Can my wife stay in america while applying for green card?

Question

I have a green card, and I will marry my fiance soon. While she's applying for a PR through my PR, can she stay in America without V-1 Visa or H-1 visa?

I heard the process is about 4 - 5 years, is that true?

Answer 1

Is she already legally here? How far off are you from qualifying for citizenship yourself? You would be much better of to wait to get citizenship and start the immigration process with her then if there's some other visa she has that she can stay on legally.

If your a citizen, then it's only a matter of about 6 months to get her greencard..  A spouse of a green card holder is second preference meaning they're only now processing applications from 2003 in that category, so you may have a 5 year wait to even get processed..  If your close to meeting citizenship requirements, then I'd wait and do that..

Unfortunately, if her current visa runs out she will have to go back to her home country. If she overstays then she may compromise ever being able to immigrate..

Here are the general naturalization requirements to check if you qualify yet for citizenship.

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/m...

Best of luck!

Answer 2

yeah to become a citizen it takes 4-5 years...not sure about the other stuff