Not sure what to do in this hostile climate

C

confused1254

New Member
Here is the story. I am a US citizen born and raised here. I met my wife in college(she came from Indonesia on a legal student visa) and we had a child and got married. The child was a bit of a suprise and she gave birth right after getting his masters degree while I still had 2 years to go. Because of this we decided it was best for me to switch roles and be the stay at home parent and her to work. We sent in our paperwork but had to jump the gun(did not want welfare) and she got a decent job without any work authorization(they never checked). The paperwork somehow got lost and our receipts were stolen from our car so there goes that proof. Now we are stuck. We did write to a couple congressmen but we all know how useless they are.
Fast forward. We moved to another state where she got a good paying job and once again they did not do any sort of immigration check. She speaks perfect English with no accent so maybe they did not care. We have two children now and have been married over 19 years. If she applies for her papers especially in this climate she may be deported and at the least would probably lose her job leaving us homeless. I have one child in college and one with a little over 2 years left in high school. Everyone's lives would be ruined. We pay taxes and nobody has broken any laws so what do we do now? We are tired of keeping a low profile but are completely stuck in our situation.
 
Everything. They had no proof we even applied and all our money was gone since we used cashiers checks. That was 19 years ago though.
 
"Climate" is irrelevant. The law is very clear. She is eligible for Adjustment of Status.

You got it backwards. It's her filing for Adjustment of Status that will protect her from deportation. Filing for Adjustment of Status will not make her more likely to get deported -- it will prevent her from being deported. As long as your marriage is genuine, and she can show she entered legally, there is no reason for Adjustment of Status to be denied. I also don't know why you think she will lose her job.
 
What was going on wrt her legal status all those years?
She should file for AOS asap. As a USC spouse, her illegal stay would be forgiven based on the limited information posted.
 
Thanks but I will have to google what this adjustment of status is. Right now her passport expired and she is just in the country illegally. She basically overstayed her visa for lack of a better word. We are afraid she will lose her job as she does not have a work permit. The only reason she even got the job besides being qualified is because they did not bother to check her status. If they knew she would be out of a job no doubt.
 
I am not sure what was filed back then, but it is probably the same thing that she should file now -- I-130 and I-485 filed together for Adjustment of Status. And it's not required but recommended to also file I-765 for EAD together with that (for free) for an EAD that will probably come sooner than the green card, so she can work legally sooner. Each form has many required supporting documents and forms. Read each form's instructions for more information.
 
Thanks for the replies. What if she is already working. Won't they frown on that since she has no work authorization? Couldn't they just contact her current employer who would then know and fire her? Also, what about the affidavit of support? She is the one making money not me. Thanks
 
confused1254 said:
Thanks for the replies. What if she is already working. Won't they frown on that since she has no work authorization? Couldn't they just contact her current employer who would then know and fire her? Also, what about the affidavit of support? She is the one making money not me. Thanks
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Her work income cannot be counted on the Affidavit of Support if she is not authorized to work, but she might not need an Affidavit of Support -- if she has accrued 40 quarters (10 years) of Social Security credits, from the sum of the credits she has has earned in her life plus the credits you have earned while married to her, then she doesn't need an Affidavit of Support (because that is one of the conditions for terminating Affidavit of Support obligations anyway) and can just do an I-864W instead.
 
Thanks. One more question until I think of anyone lol. Would she be the one to fill out the I-864W as the one who has accrued the 40 quarters or would I(I doubt I have unless I received from her)? Thanks once again you have been a big help.
 
Looks like we may have to live in the shadows again. We are not 100% sure but are pretty positive she would have checked the US citizen on the I-9 form which means no waiver at all so I will some day lose my wife. At the time it did not seem huge with all the fake SS numbers going around but apparently that is the holy grail of no nos.
 
Are you sure she even did an I-9? (She shouldn't pass I-9 anyway because she doesn't have the appropriate documents.) For example, contractors often don't need to do I-9s. Also, are you sure she didn't check something else like "citizen or national" (they had those on I-9s before 2009), or permanent resident, or something like that?
 
I saw a case where the person checked the box that said citizen or national and said he did not mean citizen. He lost. He appealed and still lost. She had a legit and real drivers license and a SS card but we umm sorta took the cannot work without ins authorization off it and gave them a photocopy of the SS card. The number is real however. They are not suppose to take photocopies but in this case they did and apparently nobody ever checked. She is asian and speaks perfect fluent English with no accent so they probably did not suspect anything. She also had about 9 years experience with 2 other companies so maybe they thought one of them would have caught her. I have a feeling we just stay here and keep low but soon she will not be able to fly or drive and eventually all the 10s of thousands in SS taxes she paid will be worthless also as she will never see a dime of it. I always get irked when people say on the forums that illegals never pay taxes and all of them on welfare which is completely not true. We just want to have a normal life but that apparently will never happen.
 
Oh I forgot to say that when we contacted an attorney he said that her tax credits do not matter since she was working illegally at the time so none of those count. My mom said she would sponsor but I don't think it matters now.
 
confused1254 said:
I saw a case where the person checked the box that said citizen or national and said he did not mean citizen. He lost. He appealed and still lost. She had a legit and real drivers license and a SS card but we umm sorta took the cannot work without ins authorization off it and gave them a photocopy of the SS card. The number is real however. They are not suppose to take photocopies but in this case they did and apparently nobody ever checked. She is asian and speaks perfect fluent English with no accent so they probably did not suspect anything. She also had about 9 years experience with 2 other companies so maybe they thought one of them would have caught her. I have a feeling we just stay here and keep low but soon she will not be able to fly or drive and eventually all the 10s of thousands in SS taxes she paid will be worthless also as she will never see a dime of it. I always get irked when people say on the forums that illegals never pay taxes and all of them on welfare which is completely not true. We just want to have a normal life but that apparently will never happen.
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when you said "sorta took the cannot work without ins authorization" off of the social security card, what do you mean exactly? Altering/falsifying a federal document is very serious. I would consult a lawyer to see if this counts as a criminal offense, just to be on the cautious side.

From what I see above, your wife did stay and is staying in this country illegally. There is no question about it. If you apply for a green card right now, you obviously expose her true identity to the federal govt and in my opinion will carry a significant risk of deportation.

Very little of this can be undone now. If I were you, I'd definitely speak to a lawyer before doing anything. You both have a masters degree so I'm assuming legal assistance is financial viable.
 
Stop scaring others. Unless there's a criminal element involved, OP's spouse files AOS, typical of any other B2 overstayer married to a USC. It is very much a DIY without the need of a lawyer.
 
1AurCitizen said:
Stop scaring others. Unless there's a criminal element involved, OP's spouse files AOS, typical of any other B2 overstayer married to a USC. It is very much a DIY without the need of a lawyer.
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False claim of US citizenship (including on an I-9 form) is a lifetime ban without any waiver for immigrants (it's even worse than a crime, which has a waiver). If the OP's spouse really did that, then it is a big problem.
 
newacct said:
False claim of US citizenship (including on an I-9 form) is a lifetime ban without any waiver for immigrants (it's even worse than a crime, which has a waiver). If the OP's spouse really did that, then it is a big problem.
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Oh I missed that somewhere. Yeah falsely claiming US citizenship would be an issue, to say the least.
 
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