Royal Oak, MI Immigration Law Firms & Lawyers

Fiancee Petition or K3 Spouse Petition. A Fiance Petition needs to be prepared. This is a petition that will allow your fiance to come to the U.S. in a relatively short period of time. Usually, it takes around 6 to 9 months for the petition to be approved at immigration in the United States. Subsequently, the approval would be sent to the U.S. Consulate or Embassy in your fiance's home country. When your fiance comes to the U.S., you will have ninety days to get married. Our firm can prepare the entire Fiance Petition and make it so it goes smoothly and correctly. You have to have physically seen your Fiance in the last two years. Alternatively, a K-3 Petition can be prepared. This is where you will marry your fiance or have already married outside of the U.S., and then the petition can be approved in three to four months for your then spouse to enter the U.S. Upon entry to the U.S., it would be possible to then prepare and file the Adjustment of Status application. Both the K-1 and the K-3 visas take about the same time.

If you still have the H-4 relationship with your spouse, you should be allowed to travel back to the US under H-4 status despite having an approved H-1B petition. Using your H-1B approved petition once another employer is interested in sponsoring you for a new H-1B is another matter. If attempting to do it in the States, you would have to request the change in status from H-4 to H-1B. The question may come up of whether your present H-1B approval is sufficient for you to escape the need for a H-1B cap number if you will be sponsored by a cap subject organization and are not subjecting yourself to the annual quota restriction of H-1B visas. You may have to defend the bona fides of the H-1B filing  including giving the reason that you did not take up employment with the H-1B petitioner.Due to the limitations of the Lawyers.com Forums, Alan Lee, Esq.'s (the "Firm") participation in responding to questions posted herein does not constitute legal advice, nor legal representation of the person or entity posting a question. No Attorney/Client relationship is or shall be construed to be created hereby. The information provided herein by the Firm is general, and requires that the poster obtain specific legal advice from an attorney. The poster shall not rely upon the information provided herein as legal advice nor as the basis for making any decisions of legal consequence.  

You can expect to wait for your green card not less than 5-6 months from the day your spouse files a petition for you. If you marriage lasts, you will qualify for U.S. citizenship in 3 years from the date of becoming a permanent resident. If you divorce your U.S. spouse, or get separated, within the first 2 years, you will lose your green card; otherwise, your conditional, 2-year green card will be replaced with a permanent green card. If you divorce your spouse you after receiving a permanent green card but before qualifying for citizenship, you will have to wait 4 years and 9 months from the date of becoming a permanent resident before you can apply for naturalization. Only after becoming a citizen, you will be able to petition for your mother. After you file an immigrant petition for your mother, you will have to wait about 9 months for USCIS to consider your petition, another couple of months for the case to be transferred to the National Visa Center, and yet another few months for the Department of State to complete the paperwork and send it over to the U.S. embassy in your mother's country. How long will the embassy take to schedule a visa interview for your mother depends on how busy the consular section in your country will be at the time; several months is not uncommon. Please understand that the processing times I have given you in the previous paragraph are the current ones; by the time you become a citizen, they can (and likely will) change. But, generally, you can expect the process to take 1.5 -2.5 years after you become a citizen.