Getting my wife a green card

[samjgarcia]

Hi everyone. I need someone whos been through the process or lawyer to please answer a few questions for me. I am a born US citizen. I lived most of my life in South Africa and working in the US for a number of years. My wife is South African. She currently has a B2 visa and has had two seperate H2B visas and worked in the US. She never overstayed and paid tax when she did live and work in the US. I cannot find employment anymore in South Africa and in March we decided to go back to the US for good. So i left in May 2012 to find a job and get situated and start the filing process. While i was there in July my wife who was pregnant lost our child and had an emergency hysterectomy done. I had to come back to South Africa to be with her and all that. Now my questions are, what is the best way to get her to the US? And what should i do? Is there a way she can come to the US while the immigration visa is being processed. The current processing times are very long and i dont think she can handle being apart emotionally. Is there some sort of expidited way of doing everything for special circumstances? Thanks in advance for any information!

 

[Jackolantern]

The processing time is around 6-12 months for green cards based on marriage to a US citizen.

But if the US consulate in South Africa will allow Direct Consular Filing (DCF) for your situation, she can have a green card in half that time. Contact them to find out. They will have certain criteria such as having lived in the country where the consulate is located for a certain number of months.

With the normal process, the initial paperwork (namely the I-130) is filed with the immigration authorities within the US, then after their approval it gets forwarded to the consulate for the final formalities (fingerprinting, interview, etc.). But with DCF, everything from the beginning is filed with the consulate.