Sunday, January 17, 2010

Do you have to still be married when you file to remove conditional residency?

If someone gets conditional residency based on marriage, does he/she still need to be married when filing to remove the condition?





What if it was a good faith marriage and both parties separated based on irreconcilable differences? Will the USCIS still grant removal of condition?Do you have to still be married when you file to remove conditional residency?
Yes, you have to be married. That's the entire reason for conditional residency. It's designed to weed out those foreigners who got married for a Green Card.





Irreconcilable differences is not one of the recognized reasons that allows permanent residency to get granted in a failed marriage. It takes things like proven allegations of spousal abuse.Do you have to still be married when you file to remove conditional residency?
No you don't have to. There are special waivers that apply:





If your marriage was terminated other than by the death of your spouse, you must submit the following:





USCIS Form I-751 (Petition to Remove the Conditions on Residence)


Copy of USCIS Form I-551 (Permanent Resident Card)


Evidence that you entered in the marriage in good faith, and not to evade the immigration laws of the United States. Examples of such evidence includes, but is not limited to:


Leases showing that you and your spouse lived in the same place


Documents that prove that you and your spouse owned property together


Birth certificates of your children


Copy of your divorce or annulment decree


Evidence that you were not at fault in failing to file the petition on time, if applicable





In addition:








How Can I Get a Waiver of the Requirement to File a Joint Petition?





If you are unable to apply with your spouse to remove the conditions on your residence, you may request a waiver of the joint filing requirement by filing a Form I-751 (Petition to Remove the Conditions on Residence). You may request that the Service consider more than one basis for a waiver at the same time. If the waiver is approved the conditions on your conditional residence will be removed.





You may request a waiver of the joint petitioning requirements if:





Your deportation or removal would result in extreme hardship


You entered into your marriage in good faith, and not to evade immigration laws, but the marriage ended by annulment or divorce, and you were not at fault in failing to file a timely petition.


You entered into your marriage in good faith, and not to evade immigration laws, but during the marriage you were battered by, or subjected to extreme cruelty committed by your U.S. citizen of lawful permanent resident spouse, and you were not at fault in failing to file a joint petition.


Please see USCIS Form I-751 (Petition to Remove the Conditions on Residence) for more specific information on waivers.
You can still file for conditions removal even if you're not married anymore. USCIS will grant removal of conditions if you can show enough evidence that your marriage was a real marriage.
If you are talking about a marriage visa being the basis of the original immigration, then no, but there is a time commitment requirement. It was two years but that was a while back. The immigrations department has an 800 number. Anytime we called it, there was a 15 minute wait on hold, but they had good factual answers. The information is probably also on a .gov website. A Google search should lead you to the links. I used to have them bookmarked, but we've long-since updated the computer, and I never transferred them.


You may need to document trips to marriage counselors or get letters from clergy that you've attempted to work the relationship out to prove it was a good faith effort on your part.
No, you don't. But I don't know what'll happen to you if you don't.

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