Greencard through marriage
Dec 21st 2002, 6:49 am
#1
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Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 3
Greencard through marriage
I am a New Zealander married to an American while on the visa waiver program. I have just recieved my employment authorisation and social security number and I have been fingerprinted. We went to an immigration lawyer who helped out with the paperwork. My question is can anyone tell me what our next step is ?....do we just sit and wait for correspondence from the INS regarding my greencard interview ?...any information would be greatly appreciated.
Dec 22nd 2002, 7:18 am
#2
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Re: Greencard through marriage
On Sat, 21 Dec 2002 07:49:31 +0000, kiwifruit wrote:
> I am a New Zealander married to an American while on the visa waiver
> program. I have just recieved my employment authorisation and social
> security number and I have been fingerprinted. We went to an
> immigration lawyer who helped out with the paperwork. My question is
> can anyone tell me what our next step is ?....do we just sit and wait
> for correspondence from the INS regarding my greencard interview ?...any
> information would be greatly appreciated.
Yes, that's pretty much all. You have already been fingerprinted? That's
amazing. Usually, fingerprints are done relatively shortly before INS
approves your case. This is because fingerprints expire after 15 months,
and it means that you probably filed at one of the "faster" offices.
One more thing, you will need to take a medical exam at some point.
Depending on where you filed, you may have already done it, or you would
do that shortly before the interview.
Also, since you married on the visa waiver program, I should point out
that this is in a legally grey area. Your lawyer probably took care of
that and may have explained it to you.
Basically, you are allowed to marry on the visa waiver program, but only
if the plan to get married developed after you arrived in the US. If you
had the plan to get married all along, then using the visa waiver would
have been immigration fraud. This is of course a difficult to prove or
disprove, so INS looks at how much time was between your arrival and the
marriage. Rule of thumb, if there was more than 60 days between arrival
and wedding, it will be less of a problem.
> I am a New Zealander married to an American while on the visa waiver
> program. I have just recieved my employment authorisation and social
> security number and I have been fingerprinted. We went to an
> immigration lawyer who helped out with the paperwork. My question is
> can anyone tell me what our next step is ?....do we just sit and wait
> for correspondence from the INS regarding my greencard interview ?...any
> information would be greatly appreciated.
Yes, that's pretty much all. You have already been fingerprinted? That's
amazing. Usually, fingerprints are done relatively shortly before INS
approves your case. This is because fingerprints expire after 15 months,
and it means that you probably filed at one of the "faster" offices.
One more thing, you will need to take a medical exam at some point.
Depending on where you filed, you may have already done it, or you would
do that shortly before the interview.
Also, since you married on the visa waiver program, I should point out
that this is in a legally grey area. Your lawyer probably took care of
that and may have explained it to you.
Basically, you are allowed to marry on the visa waiver program, but only
if the plan to get married developed after you arrived in the US. If you
had the plan to get married all along, then using the visa waiver would
have been immigration fraud. This is of course a difficult to prove or
disprove, so INS looks at how much time was between your arrival and the
marriage. Rule of thumb, if there was more than 60 days between arrival
and wedding, it will be less of a problem.
