Removing The Conditions of Your Permanent Residence
Often, one of the most straightforward ways that someone can become a lawful permanent resident is through marrying a United States citizen. However, if you have been married for less than two years by the time you get your green card, you will only be given Conditional Residence and not Permanent Residence. Congress made this change to the law in the hopes of reducing the levels of marriage fraud.
If you are given conditional residence, you will be issued a green card that is valid for two years from the date your conditional residence is approved. In order to eventually become a lawful permanent resident; a conditional resident needs to apply to remove the condition with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). There are several ways to try to remove the conditional status of your residence.
The first, and most straightforward, method to remove the conditional status is for you and your spouse to jointly file a Form I-751, Petition to Remove the Conditions on Residence. This form must be filed during the ninety (90) days immediately prior to the expiration of your conditional resident status. The application needs to be fully completed and signed by both you and your U.S. citizen spouse; the proper filing fee also must accompany it, which is currently $200.00. For those living in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, the petition must be filed with the USCIS Regional Service Center located in St. Albans, Vermont. Essentially, the purpose of the petition is to prove to USCIS that you and your spouse are still involved in a real marital relationship. You can prove the bona fides of your marriage by submitting documentary evidence along with your petition. This evidence can include photocopies of the following: birth certificates of any children born to the marriage, joint bank statements, joint credit card statements, joint health insurance, joint car insurance, joint utility bills, life insurance policies, a lease agreement or mortgage statement listing both you and your spouse, and family photographs. Other documents can include mail addressed to either you or your spouse showing your joint marital address. If the officer reviewing your application believes that you have submitted sufficient evidence regarding the bona fide nature of your marriage, your application may be approved without an in person interview and you will be given permanent residence. However, a random selection of applications will be transferred to your USCIS District Office for an in person interview with you and your spouse. This interview will be similar to the interview that you went through in order to obtain your conditional residence. If the interviewing officer is satisfied that you and your spouse are involved in a valid marriage, you will be granted permanent residence.
If you and your spouse cannot jointly file the I-751 petition, never fear, all hope of getting permanent residence is not lost. There are several cases in which USCIS will allow for a waiver of the joint filing requirement. You can request a waiver for the following reasons:
- You entered the marriage in good faith, but your spouse has died;
- You entered the marriage in good faith, but the marriage later ended in divorce or annulment; or
- You entered the marriage in good faith and have remained married, but have been battered or subjected to extreme cruelty by your spouse.
- You will suffer extreme hardship if you were deported.
As with the jointly file I-751 petitions, USCIS may or may not choose to interview you in connection with your application. If you are requesting a waiver of the joint filing requirement, USCIS imposes no time deadline for filing the petition. You can file the petition at any time, even years after your conditional residence has expired. If you file late however, you must show cause (a good reason) why your application did not go in on time. You can also assert multiple grounds for the waiver such as both divorce and abuse.
The important thing to remember if you are requesting a waiver for any of the above-stated reason is that USCIS still needs to be convinced that your marriage was a valid one. Therefore, even if you are not filing a joint petition, you still need to submit the same type of evidence described in the previous paragraph to demonstrate to USCIS that your marriage was a real one while it lasted. In addition to this evidence, if your spouse passed away you need to submit a copy of the death certificate. If your marriage ended in divorce or annulment, you need to submit the divorce decree or other document annulling your marriage. You cannot apply for a waiver of the joint filing requirement if you are only legally separated or in the middle of divorce proceedings, you must have a final divorce decree in order to request this waiver.
The final ground upon which you can request a waiver is if you can demonstrate that you would suffer extreme hardship if you were deported from the United States AND that the extreme hardship arose only during the conditional residence period. This means that if, for instance, you want to base your claim to hardship on a medical condition and your need for medical treatment here in the United States, if the onset of the condition took place before you became a conditional resident, the medical condition cannot be used to establish hardship. However, if you can demonstrate that the medical condition was diagnosed and began to require treatment during your period of conditional residence, you can use it as a basis to request a joint filing waiver due to extreme hardship.
If you are requesting a waiver of the joint filing requirement because you were battered or subjected to extreme cruelty by your U.S. citizen spouse, USCIS officers will expect to see quite a bit of paperwork to document the abuse. This evidence can include: police reports, hospital or medical reports, orders of protection, other records issued by police, courts, medical personnel, clergy, or social workers regarding the abuse, photographs documenting physical injuries, a psychological evaluation from a trained social worker, and affidavits from friends and family who had first-hand knowledge of the abuse. It is also a good idea for you to write a statement that goes into great detail about the history of your marriage and the abuse that you suffered.