13 ms·
Green card interviews end in handcuffs for spouses of U.S. citizens
- nxobject 11mo agoA note that it's easy to "overstay" a visa when waiting for a green card interview - the wait times are often in the 6-16 month range, and if you leave the country you'll be considered to have abandoned your "petition to adjust status". It's a catch-22, and it looks like the only recourse is for an immigration lawyer to file a habeas corpus petition in federal court.
- SilverElfin 11mo agoI remember reading that depending on which country you’re from, the waiting time can be years or even decades. Is that true? If so that’s crazy and cruel.
- someperson 11mo agoCountry of birth does determine the "priority date" waiting list. Specifically for Philippines, Mexico, India and China. Due to demand. Everyone else is in the rest of the world bucket. For those countries (especially India) the wait can be more than a decade. Moving to a points based immigration system without country of birth consideration may one day happen. Depending on what contributes to points it would encourage better English language abilities and skill sets from immigrants (eg winners being China and India, losers being Mexico)
- nxobject 11mo ago> Moving to a points based immigration system without country of birth consideration may one day happen. Anything, honestly, to end the need for informal lawyering that even immigrants with straightforward situations still have to do.
- vkou 11mo agoEven if the system is simple enough to not need a lawyer, you should always use one.
- JuniperMesos 11mo agoOnly if you think it is crazy and cruel to disallow someone from another country to become a legal resident and then eventually a citizen of the US.
- kalkin 11mo agoIn many circumstances - including when that person is married to a US citizen, or when they'll likely be killed on return to their country of birth - it is indeed crazy and cruel. (In more ordinary circumstances it's merely arbitrary and unjust.)
- refurb 11mo agoI wanted to be a citizen of Singapore and was never approved. I agree it was arbitrary and unjust. I deserved to be a citizen.
- kalkin 11mo agoYes, this is by no means only a U.S. problem. Some countries are worse, even where birth rate trends seem like they should make it more obviously self-destructive. A tendency towards xenophobia seems to be an unfortunate human universal, although one we can sometimes overcome.
- closeparen 11mo agoYou are demanding that their American spouse either divorce them or spend the rest of their life in another country. Of course it’s crazy and cruel.
- queenkjuul 11mo agoWhen they're married to an American? When they have kids that are American? It's not crazy nor cruel, to you, to separate a mother from her infant?
- LorenPechtel 11mo agoThe issue is spousal visas. I did not seek to marry a foreigner, our relationship was proximity turning into a whole lot more. We consider it cruel to tear apart couples.
- mock-possum 11mo agoAs ever, the craziness and the cruelty is the point.
- LorenPechtel 11mo agoDepends on the visa category. Family preference visas for siblings can have waiting lists in the decades. But family preference visas for spouses of citizens have no wait list. It's just the system is slow. We went through some of it long ago, her time here threw us into proximity, proximity turned to love. That meant an adjustment of status, her old visa became invalid when we applied, but you have permission to stay while such an application is being processed. A hair under 6 months from application to first interview, a hair under two years before she got conditional permanent residency. (And I think that timing was not a coincidence, they stretched it out to just below the point it wouldn't have been conditional.) I would be terrified to do that under the current administration.
- scheme271 11mo agoThis really depends on your relationship with the other person and your status (e.g. US citizen, permanent resident, etc). Long story short, if you are the spouse or immediate family of an US citizen, there isn't any queue to get permanent resident status aside from whatever time it takes the US government to process the various forms. That time can be substantial, e.g. 2-3 years but it's nothing like the multi-year wait that a spouse of a permanent resident needs to go through just to apply for permanent resident status.
- TriangleEdge 11mo agoThis happened to someone I know. He was working on a TN visa, had his green card approved, and was waiting for an interview. He was not allowed to leave the country, but he lost his job, and had to leave the country because of the 60 days grace period of the visa. Because he left, he lost his green card application. You both: 1. Can't leave the country because of immigration laws. 2. Have to leave the country because of immigration laws.
- someperson 11mo agoA TN visa is explicitly a "non-immigrant visa", there isn't supposed to be a pathway to permanent residency. It's still possible to through an adjustment of status but the hoops around not leaving the country are much more awkward. Because permanent immigration is not the intent of a TN visa, it's a loophole.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- kaashif 11mo agoYou're phrasing this a bit oddly. There isn't any immigration law saying he cannot leave the country. There is a law saying that if you leave the country you abandon your green card application. Combined with losing his visa and having to leave the country, this just means that the law says if you lose your visa, you lose your green card application too. But you can always legally leave the country forever.
