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Year after year, countless foreign nationals obtain U.S. permanent residence by marrying U.S. citizens and filing to Adjust Status. (Adjustment of Status is the process by which a foreign national applies for U.S. Permanent Residence from inside of the USA). In such instances, if the underlying marriage is less than two years old at the time that USCIS is ready to approve the foreign national's application, the foreign national will not be unconditionally approved for U.S. permanent residence. Instead, assuming that the USCIS officer finds the parties' marriage to have been in good faith and not entered into for the purpose of circumventing U.S. immigration law, the foreign national will receive "conditional" permanent residence and be issued a two year I-551 Permanent Resident card (colloquially referred to as a "Green Card"). (However, "conditional" permanent residents generally have all of the rights and privileges of regular permanent residents, including obtaining a mortgage and purchasing a home).
Before the "conditional" permanent resident's two-year I-551 expires, he/she will need to submit an I-751 application to remove conditions on residence. Currently, however, there is a mandatory interview requirement that the Trump administration imposed on applications for U.S. immigration benefits. Nevertheless, in the past year, USCIS has been waiving these interviews when strong applications were submitted by foreign nationals. These have typically been applications containing a healthy amount of documentary evidence that USCIS considered to be reasonably convincing. Accordingly, for all conditional permanent residents who are preparing to apply to remove their conditions and become full-blown permanent residents of the USA, it is advantageous for them to meticulously review all of the documents and carefully select the ones that are most likely to result in their applications succeeding without the need for an in-person interview at the local USCIS field office. While presenting too little documents can prove to be problematic, the same is true with respect to overwhelming USCIS with documents that are of little evidentiary value in the aggregate. In either scenario, USCIS can decide to issue a Request for Evidence ("RFE"), a Notice of Intent to Deny ("NOID"), or schedule an interview at the local field office. Immigration lawyers work with applicants to optimize their chances of success without being scrutinized more carefully by USCIS or having to appear for an interview.
We assist countless foreign nationals and we will be happy to personally assist you with your application as well. Send us an E-mail or call us at (888)354-6257. For reasons on why you should consult an immigration attorney whenever you have an immigration issue, see our page titled: Reasons Why it is Vital to Use an Immigration Lawyer.
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