary person Eb1 GreenCard
- Naija -> Have $500k - $1M to 'invest' in the US -> Eb5 Investor Greencard. The higher you spend the more the priority (tief tief agbada types love this one)
- Naija -> marry a US citizen or Greencard holder -> Marriage based Greencard.
_{each '->' sign can mean any where from 2-10 years!}
But all these things have been made longer and even sometimes down right unattainable by Trump.
Now, companies that had once hired people through the H1B won't even look at you unless you have an OPT, which means you have more time to 'try to get' an H1B.....which you might still kuku not get.
Also, you need to basically be Elon Musk or Bill Gates before you can come in through the 'Extra-ordinary person' route.
If you thought you had money before, Trump wants to raise the $$$ range for investing, so the #BigAgbada will probably have to tief more.
The insults are so bad right now that in the US, Trump is trying to fight their 13th amendment so as to prevent people who visit the US to give birth from having that child become an automatic US citizen.
Now if the UK was your target, it's even worse because Theresa May and her people are mimicking Trump's US anti-immigration agenda to the point of them going further by trying to deport black UK citizens with Caribbean origins(https://www.npr.org/2018/05/02/607652305/caribbean-immigrants-to-u-k-threatened-with-deportation).
The only thing still left open that these rulers have been unable to touch/complicate yet is Greencard by marriage...and this is where we continue our thread from...
Your boo will mostly have to marry someone there....but it's not that simple.
This process also takes SEVERAL years before they get a greencard, trigger a messy divorce, rebuild themselves, before then being able to START sending for you.
However it is important to keep in mind that:
- Marrying someone purely for a greencard is a scam and is thus a very serious punishable offense worthy of deportation and a ban from the US.
- The safest thing, is to simply marry for real, live in the same house, etc.
- Sensible marriageable people can smell a potential marriage scam from a mile away now and don't enter marriage with guys/girls who don't have papers.
- Since the prime marriage prospects avoid you, You'd probably have to pay someone with a complicated life to do the marriage deal with...and these persons are usually crazy in some way...as they would have to be to collect money to marry someone they don't know.
- There is also the risk of the person you are married to taking advantage, asking for more money midway and/or sometimes even cancelling your greencard application...meaning it was all for naught and you'd then have to go back home anyway in failure after all the suffer.
It's a hard long risky road, one that you in Naija may be totally ignorant of.
In fact sometimes one could deduce that if the same amount of time, hussle and abuse-reception to get a greencard was spent building themselves in Naija, they probably would be farther in life themselves with more human dignity.
All that said...
The easiest thing for your boo to do is to marry a US resident FOR REAL (you don't wanna fake-marry someone you don't see yourself living forever with) and forget you so he/she can move on with their life. After marriage to a good person for a couple years, there will always come that strong urge to just BE DONE with the trans-atlantic wahala and move on with life, forgetting you in the process. Putting out the bad karma of Divorcing, then waiting to recover, and then the beginning of another battle just to send for you...is a serious long ting. You are basically baggage.
There are still some fairly easier, civilized countries to migrate to right now: e.g Australia, Canada (prepare for cold), etc. But if boo's plan is US or UK, and they didn't go as residents, just move your life along.
Don't stunt the development of your life waiting for all that. If you find a functional stable relationship where you are, go with that and free each other to face your chosen destinies untethered and without baggage.
There are many people in Naija who enjoy life to the fullest more than yankee people sef. Focus on being one of those people.

Olddirtywizard:
Smh. This is wrong. Visa and status are two different things. You can be in status with an expired visa.

