Getting married does not automatically grant citizenship.
My fiance is here on an educational visa. That means it’s temporary and it’s expected for him to return to England when it expires.
Because of a very specific set of circumstances, his visa status became subject to a two-year home residency clause, which also meant that when his visa expired and he returned to his country, that he could not come back to the U.S. for two years, even if he was married with children. Getting married and starting a family has no bearing on his visa status because his visa is like a contract with the federal government and it specifically states that two-year home residency clause.
Now we did successfully get through this, but John applied for a special skills waiver that would essentially remove that two-year home residency clause from his visa. It took many months for the Department of State to complete its investigation on him and then send their favorable recommendation to the Federal government for them to make their decision. Luckily for us, they decided to grant him the waiver. So now the next step was available to us.
After we get married this December, I can then petition the government to sponsor a green card for John. Yes, I said that correctly. I petition the government to sponsor a green card for John. We don’t just submit an application and get it. It is yet another lengthy process. The only thing that the movies get right was that the couples get interviewed, except that you can totally bring your lawyer with you to the interviews, and that they only interview the couple, not your entire family.
Also, the green card that John gets is a provisional one. If we were to divorce within the first two years of our marriage, I could revoke my sponsorship and his green card could get taken away (after I’ve filed the appropriate forms of course).
At the two-year mark, we will have to submit more forms where John can sponsor himself to get a more permanent card. Once he has that card, our marriage, and my involvement in his immigration status, are no longer relevant.
It is important to note that this still does not make him a citizen. For John to become a U.S. citizen, he will need to have that permanent green card, and then go through the naturalization process. It basically ends with a history test on the U.S.
Fun fact: naturalized citizens usually know more about our country than American-born citizens.
Updated on November 21, 2021. Featured photo by Fabian Fauth on Unsplash.
