Can Divorce Affect An Immigrant's Green Card Chances?

The Immigration Law of the United States allows an immigrant to obtain a permanent

citizenship of the United States by marrying a citizen of the country. The permanent citizenship is authorized by the Government of America by the issuance of an ID called "Green Card". Once an US Citizen (USC) marries an immigrant, he or she (the USC) can request an immigrant visa and a Green Card to be issued to his or her spouse based on their marriage from the Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) division of the American government.

Although the process illustrated above may seem to be fairly simple, it is not so. This is because of the fact that the above right accorded to the USC, is seen as one of the most open ways of sponsoring spouse abuse because of the spouse's immigrant status and the USC's permanent citizenship status.

In order to prevent spouse abuses that can arise out of the situation illustrated above, the Government of America enacted a law in the year 1994 called the Violence against Women Act or VAWA. This act was further amended in 2001 and proves to be a great helping hand in addressing the surviving victims of immigrant spouse abuse. According to this law, immigrants married to a USC can apply for a Green Card status on their own without the knowledge or consent of their spouse. However, until recently, it was not clear as to what will happen to the chances of the immigrant's green card application status if either of the spouse's had already applied for divorce or have been legally separated already.

Official sources have now provided enough clarity on the above issue. According to the clarification, an abused immigrant can go-ahead and apply for a Green Card status even if she has already applied for a divorce because of extreme cruelty meted out to her by the USC partner. In case the immigrant is already separated, she can still apply for a Green card status provided she has been divorced from her USC partner within the last 2 years.

In all above cases the immigrant should get in touch with a lawyer who specializes in VAWA cases in order to represent her case in the VAWA court. The lawyer will advice the immigrant as to whether she is eligible to petition the VAWA requesting for a Green Card status and if yes, then will take her through all the necessary documentary proofs that are required to present the case. Basic documentary proofs that are required are proof of real marriage between the immigrant and the USC, proof that the immigrant and her USC partner lived together for a specified period of time after marriage and that the divorce was granted based purely on the extreme cruelty meted out in the form of physical abuse by the USC to the immigrant partner.

by: Gen Wright

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