Hi everyone. This is my 2nd topic I’ve created here. First, I can’t thank you guys enough for the help last time around.
Since then I’ve found these forums extremely helpful for me and my friend as well. I may make further topics in the future but this one is more general and involves VISAs.
First, I want to share some important info, some of which I ain’t too proud of, but knowing it may help you help me.
When I graduated from high school, my family expected me to join the US military. Long story short, at the time I didn’t see eye to eye with them and backed out last minute. With no back up plan or money for college I was stuck working 2 jobs. I saw an opportunity to come live and work in Taiwan a while until I discovered what I wanted to do next.
I became an ESL teacher working off the books. I had no choice since the only way a school would apply for an ARC was if you graduated from college which I didn’t. Eventually I started taking classes to learn Chinese as well before reverting back to only teaching. So as you can imagine, I’ve been in and out of Taiwan quite a few times and to the NIA office to get visa extensions. I didn’t think I’d be here this long, but it happened.
I’m now approaching 10 years here and changes are coming. The first change happened this summer when I screwed up by over-staying my visa extension in early July. That gave me a bad stamp in my passport preventing me from getting landing visas. I had to go to HK to apply a 1 year visitor VISA which thankfully worked.
The main change coming up for me is I’m planning on getting married to a Taiwanese next year. It is my hope that after getting married I can receive an ARC though marriage and in return I can legitimately apply for a working VISA.
Is this possible? If not, what is my best course of action? I definitely have regrets over the past 10 years but all I can do now is look forward and legitimizing my stay here is a big step towards that. I shared my backstory in case those kind of details will make things trickier.
I thank everyone in advance who has taken time to read and respond to my current situation. If you need more details, please ask, I’ll be checking on this thread frequently.