hi this is first time im posting
i have an immigrent visa valid for 6 months IR1 which is about to expire in few months my usc wife is in usa and things are not good between us and she is planning to divorce so i want to knw can i still go to usa as i already have a valid visa?thnx in advance

if you have ir1 you have ir1.

If the IR-1 is till valid then you can enter to USA without any problem and because your divorce is in process,you can file to remove the conditions(from conditional 2yrs greencard) right after you get divorced(you don't have to wait for 2 years)..I wish you good luck and hope it helps.

With an IR1 visa, you enter as a permanent resident with no conditions. It's up to you.

thnx for ur replies bt i guess i wouldnt get conditional gc becoze i have been married for more then two years

then you would get a unconditional green card

so can i tel at poe tht i am divorced and can i change my address because it will be the first time im goin to usa

why do that ?

You don't have to tell them anything. Just answer their questions and I don't think they will ask you if you are happily married or not.
Why don't you guys wait with the divorce until you are in the US?

I don't know, but this whole situation sounds strange to me...

we have been married for long and i never wnt divorce never happy with divorce bt she wants divorce and ofcourse she wouldnt want me to enter in usa thts why i was askin about the questions which can be asked at poe

Generally, there are no serious questions at the POE as long as the paperwork is in order. IR1 visas are generally not a point of concern, since the marriage is considered bona fide when the visa is issued. You can tell the POE folks a new address if you want. They'll need an address to send the green card and social security card. Welcome to the USA.

Good luck.

thanks alot all of you for help

The answers you got sound like "wishful thinking" and not based on facts.
Your visa was issued with a sole purpose to allow you to enter the USA and to live with your spouse. If you divorce before entering USA, visa is invalid. If you enter the USA using IR-1 visa without the intent to live with your spose, you are misrepresenting yourself.
Immigration officer at POE suppose to verify if the reason that the visa was issued still exists, or in words of IO manual Inspecting New Immigrant Apllicants: "you will need to insure that either a qualifying relationship or offer of employment continue to exist."

John,
don't you worry about this situation
your marriage is already more than 2 years and thats why it is considered legimate and bonafide...and its your personal problems and life,its not your liability to let INS know that you are in process of divorce,thats your life.things were different if you were married less than 2 yrs(cr-1).welcome to USA and you can change your address whenever and wherever you want.God Bless you and Good luck.

All well and good but it really isn't possible to insure either of the above. That's why I've never heard of any attempt by a CBP officer to do so. It's not like they bring the waiting USC down for an interview or require a re-affirmation of the job offer.

would you guys advice the same thing to someone who, for example, got student visa but decided not to go to school to still use that student visa to enter the USA?

jhon85 did not "earn" the right to live in the USA by being married to USC for 2+ years. What's the purpose of that visa? Visa was issued to him as a favour to USC spouse so they can be together.

Let's try to look at the situation from the other perspective: I am USC and sponosred my spouse for PR. He just got an immigrant visa, but the things are not good and I want divorce. Should I withdraw my sponsorship? Should I do nothing so he can come to the USA and go his own way, although I'll be resposible for him as per Affidavit of support? What if he is not a nice guy from UK, but from some other country? Would you tell me to try to stop him from comming or he has a "righ" to come and become PR since he got an immigrant visa?

jhon85, this is nothing personaly. Just want to get my point. And all this is not only moral question but also a law.

OK, likely he can enter USA using IR-1. Not too many questions will be asked, I agree. But still he would misrepresent his intention. And he would have to live with it. And cross fingers that it never comes up...

That might not matter. (For student visas, they do often require a letter than someone is still currently enrolled.) If the rule is that you must be eligible to use the visa in order to use it, then presenting yourself as if you are eligible, when you are not, would mean you've misrepresented yourself. For example, if C. and I had gotten married after he had been issued the K-1 but before he entered the country, no one would have required me to be there or that we prove that he was single, but he still would have been misusing the visa (and indeed, there was a big case about a couple that did just that.)

What I'm not sure about in this case is whether having the IR-1 counts as the person having the green card already, or as a visa that allows you to get the green card once in the country.

K1 is a different case. They can enter but must return if they don't marry. If you break up and they come for a vacation then return, no problem.

I see the point of misrepresenting their intent though but nobody has pointed to anything in the FAM to back it up.

The way I see, it an IR1 visa holder has been granted unconditional permanent resident status. Whether they choose to enter the USA and become a permanent resident is up to them. The granting, not the using of the visa is the benefit to the USC. Use is up to the visa holder. Show me in the FAM where it says otherwise and I'll stand corrected.

No, you misunderstand my example. When they grant the K-1, one isn't married. One can't get married after that and then use the K-1, even on the grounds 'when it was granted, it was legit, and use of the visa is up to the visa holder for six months.' Likewise, if one drops out of one's degree program, one can't use the student visa, even if it has a couple years left on it and the school hasn't turned you in yet.

This is the question I don't know the answer to. Is the unconditional resident status granted with the visa, or conditional but automatic upon successful later entry? If the former, I agree with you completely. If the latter, I'm not so sure. Although it sounds like the OP isn't divorced yet, and there's certainly no requirement of a happy marriage. But I don't know what happens to his IR-1 status if he never enters the country before getting divorced. Would it come back to bite him later if he had to show that the marriage ended before he entered the US?

This would be a good one to run by a lawyer. A cursory examination of the CFR and FAM says nothing but the visa must be valid and unexpired, but there's many a slip twixt cup and lip.

