House Passes Two Immigration Bills before Recess

[sjr09 155]

House Passes Two Immigration Bills before Recess

Monday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed two immigration bills: H.R. 398 and H.R. 1933. (See Roll Call Votes 684 and 685) The first bill, H.R. 398, is sponsored by Immigration Subcommittee ranking chair Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA).

H.R. 398 would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to toll (stop from running) the 90-day period in which an alien and petitioning spouse must file a petition and complete an interview to remove the alien's conditional legal permanent resident status while either the alien or petitioning spouse is a member of the U.S. military serving abroad.

(H.R. 398 at § 1(a)) Under current law, when a legal resident marries a foreign national, the alien spouse is granted lawful permanent residence on a conditional basis for the first two years they are in the country. (INA § 216(a)(1)) The Attorney General removes this conditional status only after he makes a favorable determination that the marriage between the alien spouse and petitioner is legitimate. (INA § 216©)

[souleymon 27]

is this supposed to be a good thing???.just curious

[hellINTIM 9]

hmmmmmmm

[Brit Abroad 166]

It would make sense, because if one's spouse is deployed for 12 months and one's conditional residence falls somewhere in the middle it isn't really practical to be preparing a packet 6 months out, and the 10 weeks prior to deployment are full of major priorities like wills, power of attorney, getting house and car squared away, suspending cellphone accounts, visiting family, getting pre-D medicals, gear checks and a whole boatload of other issues that military members go through before deployment; not to mention spending time with a loved one who will be left behind for a considerable length of time.

Getting them to sign a form while they're in a war zone is also darned difficult (any military spouse can tell you about the lack of reliability of mail) and receiving the form back in the US isn't guaranteed. If you'd seen the state boxes arrive in, you'd understand. I certainly wouldn't want to trust my luck with a piece of paper in a flimsy or card-backed envelope.