Which road to take? Help requested from Indonesia

[sayang67]

Hi all,

My situation is a bit complicated, let me explain: MY wife and I have been married for 8 years, I am a US Citizen working in Indonesia, she is Indonesian, we have two kids. She presently has a B1 multiple entry visa, still with 2 years on it. We have gone home almost every summer over the last 8 years. I am taking a year off from my job and am not sure we will return at the end of the year, depending on job prospects in the States. She has applied and been accepted to a graduate school that is not yet SEVIS certified. It is an excellent school but just hasn't had foreign students. They are starting the app process of SEVIS but this takes 90 days at minimum.

Ultimately our big goal is to get permanent residance for her. Here are our options as I see them:

1. Enter on the B1, and tell POE officer she is a propsective student (a small white lie, I know, but realistically, if at that point the school has not been SEVIS approved, we cannot say for sure that they will be, hence she is a prospective student) enter and then adjust Status to F1 if/when SEVIS happens. We enter on 10 June and would most likely file for adjustment in August.

2. 6 months down the road (February 2013) apply for adjustment of status again for residency. The thinking here: We have decided not to go back as a family, therefore my wife has an obvious and compelling reason to stay with us in the States. She did not know this initially but our circumstances have changed (my job, etc).

I worry that the double adjustment in an 8 month period might be tricky. My wife says maybe we should just play it safe and delay study until she gets permanent residence , enter on B1 and apply for Residency in the states after 5 or 6 months. I don't want to do that because we may end up wanting to come back to Indonesia and then she never will have received the Masters she was to get in the first place. I will need to tell my employer probably in January of next year if I am coming back or not.

If we do decide to hold off on her grad program for a year, is there any reason we could not have her enter on the B1 and then apply 6 months or so down the road for residency? Are they going to see that as intent to emigrate and so they will deport her?

It is amazing to me that I can't just be honest with immigration: "Hey, my wife wants to study and then get residency! My family (three nationals and one alien) wants to live in the States! Instead, it is like we have to sneak around and pretend we had no intention of staying!

Thanks for any help folks can provide.