Seems like some of the replies are being based on hypothetical situations. The facts are: an IR-1 is a 10 year unconditional green card and as long as the IR-1 is still valid, the OP can activate it. Since the OP states they haven't legally divorced, it still stands and even if the couple had a pending divorce, it seems that the visa is still 'unconditional' in that, as opposed to a 2 year conditional green card, there is no stipulation that the OP remain married to the USC spouse. At the time of application and subsequent approval, they were married and they intended to live together as spouses, where is the fraud?

A person with immigrant visa becomes permanent resident when he/she arrives in USA. Not before. (Those who don't use their imm. visa never become PRs). And at the time of arrival, alien still has to be eligible for the benefit. If divorced, one is not eligible to receive residency based on ex-marriage.

I'll try to find some cases with applicable law... in the meantime, caladan's example, using K1 while being married is one example of misrepresentation. The other, with a long story on this web-site, is when dependant or someone who got visa as unmarried child of USC/PR, marries before entering the USA (doctor and his wife were separately petitioned by their parents as single son/daughter, but they got married before arriving to the USA, 20 years later they found themselves in deep trouble facing deportation).

The title of the topis is "divorce before entering usa".

So, let's say OP divorces before entering USA, do you say he is still entitled use IR-1 and gain permanent residency upon entry?

The question is whether he *has* permanent residency before entering the country. Once he does, no question, he has unconditional permanent residency based on a bona fide marriage and if he divorces at a later time, he's just fine. No question there.

But I'm not sure if someone on an unactivated IR-1 counts as a permanent resident "An IR-1 is a 10 year unconditional green card" is not a fact, because it has an expiration date of six months and is a visa.

jula thinks they don't count as a permanent residents until they enter the U.S. and their paperwork is stamped; I suspect that's correct, and that the IR-1 just means that once in the U.S., they're automatically permanent residents. And if he doesn't count as a permanent resident, then it's just like any other visa; one needs to be eligible to use the visa when one uses it, not just when one obtains it. That means if he's divorced, and jula's right, he's not eligible for using a spousal visa.

In any case, I wouldn't be comfortable telling the guy 'sure, get divorced, it will have no standing on your immigration status' because I don't think it's at all clear. Attorney time.

(I have no idea about a divorce that's pending. Another reason to talk to an attorney.)

OP original post makes me think that the divorce is not finalized or perhaps not even initiated yet.

Yes, I think so and challenge any detractors to find something in the FAM that says otherwise. If the OP wants to wear belt and supenders to make certain, all he needs to do is clear the POE before the divorce is final.

thax guys for ur help as i can see some people are realy helpful and some pple like jula are not hapy about me asking a question, i just wantd to tel i am not divorced yet bt things are geting worst its not as if i maried my wife few months ago just to go to usa i have been maried for long time i was planing to go so maybe things mite get better so thts why i was askin if there will be any problems at POE. jula its not easy for someone to leave their home contry and go but sometimes you have to do it for someone you love thnx

Thanks, mermaid. I knew it had to be in there somewhere.

wow

try reading jula's posts again; they're at least as helpful as anyone else's... if you're reading a personal agenda or even a personal attack into what jula said then you're reading wrong, IMHO

And the context of the posts are confirmed by Caladan's good questions about misrepresentation and Mermaids code cite.

The water is muddy here.

jhon85, you can ask whatever you want as far as I am concerned, I don't care... what I care about is when people are getting either not complete or wrong suggestions. I thought you need to know the whole picture of what may happen - for your own benefit. I am 100% sure that if you were to show at POE with IR-1 and say "I am divorced", you would be denied entry. Even if you don't say that, but you are divorced at the time of entry, it may be a matter of time when that's discovered and your GC revoked.

If someone here entered on an immigrant visa, can you post if the date on GC "resident since" is the date of your arrival (+few days) or the date the visa was issued. That date counts when one applys for citizenship... so I think we can use it to determine when one becomes PR (unless somebody can locate the law).

As far as I'm concerned, Mermaid's code cite is conclusive. The only thing that is muddy is whether entering after the divorce would ever actually have a consequence but it is clear that it could. Declaring the divorced status at POE should promt a denial of entry whether volunteered or as an answer to a direct question. If it does'nt come up, somthing would have to prompt any inquiry into the status before revocation would be an issue.

If the OP wants to immigrate, he should enter the USA while still married.

It's 'muddy' because we here can't give a good answer as to what the consequences would be. A professional needs to offer that advice.

I guess I see the muddy part as not what the consequences would be but whether there would be any. If there are any, it seems clear the consequence would be revoking the status. If his wife is savvy and reports him, there will quite likely be consequences for entering after the divorce is final. If neither she or anybody else makes an issue of it, there probably wouldn't be any consequences but I sure wouldn't advise risking it. Its too easy and cheap to just get on a plane and do away with the issue before the divorce is final.

most cases where one obtained benefits (green card) for which he/she wasn't eligible, are discovered during the review of paperwork for citizenship.

That makes sense. I suppose the remedies vary by circumstance. What do you know about that?

Citizenship is certainly optional anyway and many people never have a desire for it. In our case, the plan was for my wife not to apply for citizenship, since we may be living in China more than half time after two or three years. At this point though, we are considering putting citizenship in the plan, so there's no risk of losing permanent resident status.

Actual permanent full-time residents of the USA can do quite will without citizenship, as I imagine, can a Citizen of a VWP country.

I believe this is also true. Logic suggests that many aliens that have been lucky enough to circumvent the immigration process once would place themselves on the fast-track to Naturalisation.