Marrying a US Citizen
 

My girlfriend of 2 and a half years and I are now seriously considering marriage. She has offered to marry me for my papers for a while now, in case my renewals did not come in time. I decided to hold off on it because I wanted no doubts in her mind or her parents minds about my intentions, call me stupid but I wanted our marriage to be done right.

I also held off thinking something would finally be done about a reform, but doesn't seem like its happening.

Anyway now that I got two more years of being able to legally work and drive, I feel ready now to go into this full steam ahead and marry her because hell, I do love her. So I wanted to get some input from people who have married and adjusted thru their partner's citizenship status. She was born here, and I am a visa overstay that entered legally on a plane with my parents.

I am going to start researching this, but was hoping for some insight as to what this entails.

Re: Marrying a US Citizen
 

Good luck,although I recently went through the process we hired a lawyer because of the money involved in the process. The USCIS website explains all forms needed to Adjust . I wasn't taking any chances I wanted it done correctly.

Re: Marrying a US Citizen
 

You overstayed, she's a US citizen. You can adjust status the moment you marry. You will just file the normal adjustment of status packet, attend an interview with USCIS, and get approved for a conditional green card.

Re: Marrying a US Citizen
 

You may use a lawyer, but honestly if your record is clean and you do research online, you can pretty much fill out the forms on your own.

Your case is pretty straight forward

Re: Marrying a US Citizen
 

I just became a recently got my green card about two month ago through marrying my husband (who was not born here but became a US citizen). WE DID NOT HIRE A LAWYER, our reasons were we were tight on money and I had just gotten a job from being approved through DACA, so we didn't have much saved up for a lawyer, plus my husband recently unemployed . We did a lot of research, I also came to the US with an expired Visa. I will mention we got a lot of our information through this site as well as online searching.

Evidence of the marriage and pictures are the most important. They want to see everything even though our immigration officer was awesome, very nice guy, but I mean probably because our marriage was pretty much legit since me and my husband has been together for almost 10 years now (high school sweethearts pretty much). We were married for a year now. I applied for my Green Card in March. 2014 and got approved Aug 2014. Really quick. Keep in mind that if you have been married more than 2 years before applying you will get your permanent green card if not you will have a conditional one just pretty much means that you will need to renew for a permanent one which at that time you could also apply to be a US. citizen.

Re: Marrying a US Citizen
 

Lol why even get married in this day and age.

The sloots gon' sloot.

Re: Marrying a US Citizen
 

Hey, what kind of questions did they asked on the interview? How did officer approach your same-sex marriage interview?

I'm thinking marrying my bf (same sex) , I' overtsay my visa, waiting for my first DACA Approval.

I'm just curious of what kind of thing they would ask. We've only been together for 6 months.

Re: Marrying a US Citizen
 

Hey, what kind of questions did they asked on the interview? How did officer approach your same-sex marriage interview?

I'm thinking marrying my bf (same sex) , I' overtsay my visa, waiting for my first DACA Approval.

I'm just curious of what kind of thing they would ask. We've only been together for 6 months.

Re: Marrying a US Citizen
 

This is all USCIS would really want to know. An overview of the application of the application and process can be found here.

Re: Marrying a US Citizen
 

Hi, everyone, I thought since someone started this topic, I can go ahead and ask more related questions. My situation is a little complicated (at least it seemed to be) so I will explain a little further.

I came to US legally and overstay my tourist visa and been no "lawful" status for more than 10 years. After they pass the DACA around 2013, I was able to apply DACA by myself, received EAD and also granted a SSN. The expiration date for the special work permit is 12/14/2014. I am running late in time as I know I need to renew the permit. Meanwhile, I had recently started working for a interpretation job (thus I DEFINITELY need to start the renewal process ASAP).

What is the complicated situation is that I married my husband (who was not born in US but is a US Citizen now since 2000) on April 2014 (we didn't have big wedding, just few friends gathered and witness our special day). The attorney whom my own family hired to help my sister's immigration case insisted that he will help file at no cost ( and I was naive enough to think that any ATTORNEY would file marriage petition for free, basically now the story is that he would file i-130 for me at no charge, but for i-485 and the rest, he will charge BIG BIG FEE, like $4000! and of course this does not include the fee going to USCIS!!). Anyways, my husband and I went to his office a week after we got marry and supposedly submitted a 1-130 along with a seperate form ( I need to look it up again as I forget the actual name/number of the form) that authorize the law firm to file on my behalf. Along with the package I gave the $420, which I thought was of course, going to USCIS. However, a week later the attorney contacted me and said that he would recommend me to wait for filing as I he thinks my husband and I needed to gather more evidence and document for proof of marriage (and yes, my husband and I met back on earlier 2013 and we got married on mid 2014 so I thought it made sense to put a hold on filing i-130 until I gathered more evidences so USCIS wouldn't suspect our marriage).

So I waited until this month and that's when I went back to the attorney with much more evidence and proof , then WAS TOLD in order to file i-485 and the rest, close to $4000 is required (even though he said he would be willing to be flexible on payment plan, no down payment, etc). Now I realized I was SCREWED, big time.

I know my case isn't very complicated at all, given I entered the county legally and has no criminal records or anything. At this point I would just rather work with a experienced paralegal who can aid me to file the paperwork myself. Meanwhile, I have some questions and hope some of you can share your thought:

1) Renewal for DACA EAD. Even though I will be apply green card and status adjustment change (with i-130 and i-485), I still need to renew my EAD? Especially now I am going to file 1-130 and 1-485.

2) Verifying if the attorney had filed the I-130 as well as the authorization form on my behalf. He told me he didn't file anything yet, however, I do not trust him anymore and doubt I could even able to retain the $420 back from him. Will I be able to call USCIS to see the status of the case? and if he did file the authorization form, can I reverse it?

Thank you in advance for all your help.




Linda