I Gained Access! ( and Marriage Based Green Cards)

Yesterday I gained access to a large law database called Westlaw. It has a lot of articles written by lawyers and law professors, as well as cases and briefings. I am excited to go back and read through the various opinions of the professionals. You can also highlight and take notes online. It's pretty cool! 

I found that there are four common ways to obtain a Green Card. There are marriage based Green Cards, working based Green Cards, family based Green Cards, and lottery gained Green Cards.

Let’s talk about marriage based Green Cards. This is when an immigrant marries an U.S citizen or lawful U.S permanent resident. Some people even come to the U.S solely to marry a U.S citizen in order to obtain residency. This is commonly called marriage fraud. I remember watching a movie called “Kites,” a Bollywood film, about a guy who creates fake marriages with immigrants to help them obtain permanent residency. This is one of the reasons why it is so hard to get travel visas, because many people use the B-2 visa to come here to get married. Therefore, the US Citizenship and Immigration Service will issue a “conditional Green Card” to a newlywed immigrant for the first two years, in order to assure that the marriage is not solely for obtaining permanent residency. 
The conditions may be removed if the immigrant is still married to the same U.S citizen after two years, has become a widow or widower, is divorced (with a valid reason. i.e. domestic abuse, extreme hardship, adultery) but married on the grounds of good faith, or will encounter extreme hardship if they leave the U.S. In order to renew the Green Card, the immigrant must jointly file the renewal with their spouse, or get a waiver. The waiver must be obtained within the expiration date. The eligibility standards to get a waiver are the same as the above scenarios to remove the conditions on a conditional Green Card. If the waiver or renewal is not filed in time, the immigrant will be deported. So, it is a misconception that marriage is the quick and easy pass to permanent residency, especially when you marry just for that. In such cases, your spouse, or “contract groom,” holds something over you, and your life will not be as happy as you imagined it to be. I suggest marrying for love.

I will cover family sponsored Green Cards in my next post, sometime in the next two days. 

Please feel free to ask questions or leave comments.