Married abroad and may be in a pickle

[CoquettEl 0]

Hi,

I posted a while ago with an introduction but i'm awfully confused now.

I was about to start the process of I-130 to bring my husband to the states so we could finally start living together.

I am originally from Australia. I have a permanent residency card (LPR) and have been living here for about 12 years. I got divorced from my American husband about 6 years ago. My marriage to a British man took place last month. I haven't become a U.S citizen and didn't really plan on becoming one for a few years. Some sites state that i can apply for the I-130 and others are saying i must be a U.S citizen.

Do you think i should hire a lawyer to make this process go smoother?

[Boiler 46,083]

You can file as a LPR, just a bit longer as you have to wait for a visa number, a USC does not.

This is a DIY site so most have not used a Lawyer, some people prefer to pass it to a Lawyer, usually a personal call.

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

You can file I-130 but there will be about a 2-year wait for a visa for a spouse of a LPR. Look over the "visa bulletin" for your category and that will show what date cases they are working on.

[CoquettEl 0]

Thanks for your response. If it takes up to two years, that means i can submit the IR1 so he can move out here sooner, while we wait for his actual approval? I guess i'm a little confused

[Boiler 46,083]

He moves when he has the Immigrant Visa, the CR1, that will take a few years. If you have been married more than 2 years by the time he gets the visa then he gets an IR1, that means he has a regular 10 year visa rather than having to remove conditions after 2 years.

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

Thanks for your response. If it takes up to two years, that means i can submit the IR1 so he can move out here sooner, while we wait for his actual approval? I guess i'm a little confused

No, you will file a petition, it will be approved in 6 months or so. Then you have to wait for an available visa number, which can take a few years. Then once you have that, you can do the NVC step and then the consulate interview step. Then he gets a visa and he moves. He will not be able to live here any sooner.

[Ryan H 3,834]

Moved from IR-1/CR-1 Process & Procedures to Brining Family Members of Permanent Residents to America forum.

[aaron2020 11,651]

Thanks for your response. If it takes up to two years, that means i can submit the IR1 so he can move out here sooner, while we wait for his actual approval? I guess i'm a little confused

No, you can not.

You are not a US citizen. You can not get an IR1 for him. Only a US citizen can get an IR1 for a spouse.

You are looking at a 2-3 years process to get him a green card since you are an LPR.

If you want to speed things up for him, then get your US citizenship.

You need to read the Guides. Every petitioner starts with an I-130. For a US citizen petitioning a spouse, the process is faster and the spouse will get either an IR1 or CR1. For an LPR petitioning a spouse, its a 2-3 years process/

[vkrishn 97]

Since you are an LPR and not a citizen yet, your spouse will come under the F2A category for now. Lets say you apply your I-130 now and you become a Citizen, then you need to let USCIS know about it and they could upgrade you to IR/CR category (which would be spouse of USC) and then you don't have to worry about Visa bulletin and so forth and track only the processing time taken by NVC to process and set your spouse up for Interview at the consulate.

Lets say you apply I-130 today and get approved in 2-3 months, your case will be stuck at NVC until your priority date (which is the date USCIS gets your I-130 application) becomes current.

Link below is the Visa bulletin and under F2A category, applicants whose PD is Feb 2013 or earlier are "Current" for most countries are being processed. Every one else whose PD iis later than Feb1, 2013 has to wait. Visa bulletin is released every month by DOS and they only know how the dates move or retrogress every month. There is no guarantee that dates will move from Feb 2013 and fluctuates quite a bit. How they do it is still a million dollar question since lots of data is not made public.

http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/law-and-policy/bulletin/2015/visa-bulletin-for-october-2014.html

Edited September 12, 2014 by vkrishn

[Darnell 8,479]

IMO, you could:

1. file for USCitizenship and

2. file the I-130 as an LPR

together/simultaneously. Then, once USCitizenship is granted to you, upgrade the petition and/or visa application (depending on where the casefile is, USCIS or NVC or NRC) then you get the advantage of no further waiting for a visa number to be available for a spouse of a LPR.

[Ian H. 207]

Actually, what the USCIS has been doing is that they're not processing LPR petitions until the PD's become current, to make space for IR's of USC's. My cousin's petition for her husband took 2 years to be approved because of this, of course if the PD is reached sooner, they would process it faster.

OP: You can file for your husband as an LPR, you have done nothing incorrect. You have every right to marry as an LPR and to bring your spouse. It is currently taking 2 to 3 years for the spouse of an LPR to receive a visa. It may be sooner, if the PD's become current or move faster, like they did last year.

Also if you become a USC, your petition can be upgraded and your husband can come much faster because he would be able to have his petition approved faster or go directly to NVC processing if the petition has already been approved by that time.

If becoming a USC isn't something that you want to do, that is perfectly ok. You can petition for your husband as an LPR without any issue whatsoever, with the exception of the wait.