- poplarsol 11mo agoYou absolutely can leave the country. You just aren't entitled to permanent residency as a result.
- mcphage 11mo ago[flagged]
- 11mo ago
- foogazi 11mo ago> It's a catch-22 What do immigration attorneys recommend in this scenario? I don’t get the catch-22, time’s up & you leave Happens to H1Bs all the time
- nxobject 11mo agoThe "overstay" was scare quotes – you're allowed to stay.
- foogazi 11mo agoDo you know what the “overstay” status is called ?
- hn_throwaway_99 11mo agoBut TFA says that it was people exactly in this situation who were apprehended by ICE and then set for deportation proceedings. According to the current administration you are NOT allowed to stay, and that's where the Catch-22 is. The whole thing just further exemplifies the "cruelty is the point" ideal.
- iscoelho 11mo agoYour immigration attorney will advise that you overstay. If you do not, your application will be abandoned.
- quadrium 11mo agoIt's required to overstay, and for the case of student visas, you must abandon the visa when petitioning to adjust status. The terms of the student visa are that you cannot have immigration intentions. When this happens, you're present without a visa, but it's not illegal. You're on a "stay authorized by the attorney general". I'm not sure if that has changed, but the " authorized stay" thing is the defense to being present without a visa. It does make a lot of paperwork more difficult, like getting a drivers license, when as you can't prove status.
- jmyeet 11mo agoThis is false. If you get married as an F1 student, it's completely fine (and encouraged) to continue your studies under your F1 visa while your I130 and I485 are pending. There are differences here if you're marrying a US citizen vs a green card holder. If you marry a green card holder, you must maintain your status until you adjust status with your I485. If you marry a US citizen, being out of status is forgiven. If you discontinue your studies, USCIS (particularly under this administration) might try and argue you obtained your student visa fraudulently to deny your marriage petition. The best thing you can do is complete your studies and then, if applicable, obtain OPT to further maintain status. Any marriage where the immigrant spouse is out of status will be treated with more scrutiny by USCIS.
- nxobject 11mo ago> If you discontinue your studies, USCIS (particularly under this administration) might try and argue you obtained your student visa fraudulently to deny your marriage petition. The best thing you can do is complete your studies and then, if applicable, obtain OPT to further maintain status. There are two things that I'm not sure about: – Is the distinction between studying (regardless of status), vs. being in status vs. having a visa? Because the three are different: you can enter as a student and study, and have your F-1 expire, and still maintain status per SEVIS. – IANAL, but you get an EAD upon petitioning for an AOS – does that prevent you from applying for OPT?
- jmyeet 11mo ago
- crystal_revenge 11mo agoIt's also worth pointing out that the nature of the green card interview is largely up to how the interviewer feels about you. It's a terrifyingly subjective experience. There was an error in my wife's green card application that many people (including myself and our lawyer) should have caught. Our lawyer promised us that during the final interview this could be trivially corrected on the spot. Despite many smiles and laughs during the interview it's clear the interviewer didn't approve of how my current wife and I met (it involved a divorce) and so he decided that he couldn't possibly correct the error during the interview, and that while we passed, we would need to wait nearly a year for the correction. While this was frustrating the interviewer could have just as easily decided, at his discretion, that our marriage was not "real" (despite the fact that the reason for his objection was ample evidence that it was quite real), so it was a pain we had to suffer. I've spent enough time working with petty bureaucrats to know it's better to accept whatever means they try to prove their own power than to fight it.
- jmyeet 11mo agoErrors happens on immigration forms all the time. Many of them aren't a big deal and can be corrected but there's a right and wrong way to do it. Fixable errors include things like failing to mention all your employers that you worked unauthorized or your name having a different spelling in certain cases. Since unauthorized work is forgiven if marrying a US citizen, the omission of employment is a correctable error. The right way to fix this is to type out the questions you want to correct into a document (called an errata sheet) with the corrected answers and to hand that to the visa officer with your ID at the start of the interview. The reason you want to do this is you want a paper record that you volunteered this information. Anything verbal can be argued that you only revealed such information when confronted and that's a problem. So I don't know what your issue was. Errors with a divorce could be as serious as you weren't free to marry because at the time you got married your divorce wasn't finalized and that invalidates your entire petition and there's no correcting that. Another big one is USCIS not believing your divorce is real. this happens if you get divorced in certain countries (eg Ghana, Nigeria) where apparently fradulent divorce decrees are a real problem.
