Family Based Green Cards
Marrying a U.S. citizen is often the easiest and quickest method of obtaining permanent residency in the U.S., and is even applicable to individuals who have overstayed their visas in the U.S. and are currently out-of-status. As long as the foreign individual entered the U.S. lawfully and is not subject to the two-year home residency requirement of a J1 visa, the individual is eligible for the Green Card upon the filing of immigration documentation that sets forth a valid marriage to a U.S. Citizen.
After the appropriate application documents are filed, marriage cases always are set for interviews at the local US Immigration Office. Most interviews take no more than 30 minutes. Assuming that the marriage is indeed valid and was not entered for immigration purposes, approval of a conditional Green Card can be expected at the conclusion of the interview.
Upon the successful completion of the immigrant interview, the foreign spouse will receive a ‘conditional’ Green Card stamp in his/her passport. The conditional Green Card is valid only for a two-year period, and will expire if a further application for the permanent Green Card is not made within 90 days of the two-year anniversary of the issuance of the conditional Green Cards.
Within 90 days of the two-year anniversary of the issuance of the conditional Green Card, the foreign spouse must file Form I-751 with the Immigration Service. Both the U.S. Citizen spouse and the foreign spouse must sign the form for the purpose of establishing that the couple is still married. If the couple is no longer married and/or the U.S. Citizen spouse refuses to sign the form, the foreign spouse must then set forth additional facts detailing that the marriage was entered into in good faith, and not for Green Card purposes.