Legal Question in Immigration Law in Texas

I'm a green card holder and would like to get married in India. How long would it take for my spouse to come to US?


Asked on 10/30/13, 2:40 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Rodrigo Garza Law Office of Rodrigo Garza, Jr., PLLC

There are a number of things that you must keep in mind when you are a Legal Permanent Resident: Prior to traveling abroad, In order to keep your status as a Legal Permanent Resident you may not stay abroad for longer than 180 days; (2) your place of residence must be in the United States; (3) you have not entered or been found guilty of a crime which would render you deportable or inadmissible; and (4) You need to make sure that you are filing your income taxes as required by the IRS. So, if you are planning to get married abroad, you need to consider 2 things: (1) You must establish that your marriage is bona fide, meaning that you can prove that you got married after having spent time with your fiancee; you can show that a relationship existed prior to the wedding; that there was an engagement ceremony and wedding attended by family members; that you have plenty of pictures dating back to a reasonable time prior to the wedding showing a serious relationship; etc., In other words, you want to avoid spending too little time in courtship without any engagement and marriage ceremony, no pictures, etc.(2) your wife is not an immediate relative (since you are not a USC). Hence, she is a family member in the preference categories and may not have a visa available right away. While looking at the Visa Bulletin for November 2013, you will notice that the Immigration Service has visas available for spouses from India for whom family petitions were filed prior to September 08, 2013. Therefore, it is feasible that you get married in India, wait for issuance of your marriage certificate (I don't know how long it takes in India), get all kinds of required documents for her and for you, you travel back, wait for her visa to be available (maybe not more than a couple of months after you file your petition for your wife). Then, you must fill out the consular documentation whereby she files her application for Legal Permanent Resident, after which she gets an interview in the U.S. consulate in India, she gets approved, her passport gets stamped and she is allowed to travel into the U.S. Time for all this? I don't know, perhaps between 4-8 months. If all comes out right and the case is a perfect case, perhaps as little as 2-4 months.

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Answered on 10/30/13, 4:05 pm


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