- 11mo ago
- dmitrygr 11mo ago> it's easy to "overstay" a visa Many laws are easy to break.
- 0xy 11mo agoThis is a misrepresentation. Some of these people entered on the K1 which REQUIRES marriage within 3 months. They get married 18 months later and wonder why they're getting deported for a giant visa overstay. It's fraudulent, you enter on a visa, explicitly promise to marry quickly, do not do so and expect no repercussions.
- RemainsOfTheDay 11mo ago[dead]
- DrierCycle 11mo ago[flagged]
- CamperBob2 11mo agoHow? They have more guns than I do.
- DrierCycle 11mo agoThe $ is mightier than the gun.
- javawizard 11mo agoThey also have more $ than I do.
- nrhrjrjrjtntbt 11mo agoSo you saying states should exit the union?
- DrierCycle 11mo agoCitizens are individuals. We should not underestimate what a majority of citizens can achieve. Particularly in a connected society.
- jackjeff 11mo agoOh you can declare anything… but the minute you don’t pay you taxes you’ll realize it’s just words.
- DrierCycle 11mo agoWhen terror is used to enforce policy, not laws, and its done arbitrarily, under pretexts, the govt is broken, and resistance, which is built into the framework of our development as a nation, is necessitated.
- Gabriel_Martin 11mo agoTruly brave feat of public service getting those criminals off the street.
- aaronbrethorst 11mo agoFriendly reminder that it's often not possible to differentiate snark or sarcasm from cruel indifference towards fellow human beings on Hacker News.
- bfkwlfkjf 11mo agoObviously sarcasm
- mcphage 11mo agoSometimes yes, but I think in this case the angry sarcasm is clear.
- decremental 11mo ago[dead]
- FuckButtons 11mo agoI don’t know that this reply was warranted, it’s clearly sarcasm.
- conorcleary 11mo agoany lay-up for that Poe's Law reference is probably welcome ;) Much more fun context than just /s
- mlrtime 11mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
- 11mo ago
- arresin 11mo ago> with his British wife and their 4-month-old baby Ridiculous.
- m0llusk 11mo agoFamily values.
- nrhrjrjrjtntbt 11mo agohttps://archive.is/Ealef https://archive.is/Ealef
- anon291 11mo agoWhile I personally find no objection to these spouses remaining here, I don't see what is really supposed to concern me from a legal perspective. There is no right to residency of migration in general. I do agree we ought to change the law to be make it easier for spouses of citizens, but if you overstay a visa you should expect detention. However from a moral standpoint I find the infant child separation abhorrent and think that we should generally defer to American citizen spouses as a pretty good indicator that we should show some mercy in enforcement. Moreover, the law should be changed that foreign spouses without criminal records and not taking public benefit ought to be allowed to stay and work honestly. Make it easy.
- LorenPechtel 11mo agoExcept it's not an overstay--you're automatically in status while there is an application pending.
- filleduchaos 11mo agoI've found that it's quite futile to expect American citizens to actually understand how their own visa and immigration laws work. Unfortunately it doesn't stop them from having strong opinions about them.
- nxobject 11mo agoCase in point: public charge and political rhetoric that (at the very least) wildly stretches the truth about immigrants applying for benefits.
- protocolture 11mo agoI remember talking to a britisher about the US border situation on a forum that also included yanks. He had asked for advice, and I relayed a bunch that was evergreen, but was passed around during the first trump admin. The yanks all got confused, like I was making up a problem. And would not stop pretending like there are no border issues even after I presented multiple instances as evidence. Like if you can drive your car to the store and back there must also not be issues at the airport. I feel like US media must isolate people severely. Whereas, countries that do business with the US, are kept keenly aware of the dangers.
