getting married to green card holder

A

Asylee104

Registered Users (C)
Hi,

I am a green card holder and I am due to apply for citizenship this coming october.

I met my wife recently and she is on a Student Visa. We want to get officially married.

I know that it is better to get married to citizen rather than a green card holder. But Can someone give me some pros and cons?

And If we get officially married in our county now. Do we HAVE to change our status? Is it possible that we get officially married now and change our imigration status after I have gotten my citizenship?
 
Getting married doesn't change her immigration status. It just means that she should forget about her using the F1 visa to reenter the US, because if they know about the marriage they probably will cancel the visa and send her back. But while she stays in the US she can continue to study with it after getting married.

Once her student status is finished, she will either have to leave the US or get a work visa like H1B or file an I-485. She can't file the I-485 in the near future based on your sponsorship unless you become a citizen (if you remain a green card holder it is about a 5-year wait for her to become eligible to file I-485).
 
so as long as she is in USA it is ok for us to get married now and not report it to INS. But report it to them when i am a citizen. At that time wont they ask that Why did we not report it when we got married (and i was on green card). Why did we wait 8 or 10 months to repot it.

Just to give some time line. She will be graduating in May, 2010, she has no plans of going back to her country and re-entering USA. I will Applying for citizenship in October, 2009.

We were thinking about getting officially married NOW and reporting it to INS and then reporting INS again when i get my citizenship so that her 'application' is changed from 'married to gc holder' to 'married to us citizen'
 
Asylee104 said:
so as long as she is in USA it is ok for us to get married now and not report it to INS. But report it to them when i am a citizen. At that time wont they ask that Why did we not report it when we got married (and i was on green card). Why did we wait 8 or 10 months to repot it.
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You have no obligation to report the marriage to Immigration, except when either of you apply for an immigration benefit where spousal information is required (that includes your citizenship and her green card).
We were thinking about getting officially married NOW and reporting it to INS and then reporting INS again when i get my citizenship so that her 'application' is changed from 'married to gc holder' to 'married to us citizen'
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So you want to get married and file I-130 now, and then upgrade the I-130 when you become a citizen? You could do that, but you probably would be better off just waiting until you become a citizen and then file the I-130 and I-485 at the same time. That avoids the hassle and potential glitches that could occur when you try to get it upgraded.

But again, the marriage itself is not an event that needs to be reported to Immigration. Reporting a marriage only needs to be done if you or she is participating in an immigration process that requests marriage information.
 
thank you guys!
We would just wait to get married when i get my citizenship but her parents are pushing for something official to be done.

So we are just going to get married and NOT inform the INS. When I become a citizen then we will inform the INS that we got married 8ish months ago and now we would like to get a benefit of immigration so that my wife can get her green card.
 
Asylee104 said:
So we are just going to get married and NOT inform the INS. When I become a citizen then we will inform the INS that we got married 8ish months ago and now we would like to get a benefit of immigration so that my wife can get her green card.
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You don't inform them of the marriage and then apply for her green card. You inform them of the marriage on the same forms that are used to apply for her green card, in the questions that ask for your spouse's name and other information. Or if you get married before obtaining citizenship, you list the marriage date and spouse information in the specified locations on the citizenship application form itself (N-400).
 
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