1Sharon:
We don't do business with akata!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybfv_17pyGo

Lawyer777:
60% of Akatas are morally unacceptable by their own community. The ones from the core Ghetto have 'zero life'. You must run away from them when considering marriage for AOS. It's pathetic when you see them begging on the street in this same land flowing with milk and honey.
How do you know where to invest your time and resources? All you need is their names, address or SSN for a comprehensive background check to get credit history, driver's history, criminal records, education and more. From there, you don't need to be told your next move.
The US is not so hard. I have friends that takes home $200 plus daily driving Uber and delivering food for Grubhub and Doordash even without 'Shola'. I also have a Doctor friend who left Nigeria four years ago, I can't even calculate his annual salary to avoid unnecessary heartaches.
Life in the US is all about planning and connecting the right people. The people that you interact with every day, whether it's at home, work or on the streets, and their beliefs and opinions influences your beliefs and opinions. There are too many basic IT and Engineering jobs paying 25/hr and still begging for applicants. No one left Nigeria to eat burgers here.
Someone in Nigeria will still tell people in the US that they can't work and be successful without 'papers' in the US. It's laughable because the person without the 'paper' is actually making dollars as we deliberate here.
Leave people queueing at the embassy/consulate to make their own decision. I took my own decision after holidaying in the US for the fourth time in two years and no regret so far. People make dollars here daily except they choose not to work and it's the reality.
Abeg, make I go hustle small. I get bills to pay for here and Naija.

2buffagain:
This advice of freeing eachother is mostly for UNMARRIED people.
If you guys are married, that is a totally different struggle altogether and both of you will probably have to make some seriously questionable compromises if you are really serious about the migration thing.

KELVIN086:
Best thread of 2018

JoseVanMoyes:
How can a man leave his legally married wife, go abroad and spend years there hoping to settle down and bring the wife over...
Hmmmmm me I fit not do that one Ooooo... U go dey suffer for cold, ur wife dey naija dey jump on dicks with ya sweat..
Oga if I leave naija, we done for good...

2buffagain:
This is a perfect reason why a married person should be extremely involved in politics at home. You can always vote for new guys like Sowore Donald Duke, etc to get your country moving forward in the right direction as opposed to backwards with those same old thieving clueless failures y’all keep recycling.
But that’s another topic for another thread.
You’re right. It is even more challenging for a married couple. Seeing as I never reach that level, That is why I cannot give advice on that one. UNa wahala senior pass me

2buffagain:
Like I said, that is an issue for another thread.
But it deserved a brief mention here because The dysfunctionality of the country is the only reason why a man or woman of Nigeria will go all the way to another land to suffer untold indignities just to migrate as if they don’t have a country they are coming from.
Only someone who hates hearing the truth will have any issue with what I stated there.
I already warned you from the first sentence of my opening post that this thread is not for people like you.
It’s for people who can handle truth and who likes things being kept 100.
Unless you have an actual logical counter (not emotional) to what I said, keep it moving!

cooltola:
Please explain

Expiration of Visa vs. Expiration of Status
A visa is only an entry document and can expire while you are in the U.S. There is no issue if your visa expires while you are legally present in the U.S. As long as your status is still valid and you continue to follow all immigration regulations, you can continue to remain in the U.S. even if your visa has expired. The status does not end when the visa expires.
However, you will require a valid visa anytime you seek entry into the U.S. If your visa expires and you are traveling internationally, you will need to get a new visa before returning to the U.S.

planetx:
You can't even work in a minimum wage job now without valid papers.

Lekbless:
Thank you for this write up. Pls, what is the meaning of OPT, H1B, Eb1 etc

Lawyer777:
Someone in Nigeria will still tell people in the US that they can't work and be successful without 'papers' in the US. It's laughable because the person without the 'paper' is actually making dollars as we deliberate here.

Prestigewins:
I concur with you ,never date a loser ,even many Nigeria couples are shameless , if you are married in Nigeria why not think of migrating the right way, how can I be married n allow my husband sleep with a woman for ordinary green card. That you can get through studies n hard work and they are other develop ed countries you can migrate to. This advice of op is for losers not for people dating a sound person , Education is one of the best route ,apply for scholarships, get graduate funding and bring your patners even uk allow dependents to work on student visas (msc,PhD route) . Finding love is not easy and don't throw it away for a USA hustle ,you don't know the future ,many Nigeria live in the present ,ask yourself in the next 20 ,30,40,50 years how happy will you be with the decisions you take today. Please someone like me that loves stable family can never involve myself with this.Even with his green card am not interested in such history about a person. Believe there is a God that can help you genuinely, have a vision and watch yourself succeed the right way that will give you peace . SHALOM