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How can I legally marry a Nigerian without him coming to the US?

Nearly six years ago, I met a student from Connecticut, who later became my roommate in Illinois. The man was a nigerian, and throughout our friendship, I met a lot of his nigerian friends and family by telephone, email, or instant messenger. One of his friends that he attended FGC with (federal government college) in nigeria, well, we fell in love. It has been 5 years now that we have been chatting online, sending emails back and forth, talking on the phone, texting, instant messaging, and we have kept a diary of letters online for each other to view when the one is not online to talk to directly. We keep contact on a daily basis. He sends me gifts and I send him packages, tokens of our affection for each other. He has attempted to get a visa for school, but his grades were not so good in college. He has a bachelor's degree from a nigerian university, and is currently attempting to be accepted into one of the graduate programs at my US college so we can attend grad school together. The problem is that his earnings are not high enough where he works to get a visa to come for a holiday or to visit me. He has the money for his plane ticket and the duration of his stay, but has so far been unsuccessful in obtaining a visa. I am in the process of getting my passport, but from what I understand it may take a while. We are getting anxious and tired of waiting for all of the logistics and hoops that need to be jumped just to meet each other. We already know we want to marry each other, but how can I make sure it is done legally by US law so that he can get a visa to live in the US with me? I would also like us to be able to go back to nigeria to visit when feasible, but always return to the US to our home. I have looked into internet marriages and discovered that they are basically a hoax. I do not know the legal issues that may surround this matter, but as a last resort, I am opting to write a letter to our new US president. I am at my wit's end and have no clue what to do... Do you have any ideas? I want to specify that the man I seek to marry is yoruba, NOT igbo, and that I have many sources of proof that it is not a scam to get into the US. I have not contacted either Embassy to see what the process would be or what documents I would need to proceed, although I know that will give me a good start. I just need to see if anyone out there has any ideas on how to expedite this matter?

Public Comments

1. This is not going to workout, get a guy in real life.
2. Dearie, the president has too much on his hands with the economy to worry about your little love problem. It doesn't take a long time to get a passport. It should take about a month. You can apply for a fiance visa for him (k1) if you are planning to marry him and live together in the US. It takes about a year and then he can come to the US. You'll have to marry within 3 months of him entering the country. After you marry, you then apply for him to change his status into a Permanent Resident. That will allow both of you to go and visit Nigeria anytime you want and still come back home to the US. If you marry him there, it would take about a year or two for him to come here and be a permanent resident. Take a deep breath and relax. There's lots of options for you two.
3. I'm not sure about this, but I think you can be legally married by proxy. The laws may differ from country to country. I would do an internet search on "marriage by proxy" to see what you come up with. Writing a letter to the president will get you nowhere. He has far bigger issues to deal with. Contact the Nigerian embassy in Washington DC. and check with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. If you really want to get married, it sounds to me like your best option would be for you to travel to Nigeria and get married there, then apply for a visa for him. But you do want to make sure that the marriage there is legal in the U.S.
4. Well, you always go there to get married. If the two of you had already met face to face you could file a fiance petition for him. There are proxy marriages as well, but they don't work for immigration purposes unless the two of you have met after the proxy marriage and consumated the marriage. So,that's not going to help you much. If the two of you can't meet here or there, perhaps the two of you could meet somewhere else, like Paris or London. If you do meet you can marry and file an immigrant petition or you can file a fiance petition. however, you should know that even at that point, the process can take another year or so. You can write the President, but that won't change immigration law.