Virginia Immediate Relative Permanent Residency Application

An immediate relative applies for permanent resident status by having the petitioner who is the U.S. citizen file a USCIS Form I-130, which is the petition that proves the familial relationship between the two family members. A Virginia family immigration lawyer can help you better understand the process and assist you in moving efficiently through the legal motions.

Applying for Permanent Residency in Virginia

If it is a spouse that a person is applying for, they need to submit the marriage certificate and other documents that prove the person has a bona fide relationship with the petitioner. The package should include things that demonstrate commingled finances and joint habitation, and should demonstrate that the relationship is real and not in existence only for immigration purposes.

Parent-Child Residency Application

For other categories, such as a parent-child relationship, the process is a little bit more straightforward.

The person must show a birth certificate and parent-child relationship. Assuming the petitioner and beneficiary fall into the immediate relative category (meaning the petitioner must be a USC), when the I-130 is approved by USCIS the beneficiary will be immediately eligible for a green card.

Assuming the immigrant is physically present in the U.S., the application for a green card is filed on USCIS Form I-485 and will lead to their legal permanent residency. Because there is no visa line the person needs to wait through as an immediate relative, they can actually file the I-130 and the I-485 together in the same package. This is not true for the family preference categories, who need to file the I-130 first, wait for their priority date to become current, and then file the I-485 as a separate process.

Roadblocks to Residency in Virginia

In some cases, problems can arise in proving the familial relationship. This is most common in marriages where there is not extensive evidence available to prove that it’s bona fide.

For instance, issues can arise when you are dealing with an arranged marriage in which the couple has not spent much time together, or when you have any other kind of atypical relationship such as a couple who met online and may not have known each other long, cases where the petitioner had applied for other immigrant spouses in the past, or in cases where there is an extreme age difference between the two people in the relationship.

None of these situations mean your application won’t be granted – but it may mean that you’ll have to do more work to prove the bona fides of your relationship to USCIS. Another common roadblock can arise when USCIS is evaluating the beneficiary or the immigrant’s admissibility to the U.S. Admissibility means whether or not someone is going to be allowed into the United States.

The immigrant will be deemed “inadmissible” if they have issues in their past that legally bar them from obtaining status. The most common grounds of inadmissibility faced by family-based immigrants stem from having a criminal history or prior immigration violations, both of which may bar them from receiving immediate legal status in the U.S. If someone is concerned about their eligibility, they should speak to an experienced family immigration attorney in Virginia as soon as possible.