Marrying a USC - some tricky details

Hello everyone,

I have been lurking the forums for years and got lots of help from everyone's questions and responses. Unfortunately I am here today to ask one of my own questions!

I arrived a little over 10 years ago and overstayed my visa. I was first approved for DACA in 2012 and recently reapproved for another 2 years of work permit, etc. I am still going for my bachelor's and my girlfriend of 5 years is preparing for med school.

Now I know that if you are still reading, you are probably thinking I just need to file some forms and adjust my status. But there are some tricky details that I could not find answers to anywhere on the web.

1) My girlfriend is still a green card holder although she is eligible to take the USC test. She just never got around to it and she will be taking it within a couple months. We plan to file for a marriage certificate soon after she gets her USC status. Will this provide any problems or friction for our case during the interview?

2) Although I have lots of pictures proving that we have been together for over 5 years, we won't have much proof in terms of financial ties. I lived with her in the past for 6 months but we both had to move for education. We will be making a joint bank account soon, however.

3) We also won't be having a wedding for a while since we are students and all our money is going to our education. Will these be any problems for us?

4) After getting a marriage certificate, we won't be living together for upwards of 1 year because I am almost done with my bachelor's and she will be moving to be closer to her med school. After I am done I will be moving in with her.

Basically, the only proofs we will have of the legitimacy of our marriage will be pictures from the past 5 years and the marriage certificate. We lived together for a short while but we probably won't be living together when we go to the interview.

Now you might be telling me, why not just wait a year or two before appyling for adjustment? The problem is that my passport from my previous home country needs to be renewed before I turn 25 and I need a conditional green card to do that.

Sorry for the wall of text! I hope to hear from many of you who went through a similar situation regarding adjustment of status.

Thank you!

You don't have to prove that you've been with her for 5 years BEFORE you were married as long as it's obvious that it was a real relationship. The most important part is what you do after you're married and being one year apart kind of screams scam and will probably put you under more scrutiny since it's rare for people who were madly in love and couldn't wait to get married only to be apart for a year, at least in American culture.

Not saying it's impossible since I actually have a USC friend who was born here get married and since her husband was a surgeon and had already accepted a job before they met (at least that was his story), had to move to a different city and she was also a doctor and was finishing up her fellowship in BFE, TX and they were apart for like 8 months. They had the money to fly to see each other every other weekend however....and they didn't have to go through an immigration interview.

Might want to talk to a lawyer on this one.

What country requires you to have a green card to be able to renew your passport???

Like the person above said, immigration pretty much looks at your relationship after you guys get married, not the past 5 years unfortunately. I say get married now if that's what you guys want, why wait. And in the mean time, start to get things together. Keep track of skype logs, texts, mail, plane tickets (if you guys travel to visit each other), etc. If it's obvious that the marriage is real, it shouldn't be hard to prove it. You both can explain the distance through detailed affidavits and submit them with your application.

Definitely recommend seeing an attorney too.

I should've mentioned that we live relatively close to eachother (within 2 hours) and see each other often on the weekends. It's just that we don't live in the same house physically. I guess the best plan is to get a marriage cert as soon as possible and then build up better proof towards the interview. Thank you for your responses.

Mine does...I have been without a passport since I've been here (the INS took it at the air port and the meanies never gave it back). I can't get one from them because they want to know I'm here legally. I guess their concern is that I might have sneaked out of the country or something.

You might have to prove that your USC wife can financially support you.

Would you be able to get one under deferred action?

I'm pretty sure I can...that would be pretty cool too.

I am married to a USC for about two years now and have been together for about 5 years now. She is a little older than me and as ssom as we got married ( we got married at the Court house and just my mother as the witness just because we wanted to celebrate our wedding outside the US and i can travel outside this great nation) we consulted an inmigration lawyer. She adviced us to have tons of evidence to make sure our Marriage was real. Since then, we joint back accts, credit cards, medical and car insurance, phone bills, auto loans and obviously a lot of pictures with friends and family. My best advice would be to get as much evidence as possible and also live together. If you get drilled at the interview with questions about your marriage and you do not live together, you might not the answer and make the officer suspicious.

Pretty much this. I actually didn't want to even answer to this thread because what you're doing is essentially setting yourself up for removal proceedings.

You can marry any time you want, but honestly I wouldn't begin sponsorship until you're at least able to live together, which is one of the basic benchmarks of the relationship being actually legitimate. If you go into the interview, and they come across the fact that you do not live together then, they'll keep drilling, dig up the fact that you married only on paper right now, likely solely to get your documents in the meantime (since the relationship hasn't really moved forward from just dating), likely reject you, and you'll get a NTA in an immigration court, which will turn an "easy when you get everything ready" case, into a "[insert a deity here, or Richard Dawkins if none] help you" case.