Removal of conditions?

[doctorbeat 6]

My wife and I have our interview on July 21st, but our second wedding anniversary is on September 18th.

This means that we will have been married 22 months by the time I (hopefully!) get my GC.

Are they likely to notice this and just give me the 10 year card straight away, or will I still get the two year conditional card, presumably with only two months validity remaining on it?

I'm hoping it will be the former, because we could sure do without the extra fee for removal of conditions...

[Inky 1,111]

If you are given a 2 year green card its based on the day they give you the green card not your wedding date. You would have to wait the full 2 years before ROC.

However if your already married two years they can opt to give you the 10year green card based on 2 year marriage BUT it wont be dated from your wedding. It will be dated the day they approve/print the card.

Green card validity is not based on your wedding date.

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

My wife and I have our interview on July 21st, but our second wedding anniversary is on September 18th.

This means that we will have been married 22 months by the time I (hopefully!) get my GC.

Are they likely to notice this and just give me the 10 year card straight away, or will I still get the two year conditional card, presumably with only two months validity remaining on it?

I'm hoping it will be the former, because we could sure do without the extra fee for removal of conditions...

They don't have any discretion on this. If you haven't been married for two years at the time you adjust status then they have to give you conditional permanent resident status. If you wanted to I suppose you could ask the IO if they could postpone your interview until after your two year anniversary so that you could adjust to unconditional permanent resident. Do you want to wait until September to get your green card?

[doctorbeat 6]

Oh, I thought I read somewhere that the issue date was retrospectively applied from when you got married (and thus became eligible for AOS)

I thought you only had to be married for two years before you could apply to have the conditions removed?

Does that mean we'll now have to wait until we've been married almost four years?

JimVaPhuong, I have a friend who lives in NYC who came here on the VWP, married his girlfriend, and immediately applied for AOS. He got his GC after being here for only five months, and it was the ten year unconditional one.

He had been here for less than a year when he showed it to me.

I can only assume that either they made a huge mistake, or that they do indeed have discretion.

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

Oh, I thought I read somewhere that the issue date was retrospectively applied from when you got married (and thus became eligible for AOS)

I thought you only had to be married for two years before you could apply to have the conditions removed?

Does that mean we'll now have to wait until we've been married almost four years?

JimVaPhuong, I have a friend who lives in NYC who came here on the VWP, married his girlfriend, and immediately applied for AOS. He got his GC after being here for only five months, and it was the ten year unconditional one.

He had been here for less than a year when he showed it to me.

I can only assume that either they made a huge mistake, or that they do indeed have discretion.

They made a mistake. INA 216 provides no such discretion.

If the intending immigrant has been married to the US citizen for less than two years, and they adjust status based on that marriage, then they must adjust to conditional permanent resident. Your friend may have a problem because he doesn't know where the mistake was made. It's possible the IO entered all of the information correctly into the database, and the error was made when they printed the green card. He may actually be a conditional permanent resident, in spite of the expiration date on his green card.

The US government does make mistakes - frequently. When they err in your favor, and you know that they've clearly made a mistake, it's best to presume that they will eventually discover it. If I were your friend, I'd make an infopass appointment before the two year mark on that green card.

[doctorbeat 6]

I honestly don't know.

He'd known his (now) wife for many years before they became a couple and got married.

They both work for a large company, and they met at a convention in the UK.

After that, they attended all the conventions together, and he puts the lack of conditions down to the fact that they were able to show photos of them together at these conventions for some five years before they got married.

He entered on the VWP with every intention of getting married, after being advised to by a very expensive lawyer.

In my opinion, the photos would have pointed towards visa fraud, but he got approved and issued an unconditional GC very quickly and with no problems.

Definitely NOT the right way to go about it, but it worked for him.

I haven't spoken to him for a while, but I might shoot him an email to advise him to ask his lawyer about the lack of conditions on his GC

[LlamaInvasion 76]

he puts the lack of conditions down to the fact that they were able to show photos of them together at these conventions for some five years before they got married.

Completely irrelevant. I had photos of me and my husband, as well as lease agreements and other important paperwork dating back further than that. Then we married in March, and had our interview in May. 2-year conditional green card for me, because we had not been married for two years. Duration of relationship/connection doesn't matter, only the duration of marriage.

I agree with Jim, your friend should really make an InfoPass appointment - and personally I think a lawyer that advised him to commit visa fraud because it's "easier," is not a trustworthy lawyer.

[doctorbeat 6]

Yeah, I'll email him with a heads up, it does seem like they made a mistake.

I was pretty surprised myself, and I warned him that he might be mistaken, but he got his card out of his wallet and handed it to me.

There was nothing on it that said it was conditional, and the expiration date was ten years from the issue date.

It was in a little paper envelope, and that said nothing about the card being conditional either.

I hope he heeds my email, it would be horrible to be deported over a mistake like that....

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

I have read here stories where people got a 10 year card by mistake and then were deported in absentia when they failed to remove conditions after 2 years.

OP - If you are approved on your interview date, you will get a 2-year card which is good for 2 years after your interview date. Yes, you will file for removal of conditions when you are nearing your 4th wedding anniversary.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

I received approval on my AOS application about 3 weeks prior to our 2nd wedding anniversary. I got the 2 year green card - which I was supposed to - and had to apply to remove conditions within the 90 days before the green card expired, which meant I had nearly 4 years of evidence to submit for the ROC. Since they insisted on taking 22 months to process my green card, I insisted on providing them with evidence - lots and lots and lots of evidence - from each quarter of the 4 years of our marriage. We were approved for both the AOS and the ROC without interviews and without RFE's . I figured they owed me the time it took for them to read through all of that material because their delay caused our 'accumulation' of that much evidence - and they asked for it - they wanted evidence that covered the full period of our marriage. I happily complied.

Your friend will definitely find himself in trouble if he doesn't correct the error of getting a 10 year card rather than a 2 year card, although I suspect an immigration judge would give anyone in that situation the opportunity to apply retroactively for ROC rather than proceeding with deportation since USCIS played a role in their failure to file for ROC. I have heard of couples who found out of the 10 year error when the beneficiary filed for US citizenship - and had to go back and file for the ROC before they would proceed with the citizenship application. It caused a lot of heart ache, worry and anger for those involved. By the same token, there have been those who were married more than 2 years and received a 2 year card who then proceeded to file ROC 2 years later - and were told that they didn't need to as they were already 10 year recipients - they just needed for file for a corrected green card. Yes, USCIS DOES make mistakes.

Good luck on the interview.

Edited June 20, 2011 by Kathryn41