When a U.S. citizen marries a noncitizen, the foreign spouse does not automatically obtain the right to live in the United States permanently. Instead, if the spouse does not have permanent status already, the U.S. citizen must submit a petition and accede to a burdensome, invasive process of proving the marital relationship to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
After USCIS blesses the marriage as bona fide, the foreign spouse (with the exception of certain spouses already in the United States) must appear before a State Department consular officer at a U.S. embassy. That consular officer decides whether to issue the visa that would allow the couple to live together in the United States.
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