I have a church member who is from Romania. He has been here for 10 yrs. and is married to an American citizen. He came with a work visa that expired 7 yrs ago. He has a Social Security card that says- not for purpose of employment. How can he get his citizenship? Doesn't it factor that he is married to a US citizen?
i think he should be ok if he's married to a us citizen tell him to go get an immigration lawyer and they'll handle all the paperwork for him
Tell him to get his goldbricking ass out of our country. Of course i'm kidding. I'd also say an imigration lawyer would be the way to go. The Marriage will probably help but I don't know the law on this. PS are you sure he isn't a terrorist? They are everywhere you know.
No need for a lawyer. Your bud needs an application for a Work Permit, which will allow him also to file for Petition via Spouse at the BCIS.gov site. He doesn't need a lawyer, unless he doesn't know how to answer the form (can't YOU help?). While he's waiting on his Visa for residency, he can work legally. If the residency takes longer, he will need to renew his yearly work permit, but he will be ok if the paperwork is in process. I did that. I know a guy from Romania. Are his initials CV?
he needs to file the paperwork asap. When he gets all that done, tell him to go to the SS office and have them remove the wording on his SS card
Hey rhester, as you may recall my wife is Canadian. First, since your friend is already in the country, he should NEVER leave until they are legal or he will not be allowed to re-enter despite being married to a citizen ...and that would be horrible. Since your friend is married to a US citizen, that simply allows him to APPLY for a "temporary" green card. It took my wife 1 year to attain this and I was told that was blazingly fast. So if he left the country, it could easily be over a year before he can return. But that was 8 years ago. Now all that stuff is rearranged since 9/11 under Homeland so things could be a little different ...but I doubt it. He will then have temporary permanent resident status that is required for two years. After two years, he can apply to have the temporary status removed. Only then can you apply for citizenship after a full waiting period of 7 additional years. ABSOLUTELY get an immigration lawyer. The bureaucracy is so convoluted that no mortal human is capable of doing this alone. If he is lucky enough to even talk to somebody on the phone or in person, he'll rarely, if ever, find somebody that is helpful. Generally, they are all underpaid and miserable people not interested in helping anyone. Furthermore, one typo on a form can result in complete rejection of the application requiring you to start all over. We did everything right and they lost our paperwork 3 times trying to remove the "temporary" status on my wife's greencard until it eventually expired. Luckily, they granted us a little longer when we finally found somebody that acknowledged her paperwork was completely messed up. We got lucky. U.S. Immigration is probably the most impersonal and difficult entity I've ever dealt with. My wife speaks perfect English (as a Canadian) and she had a hard time communicating with these folks. I can't imagine what it would be like for somebody who speaks English as a second language. <shudder>
Thanks, he has tried to handle this on the phone with broken English for 2 yrs. and is totally confused and frustrated. He has been embarassed to tell me his situation, but I was visiting with him and asked him point blank what was keeping him from citizenship. They have very little money, he cleans houses for cash and doesn't make much, his wife works as a cook and doesn't make much. They were told it would take around $1000.00 to get an attorney to help. I am going to do my best to help him out, just needed to know a little more before I start making calls. THanks again.
I will check that out thanks- His name is Zoltan Papps, interesting guy, he served in the German navy (though born in Romania) His family is still in Romania, nice guy, hard worker and loves America. Ended up coming here 10 yrs. ago and worked repairing boats in Freeport Tx. He wants to be a citizen asap.
Tell him to become a Mexican first. Then everything in the process would be so much easier for him. He will have people jumping out to help him left and right.
That is EXACTLY what angers my wife. Most immigrants don't have much $ to hire lawyers and their English isn't good enough to deal with the miserable people that work in immigration. If you plan on helping him yourself, go back and reread the Book of Job. My understand is the ONLY way to get a work visa is to have a company sponsor you. In fact, the immigrant doesn't even fill out the paperwork. The EMPLOYER fills out the paperwork on his behalf. Most companies aren't interested because of the additional paperwork required plus they have to prove an American isn't capable of doing the same job. I could be wrong but I doubt it. Maybe SwoLy-D is referring to a different type of visa.
Was curious so I read up on it a little. http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/howdoi/ead.htm To become a Perminant Resident, he'll need to file an I-485. http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/howdoi/ead.htm To get a work permit, or Employment Authorization (I-765), you need to be authorized to work for a specific employer. Said employer will need to fill out paperwork as well. This ain't no trivial matter. These two links should get you started so you can see the scope of what is involved ...and why you'll keep your sanity if you hire a professional. On both of those links, it mentions possible non-profit organizations that can help. That may be an avenue. SwoLy-D, what specific form are you referring to that was so easy for you to fill out? I am not aware of a "work visa" that the immigrant can fill out without being sponsored by a company.
If his wife is an US Citizen then he should just file for permanent residency under that. His wife will have to do the paperwork and sponsor him. He will be issued with a temporary green card that is valid for 3 yrs. After the 3 years is up he will have to go back and file for a permanent green card provided he is still married to a US Citizen. The paperwork is complicated and it broke my back when I had to do it. A lawyer is definitely the best solution but if he cant afford one there are a few non profit organizations that have lawyers for free or almost no cost. I will have to look through my old documents to give you the names of such organizations promise to post them on here as soon as I can find them. Let us know if you locate any such people in your area. P.S. given that he has already been in the country for 10 years it should not be a problem as long as he was here legally and has no felonies on his record.
I agree with everything here. I would also add is that what the INS wants to see is that your friend and his wife are legitimately married (i.e., they're not married just for the green card). So, when they file their paperwork, they'll need to submit a lot of documents (like bank accounts, bills, insurance, etc..) that undeniably show proof of being together. At least that is what I needed to fill out the paperwork. If your friend has that, then I don't think it should be too much of a problem. Besides that, they should also prepare themselves for the interview (if INS asks for one). My wife went through the immigration pipeline (via marriage to me, a citizen)(I-129F -> I-485 -> I-751), and it was relatively pain free and was pretty short. From the time she got here to the time she got final permanent residency was about 3 years. The only problem was that they kept mispelling her name on the green card. That was annoying, especially since they did it like 3 times.
