Status Of Green Card

Question:

my questions are: -- what should we say at the interview if they ask about her mom? -- will her mom's illegal status effect our getting a green card? -- when they find out her mom is out of status, will she be investigated? -- should we bring fotos with mom in it? Almost all our wedding fotos of her family have her mom in it so I think it'd look kinda odd with just my family fotos of the wedding.

Answer:

My wife, who is from Thailand, and I (US citizen) married in early march '02, filed for her greencard end of that month and unbelieveable we have an interview this week. 6 months from filing to 1st interview :-)

We've got the usual pictures, bank stmts, etc put together all ready for the interview. Then it occured to me that her mom, who is currently out-of-status and living in the US, is in the wedding fotos. She was out of status when we got married.

I'm not sure if you have been reading the latest interview experiences, but lately, not many INS officers have been very interested in seeing pictures at all! They are interested in seeing the official documents in both names, and will take copies of anything you can provide.

My wife and I were just up there reading your experience. I used to keep up with this newsgroup but had gotten behind for awhile.

We have a collection of pictures and the supporting documentation; bank stmts, marriage certif, insurance stmts, etc. And we know each other well enough to answer the usual questions.

If they ask about her mother or other relavtives, then she tells them the truth. If you want to avoid questions about people in photos, don't show them the photos.

we had thought about that and are searching for fotos that don't have her mom in it. My wife wanted to tell them her mom isn't here but everyone and most of our pictures show she is. It made me a bit uncomfortable and I thought it would makes things more complicated in the future if her mom ever decided to apply for green card status here.