I-751 submission with a spouse who is possibly an abuser

[Ktone 14]

Hi,

 I'm a conditional permanent resident who got married with a USC in 2014. I received the green card in June 2015. This community helped me a lot when I filed the original application. Thanks a ton!! Now 2 years have passed and long story short, this is I-751 + sepesrtion /divorce + domestic violence issue. Sorry it's a bit long. 

 

So, like other any marriage, we've been having up and down, and I've been doing alright with the down parts. He has done handful of "misbehaviors" in my opinion, but after some arguments, I swallowed the bitterness and moved on. I just thought maybe he thinks a bit different way from how most of my friends do, or maybe it's due to the cultural difference. I thought this type of disagreement is a part of married life and I just need to deal with it. 

 

However, recently, several friends, not connected each other at all, told me that some of the insidents he did to me could be considered as some form of domestic violence. I didn't take their words seriously until last night when he started screaming at me out of blue. He yelled at me saying "you gotta get out of here right now" though it was 1am. At the end, he allowed me move out within 24 hours. And just so you know, this wasn't the first time he tried to kick me out. Thanks to my friends' concerns, now I started seeing his behaviors, not only yelling at me but other actions, may be DV and now I'm concerned with my safety. 

 

Luckily I have these friends I can stay with for a while if anything bad happens, but my concern is my immigrant status. he current 2yr green card expires in this June, thus, my plan was to submit tax return in Feb and submit I-751 with him in Mar. It's been delayed as he didn't provide me the necessary documents for the tax return though... and now we have this serious potentially-DV issue. I wonder if it's better to separate from him now, file I-751 without the jointly filed tax return for 2016, and start the divorce process? Or, somehow submit the tax return, submit I-751 with him somehow, wait for the card, and then start the separation/divorce process? 

 

What I have now:

- half-completed tax return of 2016, just missing his part of documents to finalize the number

- half-completed I-751, which just needs my spouse's signature and tax return 2016

- other documents to support our bona fide marriage, such as tax return 2015, utility bill, insurance, my 401k with him as beneficiary and so on

- my journal entries describing what he has done to me so far (with screenshots of text messages)

- my friend's place to hide and live

- a great job and career with great colleagues

- an access to a good divorce lawyer in town; though he is not necessarily knowledgeable in immigration fields. 

 

What do you think it'd be the best course of action? Is there any possible way he could step into the process (or even after the card is issues) and make an argument that this marriage was fraud? (He has the top class security clearance, so I wonder he has unexpected access or impact to this process.)

 

I really appreciate your time. I apologize if I've overlooked the similar case within the community. 

[milimelo 4,481]

~Moving to ROC forum. ~