Marrying Into Citizenship – What’s It Involve?

Photos

Mia's Permanent Resident Card (green card)

see larger image

uploaded by bhaas

• 

  uploaded by bhaas | add comment

• 

  uploaded by bhaas | add comment

• 

  uploaded by bhaas | add comment

Mia wanted to live in Chicago with her boyfriend, but she was British, self-employed, and had no intention of going to an American university.  In short, according to the United States government, she had no reason to be in the U.S. for an extended period of time.  The best option she and her boyfriend, James, saw for them to be together and live in the U.S. was to get married.  Mia, like many who plan to use marriage to get citizenship, thought the process was fairly easy: fall in love, get married, get citizenship, live happily ever after.  However, the process is much more difficult and much more costly than they ever imagined.

U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS), operating within the Department of Homeland Security, handles all cases in which a U.S. citizen is seeking to sponsor his or her fiancé to immigrate to the United States.  Whether you get married outside the U.S. and then attempt to immigrate or apply to have your fiancé come to the U.S. and get married here, the process is essentially the same.  Potential immigrants and their American sponsors often find government websites and instructions confusing, so they rely on one of the hundreds of third-party websites that describe everything from how to emigrate from the Philippines to the U.S. to the more specific ones that describe the general requirements.  Mia and her fiancé chose visajourney.com and quickly learned that it would be several months or over a year before she would be allowed into the U.S. 

The process began with Mia applying for a K-1 visa in her home country of Britain. As with any service of the U.S. government, the process begins with a lot of paperwork, specifically an I-129f, Petition for Alien Fiancé(e) form.  This covers the basic information about the U.S. citizen and the fiancé(e).  After all the paperwork was filed, Mia had to go to a doctor for a medical exam.  There was only one doctor in London that was acceptable for this examination, she recalled, and it cost £600.  Then she had an interview at the U.S. consulate with a USCIS official.  When she was finally approved for the K-1 visa, the visa itself cost $1000. 

She arrived in Chicago on May 14, 2008, and was married six days later.  Immigrants arriving on K-1 visas need to get married within 90 days, or they must go back to their home country and start the process from the beginning.  Marriage may seem like the end to this journey, but in reality it’s only a halfway point.  Then the fiancé(e) must apply for a Permanent Resident Card, also known as a green card.  While applying for the green card, the immigrant cannot leave the country, or again the entire process starts over. 

This can bring significant hardship, as Mia described, “I have a friend from Kazakhstan whose dad died and he missed the funeral because he couldn’t leave the country.”  Mia’s dad was sick during her application and was worried she would have to return home at a moment’s notice.  After Mia and James got married in May, they had to wait eight months for their interview with an immigration officer, and after that was successful, another month before she received her green card.  As Mia pointed out, “Eight months is a long time. People can build a life together, have children.”  However, if their interview goes badly the foreign spouse still must return home.

The final step in the immigration process is the interview the couple has with a USCIS official in the United States.  This is the part that determines whether or not the spouse can stay in the U.S., and the couple finds out at the end of the interview.

“You do a lot of research beforehand and you can hear horror stories about things that people have gone through,” Mia recalled, “and they tell you at the end of the interview whether or not you’re going to get your green card.  If you don’t, then you just have to go home.” 

Finally, if all goes well, the immigrant spouse will get a green card.  But to make sure the marriage was not a fraud simply to gain citizenship, the immigrant must wait two years before applying for citizenship.  Also, those who hold a green card can only leave the United States for up to six months at a time. Any longer and the green card is revoked. 

Although this particular labor of love may be more costly and complicated than a newlywed couple has in mind, it is still the easiest way to eventually gain citizenship.  According to the Center for Immigration Studies, more than 25 percent of all green cards issued in 2007 were achieved in this way.  Furthermore, after spending thousands of dollars and waiting over a year, getting a green card is still not the end. 

Those that obtain a green card from marriage to an American citizen receive a temporary card valid for two years and they cannot use it to apply for citizenship.  After the two years the spouse will get a normal 10-year green card and can apply for citizenship.  This two-year waiting period is to ensure the marriage was legitimate and the couple is not divorced.  Ultimately, this lengthy and costly process is the U.S. government’s way of making sure two people are in love.