ScarlettHill

Hi,

A friend of mine did a direct consular filing in Japan and came to the US in December 2000. It was a bona fide marriage but has since fallen apart and the two are separated.

The removal of conditions interview is next week. The USC husband says he is willing to go with her to the interview and swear that though they are no longer together the marriage was in good faith on both sides.

They lived together about a year here in the US before splitting.

My friend has been very worried and I wanted to reassure her as my understanding, from reading the postings of lawyers here and others that have gone through the process, is that as long as the marriage was in good faith but has since fallen apart, she should be OK for removal of conditions. She is studying and working here in Dallas. Her removal of conditions interview is in San Antonio Wednsday.

I have suggested she collect documents such as the joint lease from when she lived with her husband, any letters sent to the two of them and the tax return they filed jointly. In addition she has sworn affidavits from two friends who knew the couple saying the marriage was a bona fide one.

Have I missed anything? Does anyone have any further advice to add? Am I getting anything horribly wrong?

Does anyone have any kind of list of what she should take to this interview, stuff it might be helpful for her to know.

Can anyone add to the reassurance that she has a good case.

I'm seeing my friend tomorrow morning and I'd be really grateful for a few replies as I want to make sure she's getting a good picture of where she stands.

Thanks, you guys.

Regards
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Scarlett

edit: more follows about worrying grey area below...

ScarlettHill

The grey area I don't understand and am worried about is this:

She's not divorced yet. From reading the law on the BCIS web pages, if you're divorced and can prove it was a bona fide marriage that was since terminated you're probably OK to get the waiver on filing jointly.

If you file jointly you're probably ok.

But what if you're filing jointly depite being separated? Can you do that? Or does joint filing presuppose a continuing viable marriage?

I'm concerned because of what the BCIS pages say about if removal of conditions is denied removal proceedings begin immediately.

I know no-one's my or her lawyer here but I'd be grateful for some possible scenarios.

She has a lawyer. But she couldn't make a lot of sense of what he said and I couldn't make much of what she told me he said. Something about them filing separately and having to pay two sets of fees, which sounded suss to me. I asked if her lawyer was a member of AILA and she had never even heard of AILA.
She doesn't have long to make sure all her ducks are in a row. Today is the first time I heard all this - she works with my husband but hasn't really talked much about her situation till today.

Grateful for advice, opinions. I know get an AILA lawyer is high on the list but I don't know whether she can do this, financially speaking, as she's already paid out a lot. And I don't know how much could be done before Wednesday.

OK, over to y'all.

Thanks.

Regards
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Scarlett

ScarlettHill

bump

Folinskyinla

Hi:

If they are seprated but have yet to file for dissolution of the marriage, the law allows them to go forward. The law does NOT require a "viable" marriage.

That said, BCIS may have some doubts about the bona fides here.

I have had similar cases. In fact, I had one where they had a dissolution pending. The USC husband had been diagnosed with testicular cancer and could never father children and he wanted his wife to have a chance at a "full life with children." We did the joint, both appeared, INS interviewed and then sat on the application. Marriage dissolved, we file waiver with reference to all the evidence developed in first I-751. Case approved.

So, two I-751 is not all the crazy. Well, it is crazy -- but that arises from the fact that BCIS has this quaint notion that you can change the box checked of type of I-751 once filed.

[As an aside, there is an old case called Katigbak which held for a work related immigrant visa petition that you had to be qualified on the date the petition was filed. The REASON in that case was that the immigrant classification was numrically restricted and you could not get "in line" until qualified to do so. The HOLDING in Katigbak has been extened to situations where the reasoning doesn't apply. Sometimes, its slavish obedience to things like this that cuase backlogs.]

ScarlettHill

Thanks so much. I guess if they sit on it till the divorce, that's good news. What's worrying is if they outright dony and she gets put in deportation proceedings.

She really needs a good lawyer somehow, right?

Thanks again - yours was the voice I wanted to hear on this. But you're not my lawyer so I didn't ask

Regards
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Scarlett