Green cards through marriage
My husband sneaked into the United States. How can he get a green card? I am a U.S. citizen. C., Lakewood, N.J. Marriage to a U.S. citizen is one of the few ways a person here illegally can get a green card. If your husband has been here unlawfully for more than 180 days, he will need a “provisional stateside waiver” available under a program begun by President Barack Obama.
Because he entered without being inspected by an immigration officer, your husband will need to go home for his immigrant visa interview. If he has been here with lawful status, leaving the United States makes him ineligible to return for three years. The bar is 10 years if he has been here unlawfully a year or longer.
The provisional stateside waiver program allows green card applicants to get a waiver of the “unlawful presence” bar before they go abroad for their immigrant visa interview.
To get an unlawful presence waiver, an immigrant visa applicant must prove “extreme hardship” to a U.S. citizen or permanent resident spouse or parent if either the family is separated or the U.S. citizen or permanent resident would have to leave the United States to keep the family together. Getting a waiver isn’t always easy, so it is best if you get an immigration law expert to help your husband with his waiver application.
You start the process for your husband by filing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative. Once USCIS approves the petition, you file USCIS form I-601A, Application for Provisional Unlawful Presence Waiver. You can try filing form I-130 on your own, but you should get legal help with the waiver application. If USCIS approves the waiver, your husband can safely travel to a U.S. consulate in Mexico to interview for his immigrant visa. Assuming the U.S. consul finds no other “ground of inadmissibility,” such as a criminal record, fraud or insufficient financial support, the consul will grant him an immigrant visa. He uses that visa to reenter the United States. USCIS will then send him his green card.
Allan Wernick is an attorney and director of the City University of New York’s Citizenship Now! project. Send questions and comments to Allan Wernick, New York Daily News, 7th Fl., 4 New York Plaza, New York, N.Y., 10004 or email to questions@allanwernick.com. Follow him on Twitter @awernick.