Keeping your Green Card when marriage fails

[Bridgewater 0]

I got my green card through my wife about a year ago. It’s valid for ten years, and our 3 years marriage isn’t going well. I’ve read that we need to apply for citizen together, but I’m not sure we will . In case we divorce before am due to apply, what are my chances.?

[ConcordUser 18]

You have to wait for 2 more years to make 5 year stay and then apply.

[aleful 1,905]

I got my green card through my wife about a year ago. It’s valid for ten years, and our 3 years marriage isn’t going well. I’ve read that we need to apply for citizen together, but I’m not sure we will . In case we divorce before am due to apply, what are my chances.?

ditto,

if you divorce, you'll have to wait until you have 5 years of residency. 90 days before your 5 year, you can apply.

[Kajikit 65]

Your greencard is YOURS... once they've given you a ten-year-greencard, you get to keep it whatever happens to your marriage/spouse. The only thing is, you don't get to trade it in for citizenship early. People who are married to a USC get to apply for citizenship after three years, but then you have to prove that your marriage is still valid etc. Since you're having marital issues, you're safest to wait for the five year mark and apply on your own - then they don't care about your marriage at all. Check the date on your greencard and you can apply five years after that date.

[NickD 202]

Not an uncommon issue as half of all marriages fail for one reason or the other. Major concern is other reasons for failure then just getting married to come here.

What really looks bad is to marry a US citizen, come here, get a divorce and petition for that someone in your home country. Equally bad is to lie about your marriage for the three year, very high risk of getting deported. Even with the five year, may have to prove you entered into that marriage in good faith.

If you went through the AOS, ROC stages, will find that naturalization is the most difficult step.

[Math Man 6]

If you went through the AOS, ROC stages, will find that naturalization is the most difficult step.

Not to hijack the OP's thread, but this statement caught my eye. My wife didn't have to AOS since she came here on a CR-1 visa, so she has three steps to citizenship:

Step 1: I-130 petition leading to consulate interview and 2-year green card (DONE)

Step 2: Removal of conditions (DONE)

Step 3: Apply for citizenship (will do in August 2012)

Although my wife hasn't done Step 3 yet, in looking at the guides it looks like BY FAR the easiest step. Step 1 was obviously the toughest, but even ROC was a pain due to the need to collect and assemble a lot of evidence over a 2-year period. For Step 3, you just need the N-400, three years of tax transcripts, plus a few other easy-to-get documents.

[Udella&Wiz 325]

I personally found ROC to be the most irritating, I had the necessary evidence, but of course one never knows if it will be considered enough and you get called in for an interview.

Citizenship seemed straight forward, the evidence was similar to ROC.

Not to hijack the OP's thread, but this statement caught my eye. My wife didn't have to AOS since she came here on a CR-1 visa, so she has three steps to citizenship:

Step 1: I-130 petition leading to consulate interview and 2-year green card (DONE)

Step 2: Removal of conditions (DONE)

Step 3: Apply for citizenship (will do in August 2012)

Although my wife hasn't done Step 3 yet, in looking at the guides it looks like BY FAR the easiest step. Step 1 was obviously the toughest, but even ROC was a pain due to the need to collect and assemble a lot of evidence over a 2-year period. For Step 3, you just need the N-400, three years of tax transcripts, plus a few other easy-to-get documents.

Edited March 4, 2012 by Udella&Wiz

[milimelo 4,228]

I got my green card through my wife about a year ago. It's valid for ten years, and our 3 years marriage isn't going well. I've read that we need to apply for citizen together, but I'm not sure we will . In case we divorce before am due to apply, what are my chances.?

Since you only received your green card a year ago, you possibly have another 2-4 years until naturalization. 2 for USC marriage based if you're still married to your wife and 4 on LPR based. Read the manual on naturalization.

[NickD 202]

Not to hijack the OP's thread, but this statement caught my eye. My wife didn't have to AOS since she came here on a CR-1 visa, so she has three steps to citizenship:

Step 1: I-130 petition leading to consulate interview and 2-year green card (DONE)

Step 2: Removal of conditions (DONE)

Step 3: Apply for citizenship (will do in August 2012)

Although my wife hasn't done Step 3 yet, in looking at the guides it looks like BY FAR the easiest step. Step 1 was obviously the toughest, but even ROC was a pain due to the need to collect and assemble a lot of evidence over a 2-year period. For Step 3, you just need the N-400, three years of tax transcripts, plus a few other easy-to-get documents.

For us, the AOS was a very pleasant interview, wife, stepdaughter, and myself all attended. Never wanted to see our original evidence, IO was nice and asking my wife and stepdaughter how they liked this country. Then my wife showed all the pictures of our wedding ceremony.

ROC was very stressful due to the long wait, just biometrics, compiling a long list of evidence, no interview, was requested to update our evidence due to the long wait, but then those ten year cards finally came in.

With marriage, and I gather this depends upon your IO, wife was constantly questioned on all of those questions, her IO wanted to see all the original evidence that was everything we sent in with the ROC plus a great deal of what we had for the AOS, We even had a surprise joint utility bill. But my wife passed only to have her application misplaced. Stepdaughters five year interview only lasted not even ten minutes, but was hit with providing proof of a minor traffic violation. Never asked for a joint utility bill or proof of paid traffic tickets for either the AOS or the ROC stages.

Wife's friend that was married and divorced four times really had a rough time, but finally after lots of more proof, finally got her naturalization 15 months later.

[simply_me010912 0]

In my case its different..i need some of your opinion regarding my case..i just filed my I-751 for 10 yrs greencard i had my biometric Dec 06,2011 until now its still on process..and my marriage is not doing good..i want to move out and file a divorce but i dont know what will happen to my greencard..please anybody can advice me on what to do..

[Deputy Purple 1,294]

Moved from "US Citizenship General Discussion" as the question relates to Effects of Major Family Changes on Immigration and has nothing to do with Citizenship.