Question:
Hi everyone, thanks in advance for anyone can help me with two of the
following questions:
1. After I get my permanent green card, if I get a divorce, will I have
trouble ten years later for green card renewal? What kind of documents or
interview will be required by then?
2. If I get divorce after I get permanent green card, how can I apply
citizenship by myself? If I marry again other than my current husband with
my status as a permanent green card holder, how long will it take for me to
apply citizenship?
Answer:
If you get divorced, you can apply to have conditions removed on the 2
year conditional greencard if you show that you entered marriage in good
faith....but it does mean you'll have to be a LPR for 5 years before
applying for citizenship.
Also, remember that the time spent as a CPR will count towards the 5
years needed to apply for citizenship as a 5 yr LPR.
You do not renew a green card. Your green card after ten years has to
be updated with your latest ADIT photo. It is not a renewal. You
complete an I-90 to do this and there is no interview.
If you are divorced or separated from your US Citizen husband you are no
longer eligible to apply for citizenship in 3 years.
A person with residency status married to a USC can apply for
naturalization 3 years minus 90 days from the date they became a
resident. However, they must be still living with and married to the
USC. Otherwise you have to wait for 5 years from becoming a resident.
To make it complicated, say you were married to Hubby 1 and became a
resident six months after you applied. Then you divorced hubby 6 months
after that then married hubby 2 immediately. At that point you would
have been a resident for 1 years. If hubby 2 is a USC then you would be
eligible to apply for naturalizaiton 3 years from the date of your
marriage to hubby 2 which would be 4 years after you become a resident.
1 -- to be pedantic -- your STATUS is "lawfully admitted to permanent
residence." You do not "renew" your card, you just apply for a new
one. Do not conflate the status and evidence of that status, e.g.
the card.
Under current procedures, a record check is run with ANY application.
If there is an adverse "hit", then you will be in "trouble." However,
you give no hint as to anything that might cause such trouble.
2 -- All adults file for citizenship "themselves." This is true
whether married or not. This has been true for a long time. Under the
US legal system, women are quite emancipated and are considered to be
people in their own right.
Thanks for your reply. My question is what is required for me to renewal
green card on my own if I get divorced after I get permanent green card?
Suppose I marry to Hubby 1 and get my conditional residency on July 1, 2003.
Then stay married to Hubby 1 and get permanent residency on July 1, 2005.
Then I get divorced on December 1, 2005. And marry again to Hubby 2 on
December 1, 2006.
By that time, I have a status as permanent resident and applying for
citizenship. I understand I have to wait for three years. My question is
when is the start date for this three years? Is it December 1, 2006(the date
I marry Hubby2) or something else?
If by "permanent green card" you mean a GC with no conditions (ie. a 10
year card), then your marital status is irrelevant. If you mean a GC
with conditions, you can apply for a waiver of the joint filing
requirement to remove conditions the day your divorce is final.
Part of the confusion is that you apparently don't understand that on
July 1, 2003 you became a permanent resident. Yes, there are conditions
attached, but you are still a PR. Conditional does not mean temporary!
As simply as I possibly can make it:
To qualify for naturalization one must be either:
1. An LPR who obtains their residency from something other than
marriage to a USC can apply for naturalization 4 years and 9 months
before the fifth anniversary of their LPR status.
2. If residency is obtained based on marriage to a USC, then the green
card holder can apply for naturalization 2 years and 9 months from
the date they received their residency status. The green card can
be conditional or unconditional. Time counts towards naturalization
even if the person is a conditional resident. The marriage must
also be a full three years old at the time of applying for
naturalization = 3 years of marriage plus 2 years and 9 months of
residency equals eiligibility for applying for naturalization.
3. If the green card was obtained based on marriage to a USC and the
marriage fails before the elibility period for naturalization or
during the processing of the application for naturalization, then
the green card holder is NO LONGER eligible to naturalize under the
three year rule and must revert back to the 5 year rule.
4. In point three, if the marriage has failed and the couple is
divorced the resident is not eligible to file for naturalization
based on the three year rule. However, if they remarry immediately
after the divorce to another USC they would again be eligible three
years from the date of the second marriage IF THE THIRD ANNIVERSARY
COMES BEFORE THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GREEN CARD. Normally the
fifth anniversary of the green card will come before the third
anniversary of the marriage. It is a rare case where the third
wedding anniversary of a second marriage occurs before the green
card status is five years old.
As for renewing your green card in ten years. There is no interview.
You complete the form (I-90) and send it in. As Mr. Folinsky said a
criminal background check is done by name and if there is a problem the
green card will not be reissued until that is cleared up. But there is
no interview such as the one you went to in order to qualify for the
residency status originally.
Great thanks. To be exact, if one person get divorced after permanent
residency status, then he or she will need to wait another two more years to
get green card. Is it right? I am referring to get residency by Kvisa.
You never got residency by K visa. You receive residency through
adjustment of status via petition I-485.
What is the date you became a resident Wendy. Lets put an end to the
round about questions and get to the nitty gritty by giving us a date.
From there we can tell you when you are eligibile to apply for
naturalization.
