US Citizen sponsoring wife with H-1B visa

R

raviiyer00

New Member
Hello,

Currently I have a green card and am eligible to apply for US citizenship this April 2010. My wife is currently on H-1B visa and has completed the first two steps in the green card processing. She is currently waiting for the date to be current (her date is Jan 2008) so she can file the I-485. My question is ...

1. If I become a US citizen, can I still apply for her green card given that her application is already being processed by her employer at the moment? If so, will these two applications be processed in parallel?

2. What is the time frame for her getting the green card with me applying for her as a US citizen vs. her employer continuing her application? Will it be faster if I sponsor her as a US citizen? if so, what would be an approximate time frame?

Please advise.

Thanks

Ravi
 
Once you get a citizenship, ask her employer to discontinue her GC process. On the other side apply for her GC based on marriage. It's always faster to get GC through citizen spouse.
Your wife is so lucky that you are getting citizen and she doesn't have to be on H1 anymore, unlike me who has to travel back to home country and await for consular processing, after getting laid off.
 
Ravi,
You can have both I-130 and I-140 petitions pending at the same time. With respect to which one will take longer, is the employment-based petition for EB-3? If so, which country? The most likely scenario given your wife's priority date of January 2008, and assuming it is for EB-3 she will get her green card sooner through you than with the employment-based green card, since there will be no waiting for availability and the time will be based purely on processing time.
 
Hi

Thanks for the quick responses. We are from India and my wife's employment based petiion is for EB-2. Currently the processing is for Feb 2005 so I am sure the wait is probably very long.

Regards,

Ravi
 
raviiyer00 said:
What is the time frame for the processing if I as a US citizen sponsors my wife?

Thanks
Click to expand...

You have to consider both timeline of I-130 immidiate relative and I-485. They both needs to be file concurrently. One of my friend recently got the whole case cleared in 3 months time. His case was filed in columbus, OH. He got his conditional greencard and also got his interview within 2.5 months from filing date. I guess it all depends on, from which DO you file.
But it's 100% sure that your wife will get GC - FAST through marriage based application rather than employment.
 
raviiyer00 said:
What is the time frame for the processing if I as a US citizen sponsors my wife?

Thanks
Click to expand...

She/You can file the I-130/I-485/EAD/Advance Parole all at the same time. Check the USCIS processing times for these online but we're talking months instead of years.
 
Since you can have concurrent petitions going on, leave your wife's work sponsored GC application in place until she gets her GC through one of the two petitions and then withdraw the other petition. At that point, her wait for naturalization is three years. I know because I got my GC through work but then later got married to a US citizen. I applied for naturalization after three years of marriage even though my GC came through work. So I didn't have to wait out the full five years.
 
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