Marriage Matters and Immigration Papers

A lawful permanent resident is given the privilege of living and working in the United States permanently. Your permanent residence status will be conditional if it is based on a marriage that was less than two years old on the day you were given permanent residence. You are given conditional resident status on the day you are lawfully admitted to the United States on an immigrant visa or receive adjustment of status.

Your permanent resident status is conditional, because you must prove that you did not get married to solely to gain immigration benefits in the United States.

You and your spouse must apply together to remove the conditions on your residence. You should apply during the 90 days before your second anniversary as a conditional resident. The expiration date on your alien registration card (green card) is also the date of your second anniversary as a conditional resident. If you do not apply to remove the conditions in time, you could lose your conditional resident status, have no authorization to work in the US, and may be removed from the country.

Battered spouse exceptions

If you are no longer married to your spouse, or if you have been battered or abused by your spouse, you can apply to waive the joint filing requirement. In such cases, you should also file during the ninety day period before the expiration of your conditional status.

We had a couple cases at our August clinic on conditional status issues.  Be sure you have an attorney or specialist review your papers before you send them into US CIS.

Prison Visits - Volunteers Needed

Each week Fr. John McCarthy and Sr. Marguerite Kelly visit with Irish immigrants detained in US prison facilities.  Visa violations are usually the main reason they are being detained.  Many times there are no family members to visit them and as a result the Irish Pastoral Centre considers this an important aspect of our work.  A friendly visit means the world to detainees who very possibly are bored to tears looking at the four walls of their cells.  Frequently, if the detainee wishes, we follow up the visit with a call to the family in Ireland and families are always grateful for any news they receive.

Our prison visitation program is a very important aspect of our work at the IPC and involves a big investment of time and resources.  A visit to a single prisoner can take up a whole afternoon.  Recently Fr. John met with a prisoner who seemed very down and discouraged.  He attributed this to the fact that due to the demands of his regular work as well as home and hospital visits etc. he hadn’t had time to visit this young man.  Fr. John says, “We would love to have a few more volunteers to join us in this work.”

If you would like to be involved in this prison visitation program please call the Pastoral Centre: 617-479-7404 for further information.

Legal Clinic:  Next clinic is on September 2^nd, 6:30 PM, Bad Abbots, Hancock St., Quincy.