What You Should Know About Sponsoring Your Partner for a Visa or Green Card

What You Should Know About Sponsoring Your Partner for a Visa or Green Card

As a permanent resident or citizen who is married or engaged to someone who is a citizen of another country and would like to sponsor their visa or Green Card, they might be eligible. On the other hand, do not join those who believe that just anyone can be eligible for a green card or visa and that they can have it in no time. You might be disappointed and that may leave you with a sad case of having your partner sent back home.

Note that your partner will have to wait for a specific time before their visa or green card application will get approved. For permanent residents, the application process might take a longer time compared to the application time of a U.S. citizen.

Generally, though, the process takes about 13 months. Note that your partner can only apply for a green card after their visa is approved.

Eligibility criteria for sponsoring your fiancé(e) for a visa

To be eligible to sponsor your partner for a visa, you should meet the following criteria:

• You must be a permanent resident or United States citizen.
• You and your intended spouse are eligible to marry. That is, both of you are legally eligible to marry in the U.S., and that also means you both have legally terminated past marriages either by annulment, divorce, or death.
• You and your intended spouse must be married within 90 days if they get approved for their k-1 nonimmigrant visa. Then, they can apply for a green card.
• You both met two or more years before the application process began.

You can apply for a waiver of a physical meeting if:

• It violates the customs and culture of your partner’s country.
• It will result in significant hardship for the United States petitioner.

Note that to qualify for any kind of visa or green card the applicant and petitioner must ensure that they are admissible. That means they must have a clean background legally, be free of communicable illnesses like tuberculosis, and might not need the U.S. government’s financial assistance.

Marriage visas and green card

A citizen from another country (foreign national) might get a marriage visa or green card if they marry a green card holder or U.S. citizen and if they are not married to someone else at that time. Their marriage has to be lawful and not a malicious way of acquiring a visa or green card. To meet that ‘legal marriage’ criterion, you must submit your marriage certificate.

Typically, your marriage certificate must be from a government entity, not a religious or cultural entity. That might cause some difficulties, especially if you get married overseas, i.e., somewhere other than your country. “To make your claim solid, you can attach videos, photographs, and emails of your wedding, birth certificates of your children, if any, and other events that involve you both, and financial documents of business partnerships,” says Attorney Mario Godoy of Godoy Law Office Immigration Lawyers.

Required documents for a marriage visa

As a petitioner, you must submit: 

• Your civil marriage certificate
• Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative
• Pictures of you and your spouse (Passport style)
• If applicable, copies of divorces, annulments, or death decrees.
• Evidence of any or all legal name modification
• Evidence as a permanent resident (green card holder)
• Your U.S. birth certificate (U.S. Citizen)