Interesting Moving Back Situation

It has been a long long time since I have posted here.  I do miss all you folks, but life has been busy.  But I have a few questions that you all might be able to help with...

My partner (UKC) and myself (dual UKC/USC) are considering moving back to the States.  We are same gendered civil partners and have been in our civil partnership for almost 7 years.  With the recent DOMA ruling, we know that the US Government has started to process visas based on our relationship (HORAY!)  Our questions aren't specifically about that, but more general about a process we didn't think we might ever be able to take advantage of.

We likely wouldn't move back permanently until September 2015.  We understand that likely we would want to apply from the UK 10 months prior to that, but we would also like to potentially travel back to visit family over the next two years.

My partner has been denied entry to the US twice and denied a visitor's visa once because they assumed he was going to overstay, because of our relationship, so he is ineligible under the visa waiver programme.

Can we apply for the green card and go for a "visit" to the US but not fully move over until we are fully ready, or does he have to apply for a visitors visa?

Also any thoughts/experiences with previous denials in the US and then future applications would be greatly appreciated.

No, you would have to either activate the green card upon arrival or enter on a visitor visa/visa waiver.

Also, for more personal experiences from people with previous denials, you might want to check out visajourneys.com. I found it really informative with lots of different people from around the world with all sorts of visa scenarios.

Based on some more reading I was doing yesterday, am I correct in assuming that we could apply for a visa to "activate a green card" (which since we have been 'married for > 2 years' would be an IR1), go to the US is successful, activate the green card, and just continue to return at least once a year to keep the card active for up to 10 years?

We won't be pursuing this without professional advice, because on the second refusal, we have discovered ICE reported it to the FBI as an arrest for trying to enter the country without proper paperwork.  It is a long story of how we thought he was ok to come in, but that confusion has obviously complicated the matter.  Coupled with the fact that nobody actually knows how applications like this will be processed yet, we have some big challenges in front of us.

Based on some more reading I was doing yesterday, am I correct in assuming that we could apply for a visa to "activate a green card" (which since we have been 'married for > 2 years' would be an IR1), go to the US is successful, activate the green card, and just continue to return at least once a year to keep the card active for up to 10 years?

We won't be pursuing this without professional advice, because on the second refusal, we have discovered ICE reported it to the FBI as an arrest for trying to enter the country without proper paperwork.  It is a long story of how we thought he was ok to come in, but that confusion has obviously complicated the matter.  Coupled with the fact that nobody actually knows how applications like this will be processed yet, we have some big challenges in front of us.

Some people do get away with doing this, some do it successfully for many years...but its not a good idea. You have to keep up residency in the US or they consider your residency abandoned and they can take your green card at entry if they decide you haven't been living in the US and just visiting.

Based on some more reading I was doing yesterday, am I correct in assuming that we could apply for a visa to "activate a green card" (which since we have been 'married for > 2 years' would be an IR1), go to the US is successful, activate the green card, and just continue to return at least once a year to keep the card active for up to 10 years?

We won't be pursuing this without professional advice, because on the second refusal, we have discovered ICE reported it to the FBI as an arrest for trying to enter the country without proper paperwork.  It is a long story of how we thought he was ok to come in, but that confusion has obviously complicated the matter.  Coupled with the fact that nobody actually knows how applications like this will be processed yet, we have some big challenges in front of us.

I have a friend who does this, but that's because he had a green card and continues to work for a US company, but is now at a European location. He does come to the US on business, and he's married to an American, so it makes sense for him to keep the green card. Otherwise they'd have to apply for a work visa every time he comes to do work in the US. His work handles all the legalities of this.

Is your goal to just avoid having to get a visitor visa? Is he not able to get a visitor visa because he was previously denied one?

Is your goal to just avoid having to get a visitor visa? Is he not able to get a visitor visa because he was previously denied one?

It is really the duplicate effort. Right now, he hasn't been able to travel with me to the US for the last 7-8 years when I have gone back to visit family.  Partly because of the hassle of trying to get a visitors visa for a short family trip and partly because of the "fear" that the US ICE could still deny him entry even with the visitors visa (which is what they drilled into his head when he was refused entry the second time).  The "fear" of travelling to the US 8 hours and one of us getting refused entry and having to come back, plus another "black tick" on your record is something you do not willingly subject yourself to.

We in the past had considered possibly trying to get the visitors visa and visiting from Canada.  That way if we get turned back, it is get back in the car, instead of being upset and miserable for 8 hours.

It is highly likely that we will move to the US in the late 2015 or early 2016.  We were on track to moving to Canada, but our immigration history complicated that and we ran out of time to meet the timelines to move comfortably and I accepted another job in the UK which will keep us here for the next two years.  We would still prefer Canada, but we need a reason to move to Canada and our personal situation is likely to change to where the reason (Simon going to UBC in Vancouver) would not work well for us.  So instead of going through the "hassle" and process of getting to Vancouver, we are considering going to Seattle, but don't want to go through the process of getting a visitors visa to then just take the 9 months of applying for the "green card".

So the end goal is to be able to travel to the US ahead of our relocation there permanently in two years time with as likely an guaranteed outcome as possible.