She should go through all the legal hoops no matter who she's married to.
My Japanese daughter-in-law was here legally as a university student until she graduated, at which time she honored her visa and went home. My son followed her, married her, and they went through all the legal steps for him to live in Japan while they went through all the legal steps for her to return to the US with him. They spent thousands of dollars for applications and attorney fees, several trips for interviews with rude Mexican INS employees, filled out pages and pages of legal paper work, and everything else required for her to be in the US legally. I have no sympathy what so ever for anyone who breaks our immigration laws, or any other laws. So you can take your bleeding heart and stuff it.
My Japanese daughter-in-law was here legally as a university student until she graduated, at which time she honored her visa and went home. My son followed her, married her, and they went through all the legal steps for him to live in Japan while they went through all the legal steps for her to return to the US with him. They spent thousands of dollars for applications and attorney fees, several trips for interviews with rude Mexican INS employees, filled out pages and pages of legal paper work, and everything else required for her to be in the US legally. I have no sympathy what so ever for anyone who breaks our immigration laws, or any other laws. So you can take your bleeding heart and stuff it.
Oh, I can stuff it, can I? Allow me to retort and school you in the process.
Full-disclosure: I am married to a Colombian woman, hence my interest in this story. She was here on a non-immigrant visa when we became engaged. We eventually married here -- after she had come and gone to Colombia a couple of times in the process. (Remember this part for when I really school you later, Mrs. Stuff-It-Yourself.)
After our marriage, she returned to Colombia and I applied for her residency visa. That process took six months from the day I mailed the application to the regional USCIS service center to the day she was granted her visa in Colombia.
However, if she had not gone back and forth between Colombia and the U.S. after we were engaged and had just stayed here instead, she "simply" could have applied for adjustment of status (AOS) based upon our marriage and having remained in the country since we met and became engaged.
This is precisely what happened with the senator and his wife here -- they met while she was here and then married. Thus, she never entered the country with the intent of getting married -- which is what my wife would have been doing on her last return trip from Colombia.
Your daughter-in-law could have married your son here and stayed -- it's done all of the time, and it's completely legal, as long as she never entered the country with the intent of marrying him. That's what she should have done.
Don't blame me or the senator's wife because your son was given shabby advice. Feeling stuffed?