can I work in the us as a spouse?

[fothergill]

My boyfriend is in the middle of interviewing for an east side job - I have a couple of questions:
What is the procedure so that I will be able to work?
Am I right in thinking that we need to be married for me to get out there easily? Is there a time span that we would have needed to have been married before applying for the visa?

Anything else I need to know?
Thanks in advance.

No expert but I think you have to be able to get a work visa in your own right. Had a friend who went out with husband and she could not work until 2 years residency up. She did voluntary stuff to build a social scene & CV.

Thanks for replying. Thought it was probably hard to achieve - absolutely baffling trying to google it, so figured there was a web of hoops involved.

Yes, you need to be married to be able to live in the US as a dependent of your partner. Or, as iseenodust says, you need to find employment, and get the employer to sponsor your visa in your own right.

Some of the unmarried partners I know come and go on visitor visas every few months, but that can be risky (there's no guarantee you'll get let in if the border control people realise that you're actually living in the US rather than visiting), and you're not allowed to work - or even supposed to look for work -on a visitor visa.

Some kinds of visa allow the spouse to work, others don't. The category we fall under does allow the spouse to work, but it took several months for the work authorisation to come through after we arrived here (and although you can job-hunt, you can't start work until it does come through).

PS, I don't post on it very often, but you could ask for advice on the Living in America thread - there might be people who know more about the different kind of visa than I do.

He would be employed as a professor in the arts. I don't know what type of visa that would be given. Which one is it that will allow me to the position of authorisation to work out of curiosity? I have been a sahm for yearssss and I really don't want to be rattling around at home when my youngest starts school!

Just to add about coming and going on a visitor visa - i think each 'visit' can be up to 3 months in length, and you have to leave (not to Canada or Mexico, leave properly) between each visit. The maximum combined length of all visits in a one year period is 6 months.

I.e. not the way to go if you can avoid it!

Oh just read that he is at a university (me too!). Probably your best source of information is the university website. They usually have a list of these sorts of FAQs in a section called something like 'international scholars office'. Try searching the main university website for those words (watch out you don't end up in the international student section, different thing completely visa wise).

Failing that, I would get your DP to contact the university admin and ask, they will deal with this all the time.

thanks for all the replies. IF he gets the job we will definitely get married so not entertaining the idea of a visitors visa - can you imagine the stress of trying to get back in...back to your children? Blimey. No, no, plus, I get to wear a nice dress for the day. Good idea about the institution having info, I will check the website for more information.