- aikinai 11mo agoAs an American with a foreign-spouse who went through the green card application long before Trump, these stories are heart-breaking but also what I expected. I guess these couples and lawyers were just counting on lax enforcement? But this was never allowed. The article is very light on details, but implies all of these spouses travelled to the US on a visa waiver (or similar) and then applied for a green card. Entering the US on most visas includes the assertion that you have no intent to immigrate. If you happen to already be in the US when you fall in love, get married, and apply to stay, that's when you're allowed to overstay during your pending application. As far as I can tell from the article, it appears all of these people committed immigration fraud by entering on non-immigrant visas with clear intent to immigrate. Given that they're almost certainly upstanding people who intended to do the right thing, I think they could safely be asked to leave and apply correctly without the forceful detention, but they are technically in the wrong. What they did is specifically something I knew not to do and went through great pains to avoid. The immigration processes for legitimate foreign spouses are Kafkaesque and absolutely need to be overhauled. It shouldn't be easier to come in illegally than through legitimate marriage. But in the meantime, people also can't circumvent the existing laws and then act flabbergasted when called on it. I really do feel terrible for these couples caught up in it, especially since it seems their lawyers misled them.
- jackjeff 11mo agoSo the right process is to request for a K1 fiancé visa which takes over a year?! I can see why people were tempted to cut corners, especially given past tolerance…
- aikinai 11mo agoYes, exactly. Your legal options are to either remain separated for one or two years while you wait, or the American can immigrate to the spouse’s country and wait there (since almost every other country is easier to immigrate to). It's an inhumane system, but as someone heavily impacted by US immigration policy, I'd much prefer they enforce the laws evenly and then fix them where they're broken rather than disadvantaging everyone going through the legal process while those that cheat get to jump ahead.
- nrhrjrjrjtntbt 11mo agoYeah this is a dont come to USA to set roots advert basically. It is impossible to get PR without prison time.
- burnt-resistor 11mo agoYup. Live elsewhere in a Schengen country and have the spouse get citizenship there. At least they'll have proper healthcare and not be treated arbitrarily like criminals.
- mktk1001 11mo agoUS has descended into a banana Republic. And I'm surprised how many people are cheering it along the way.
- jmyeet 11mo agoSo this is a topic I follow and I could speak at length to all the anti-immigrant actions taken by this administration. It's every aspect of the immigration process. This isn't only a stricter enforcement policy or a stricter interpretation of certain rules but things that are arguably illegal. For example, one of the requirements for naturalization is "good moral chracter". Well, what does that mean? Up until this year, that's simply been the absence of any disqualifying criteria, such as unpaid taxes, unpaid child support, most felony convictions, etc. This administration has reinterpreted "good moral chracter" to be affirmative, something you need to provide proof of, rather than the absence of anything negative. This is arguably illegal. Anyway, back to this article, one example here is from San Diego. This article doesn't mention it but there was a leaked memo where USCIS and ICE are trialling a new process in the San Diego field office of having the interviewing visa officer call in ICE to detain applicants in cases they never did before. For context, overstaying a visa isn't a crime (unless you get deported then do it again, basically). It's a civil infraction. There are lots of immigration benefits you can't get if you're out of status however but marriage to a US citizen is an exception. Visa overstays and unauthorized work are generally forgiven in those cases, by law. So such people were never detained because their overstays were forgiven so what's the point? There are also people who did not enter through a regular port of entry. Legally, this is called "entering without inspection". This includes people who sneak across the border. It also includes a bunch of people who were infants or children at the time so never made a choice. This was the basis for the DACA ("Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals") program under Obama. There are people who are now adults who have lived here since they were a few months old who have never known anywhere else. Deporting them to a country they've never known is cruel and unusual. So another thing this administration has done has created a policy whereby all those who entered without inspection can be detained and should be denied bond. Here's a partial list of other sins of the administration just off the top of my head: 1. Most visibly, the ICEstapo raids; 2. Skin color can now be used as a factor for an immigration stop thanks to an "emergency" ruling by this Supreme Court, granting a petition by the government. Location can be another factor so it's now completely legal to do an immigration stop on someone who looks Hispanic in the vicinity of a Home Depot, for example. 