leemathewthegreat

Hello,

My mother passed away last month and my father now lives by himself in India.
I want to bring my father to the US and I would like to confirm a few things

1. He got the papers for his green card back in 1999, but never went to the US immigration to file for his green card. Which papers do I have to fill out?

2. We cannot find their marriage certificate but I have a copy of his passport which states my mom's name as his spouse. Would it be an issue if we do not have their marriage certificate. If so, what further procedures can we do?

Please help.

MarylandNed

The green card is now irrelevant. You need to file I-130.

http://www.uscis.gov/i-130

You need to obtain a copy of the marriage certificate because USCIS wants to know that your father was married to your mother before you were born.

http://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/f...i-130instr.pdf

Did they ever have a marriage certificate? Hopefully the answer to that is 'yes' because it means the marriage was registered. You need to find out where they were married and determine the local governing body responsible for issuing marriage certificates. You will have additional hurdles to overcome if the marriage was not officially registered.

ian-mstm

Those earlier papers are likely now invalid.


Immigration is a 2-step process. First, you submit an I-130 petition (including whatever documentation is required, and the fee of course) - and, once that's approved, your father applies for an immigrant visa. The day he enters the US with his immigrant visa, he will immediately become a US permanent resident (= green card).


Yes.


You must provide proof that they were, in fact, married prior to your birth. I'm not sure how you'd get that information.

Ian

monfed

Have you thought about how you're going to handle his healthcare?

Bob

This is something that has come up in the last week and in the main US forum for another poster, so worth a browse around for.

leemathewthegreat

Thank you very much for all your help. We were able to locate his marriage certificate. I did have a couple more questions

1. Do I list dates as dd/mm/yr or mm/dd/yr
2. Since was mother passed away, do I list her in line 17 "list spouse and all children of your relative"

ian-mstm

They are expecting a US format: dd/mm/yy.


The I-130 is used for a number of different immigration scenarios. If your father no longer has a spouse (either by death or divorce), she need not be listed.

Ian

Guindalf

Ooops, Ian, that would be mm/dd/yy (or possibly mm/dd/yyyy).

Not often we can catch you in a mistake as your advice is always so accurate, so we can relish in this one!!!

ian-mstm

D'Oh... absolutely correct: mm/dd/yy. I hate getting old!

Ian

Noorah101

For the sake of providing complete information, you could also list his spouse and put (deceased).

Rene

KCK_DR

In California he can buy health insurance for a very reasonable price even if his age is over 65.

bewildering

Really? Can you provide information? My understanding is this is not the case. But I would love to be proved wrong.

sir_eccles

Thanks to the ACA, he can go to any of the exchanges and buy health insurance and not be denied or penalized beyond his age and whether he smokes along with all the annual out of pocket limits the act provides. Whether it is a reasonable price would depend on his definition of reasonable.

S Folinsky

The I-130 requests the name of "prior spouses" and the marriage ended on the date of your mother's death. Your mother is a "prior spouse" and not a current one.

KCK_DR

Based on my experience, ACA in Arizona was run by the federal gov. and did not allow people over the age of 64 to register and purchase insurance. In California however the locally run system allows for people older than 65 to purchase it.

A very good program can cost $1000 for two people well over the age of 65 with a base price of $700 and an upper price of $1800.

For a male over the age of 75 you can expect to pay between $400 and $800 a month and based on the person's immigration and financial standing you can get a healthy subsidy the first few years. Also once 5 years are up for a cost of about $500 you can get full medicare coverage.