… Read more

Suppose that you as a foreign national married a U.S. citizen or a permanent resident and applied for a marriage-based immigration visa or green card. At the time of the application, your child from your prior marriage was under 21. However, your child turns 21 after your application is turned in. What happens then?  Fortunately, Congress has passed a law a while ago called the Child status Protection Act (CSPA). This law allows you to subtract from the child’s age the amount of time that it took USCIS to approve your family’s immigrant visa petition. Therefore, your child is protected from even if he or she turns 21 after the application. Talk to our immigration attorneys in Los Angeles to… Read more

To qualify for a marriage-based visa or green card in Los Angeles, you must be legally married. A legal marriage is one that is officially recognized by the government in the country or state where you were married.  This means that in order for you to prove your legal marriage in your marriage-based immigration application, you need to have a valid legal marriage in California. In California, common law marriage is not recognized. A common law marriage is one that is created via cohabitation for a certain period of time instead of one created by a ceremony. The marriage couple also must represent themselves to their community as joined and living together as if they were married.  If you were… Read more

If you are married to a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, you will apply for a marriage based visa or green card. The immigration law requires that a petitioner and the U.S. sponsoring spouse to show the following.

1.    You are legally married
2.    Your marriage is bona fide
3.    You are married to a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident and
4.    Neither you nor your spouse is married to anyone else.

Most people would not have problems meeting 1, 3 or 4. More people fail #3 because their marriage is sham and become subject to deportation. Immigration authorities are highly trained to catch people involved in fraudulent marriages and it is not worth the risk… Read more

If you’re applying for a K-2 Visa and you have unmarried children under the age of 21, they may be eligible to get K-2 visas. This is whether or not they are biological children of you or your U.S. citizen fiancé. In most cases, the children would be the petitioner’s from his or her previous marriage and not the U.S. citizen fiancé’s.  Even if they are the petitioner’s natural born children, so long as they are legally recognized as his or her in home country (i.e. legal adoption), USCIS will recognize them as eligible. However, the burden is on you to prove this.

Your children must remain unmarried and under age 21 right up to the day they enter the… Read more

A fiancé visa (K-1) is a type of visa that allows your entry into the United States for the purpose of marrying a U.S. citizen. In order to be eligible for a K-1 visa, you must meet the following requirements.

1. Intent to mary a U.S. citizen
You must show that you actually are intending to marry a U.S. citizen after the entry. In fact, you have 90 days to have your wedding, even if it’s in front of a judge without any ceremonies and parties.  You need to show that you actually are planning to marry your spouse to prove your intent.

2. Have met your intended spouse in person within the last two years unless you’re exempted… Read more

Some people are permanently barred from immigrating to the United States because of their serious violations of the immigration law. It applies to people who spent a total of one years unlawful time in the U.S. or are ordered deported. If that person then leaves and returns or attempts to return to the U.S. illegally without a visa or other permission, he or she is permanently inadmissible to the U.S.

If the person does not come back illegally, he or she would be subject to the 10 year bar since the illegal stay lasted more than a year. But when that person disregards this and tries to come back illegally, that is when this punitive permanent bar applies. It is… Read more

In April 1, 1997, Congress passed a law that punishes people for unlawfully staying in the United States without a proper status including any stay after a valid visa has expired. The immigration law prevents people from coming or returning to the United States for three or ten years depending on the length of their illegal stay in the country. This time bar is referred to as three and ten-year bars. These time bars apply to people who are overseas and trying to return to the United States, not people who are already here and have the right to apply for their green card here.

Three year time bar
If you spent more than 180 continuous days in the United… Read more

President Obama says he supports immigration reform to ease deportation policies but in reality, during his administration, more than one million illegal immigrants were deported in 2 1/2 years, which is more in one term than Bush administration did in two.

As of September 12, the Obama administration has deported about 1.06 million.  During Bush administration, 1.57 million illegal immigrants were deported during his two full presidential terms.

This contradiction between Obama’s administration’s promise and reality will be a key weak link on Obama’s presidential campaign in 2012.

Obama’s falling short on his promise on immigration reform did not end there.  During his first year, despite his push of the Dream Act in 2010, the bill did not pass the… Read more

The United States government has granted political asylum status to a Mexican TV journalist Alejandro Martinez.  Martinez alleged that the Mexican government endangered his safety by showing him on national TV after he was released by alleged drug traffickers who kidnapped him.  The drug dealers demanded the government to air a message on national television.  United States through this decision seems to recognize the inability of the Mexican government to protect its citizens against drug traffickers and gang violence in recent times.

Political asylum is a status granted for foreign nationals to be able to live in the United States because the person is persecuted for political opinions or religious beliefs in his or her own country and that country… Read more