3. Ended TPS ("Temporary Protected Status") for a bunch of countries, putting refugees and asylum seekers out of status; 3. Immigration judges, unlike Federal judges, are not ARticle 3 judges (by the Constitution). ARticle 3 judges are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate and cannot be fired. They have to be impeached. Immigration judges are simply employees of the executive branch. This administration has started firing immigreation judges if they approve too many cases; 4. People such as Kilmer Abrego Garcia were deported to El Salvador, a country he feared returning to, in defiance of a Federal court order blocking his deportation to El Salvador. When taken there he was put in a maximum security prison (ie CECOT); 5. The government then for the longest time refused to fix their error, including openly defying Federal judges; 6. Revoking the lawful permanent residence status of Mahmoud Khalil for hurting Israel's feelings by saying factually accurate things about Israel's war crimes and organizing peaceful protests at Columbia; 7. Black bagging detainees and moving them interstate before their families know so a local judge can't block their detention and order them released. In fact, they take them to the jurisdictions of friendly judges in places like Louisiana. This is the ultimate in judge shopping; 8. For visa applicants outside the US, this administration has begun forcing people to go to the consulate in their home country rather than the country they live in. This puts in limbo people who come from countries with which the US currently has no consulate. This is an intentional delay tactic as a person may study or work in the UK but be a citizen of Ghana or Nigeria where there is a 2-4 year wait for a visa interview. This is intentional. 9. Arbitrarily decided that humanitarian parolees under Biden were "illegally" paroled into the US and are now seeking to detain and deport these people; 10. Deporting people to so-called third countries ie not to that person's country of origin or even a country they might otherwise choose under voluntary departure; I'm sure there's more. It's a shame only the ICEstapo raids really get any media attention.
- sam-cop-vimes 11mo agoI am surprised people are willing to put up with this sort inhumane treatment. A person I know has been waiting for 16+ years for his green card. They've very rarely traveled out of the USA together as a family because they were afraid they might be a problem getting back in. The people I know are not even desperate migrants where this sort of treatment is still better than the lives they are living - yet they still normalise it. When I ask them why they tolerate such draconian conditions, I get answers such as "well, we didn't realise it would take this long" or "this doesn't happen to people like us".
- aikinai 11mo agoSupply and demand. The US is by far the top place people want to be, so however poorly they treat applicants, there will still be an infinite supply of people willing to put up with it.
- sam-cop-vimes 11mo agoI get that, but the kind of white collar workers who are putting up with this have options all over the world. Why would even such people put up with it?
- aikinai 11mo agoProfessional opportunity or quality of life, most likely. Nowhere else even comes close to the US in terms of professional and economic opportunity.
- 4gotunameagain 11mo agoIn terms of professional and economic opportunity, sure, but in terms of quality of life half of the European countries eclipse the US.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- jmye 11mo agoCongrats, Trump voters, you’re getting exactly what you specifically voted for. Revel in it. Hardened criminals, here, while ICE refuses to go after anyone vaguely dangerous. Well done. Peter Thiel is proud of you.
- moi2388 11mo ago“ charging them with visa violations that could result in deportation” And did they violate the Visa? Don’t break the law.
- snvzz 11mo ago[flagged]
- scoofy 11mo agoI think people, Republicans and Democrats, should really write their members of congress about making the system resemble something reasonable.
- soerxpso 11mo agoAny attempt to fix this would immediately used for outright immigration fraud, and any attempt to ban immigration fraud will always be used as a cudgel for bureaucrats to keep out normal, tax-paying Europeans, until low-level bureaucrats have term limits.
- bmn__ 11mo agoWhy does the spouse of an American citizen not automatically gain permanent residence permit?
- hollerith 11mo agoProbably because the government wants to make sure the spouse does not have an extensive criminal record and is not currently being sanctioned by the government.
- LorenPechtel 11mo agoGreen card marriages. Aka two-legged visa. The reality is most applications are deemed fraudulent. We had to do the life trivia interview--separate us, ask the same questions, compare the answers. Talking with my wife later I found some flaws in their questions (things like "what does she usually wear at night" vs "what did you wear last night"--oops, we had stayed over at my parent's place the night before, she wore more than usual) but even then I could see how their attitude changed--apparently most "couples" bomb that interview. (And he would not accept that the question about brand of TV, I said she will say she doesn't know. He didn't believe that was possible--the TV predated the relationship, this was from when TVs started being just the tube with a minimum of frame, thus the name was small. It would have surprised me if she knew.)