When Marital relationship Is Insufficient for a Green Card
Under U.S. immigration law,immigrants might acquire a permit (“U.S. long-term residence”) by weding a U.S. resident. The U.S. citizen must,nevertheless under the regular course,petition U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (CIS,formerly called “INS”) for a green card and an immigrant visa application for his/her immigrant partner based on the marriage. This procedure once finished causes the immigrant’s attainment of U.S. long-term residency– i.e.,permission to live and work in the U.S. on a long-term basis. This process is not always helpful to the immigrant– in lots of instances,it provides one of the most violent methods a sponsoring spouse can work out control over the immigrant,by holding the immigrant’s tentative immigration status over her. With an advanced degree or special talent,one might try to qualify in other methods:
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A commonality in nearly all violent marriages including an immigrant spouse is the hazard of deportation,typically in the form of the abusive U.S. citizen or lawful irreversible resident spouse threatening to withdraw his/her sponsorship of the immigrant’s visa petition,not file at all,or contact CIS and lie about her in an effort to have her deported.
Often,immigrants are offered the demand that they either tell no one about the abuse and thus,let it continue,or else deal with deportation. This threat of deportation,a type of serious mental abuse,can be more frightening to an immigrant than even the worst physical abuse imaginable. Numerous immigrants have children and family members in the U.S. who rely on them and lots of fear going back to the country they left,for worry of social reprisal,inescapable poverty,and/or persecution.
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA),passed into law in 1994 and amended in 2001,provides hope for immigrant abuse survivors. Abused immigrants who are married to a U.S. person or Lawful Permanent Resident or who separated their abuser in the past two years may now petition on their own for an immigrant visa and green card application,without the abuser’s understanding or permission. In this personal procedure,CIS agents are legally bound to avoid calling the abuser and telling him/her anything of the mistreated immigrant’s attempts to get a green card under VAWA. The procedure can often be finished within a year for those wed to U.S. citizens.
This procedure also provides momentary protection from deportation for immigrants not in deportation already (called “deferred action status”) and restored work authorization to lawful irreversible residents who typically deal with a longer waiting duration due to visa number backlogs.
Even more,the immigrant spouse does not need to appear prior to a judge (the process is paper driven) and s/he may leave her abuser at any time,without damage to her migration status. Even an immigrant spouse who is not married to a legal irreversible local or U.S. resident however is instead wed to an undocumented immigrant or an immigrant going to or holding a momentary work visa has alternatives under VAWA. Since VAWA was changed in 2001,now no matter the immigrant or abuser’s status,the immigrant might obtain legal migration status through the new “U” visa,which permits the immigrant to eventually get a permit if s/he has actually proven helpful or most likely to be useful to a law enforcement investigation of a violent crime.
The above shows that abused immigrants frequently do have options. An abused immigrant does not have to continue to deal with the threat of physical,monetary or psychological damage from an intimate partner since of fear of being deported.