Hmm - the only proof I have of partnership, other than the marriage certificate itself, is my name on his bank account and our co-signing the lease 
In other news - I just got the letter last night for my I-485 interview. Yay! But I’m not done yet - lots of paperwork to gather up in the next month or so. Apparantly I need ANOTHER medical exam. grumble grumble uscis grumble.
Well, living together is certainly one of the things you can use to demonstrate the validity of your marriage. But if you don’t, that fact can’t be used on its own to prove that the marriage is a sham. I seem to recall that this was determined via case law (a couple successfully challenged the INS’s ruling that their marriage was invalid because they weren’t living together), but my memory’s fuzzy on the details.
I’ve seen cases like that myself. They were living apart for job-related reasons and basically only saw each other on weekends. In the end, the weight of the other evidence overcame their living apart. I’m a bit rusty too (I don’t do a lot of marriage-based cases lately, but when I worked in Immigration Court I saw them all the time), but IIRC the legal standard is that “the preponderance of the evidence” must indicate that the mariage is legitimate and not primarily for immigration purposes.
I realize that there’s no entitlement, but the feds have their hands full since police and sheriffs are not allowed to assist the FBI with arrests and holding illegal immigrants for deportation. I have yet to see any Feds out here in California ship off the illegally immigrated mothers with their U.S. born child(ren) when there are bigger fish to catch, and I wouldn’t mind seeing a cite that has actual numbers of I.I. mothers deported with or without their children.
We (our police) can’t even round up known illegal immigrated criminals from MS-13 because of Special Order 40 let alone I.I. mothers. I seriously doubt that the FBI would concern themselves with I.I. mothers before MS-13. I realize that you know the laws and protocol with immigration, but that’s not being followed out here in California…it’s actually disregarded with our backward laws…even the INS has been severely limited in scope and range as well as manpower.
I was just answering the short OP…I never said it was a “legitimate” way of staying the country, but they would become less of a target…well, at least here in California, they would.
Another interesting cite which includes children born of illegal aliens.
Wouldn’t the very fact that the marriage occurred at the eleventh hour be strong circumstantial evidence that the marriage was for immigration purposes?
Could she earn citizenship by enlisting?
Oh, I never said mothers of U.S. citizen children were a particular target; I’m pretty sure they’re not. Never having worked on the investigative sire of things, I’m not privy to details of how people end up in deportation proceedings, unless it’s for a criminal conviction or marriage fraud or something like that. But if someone gets caught on a traffic stop or a workplace raid or whatever, I doubt Homeland Security is going to let someone off the hook because she is the mother of a U.S. citizen child; I’ve seen probably thousands of them ordered deported over the years.
Yes. I’ve seen people overcome it, but it ain’t easy unless they can document that they had a relationship previously.
I don’t know what the qualifications are for enlisting, but there are expedited naturalization procedures for military veterans:
http://uscis.gov/graphics/services/natz/MilitaryBrochurev7.htm
Maybe someone with better knowledge of Armed Forces immigration status requirements for enlistment (e.g. any knowledge at all) could answer that one more completely.
So dudley, has your friend decided anything yet?
We have American citizens, born and raised in this country with all the credentials in the world, who happen to be in the military and shipped overseas. One would think when both parents are in the military that the government would keep one stateside and send the other one overseas but no dice. Both are sent overseas to a combat zone and the child(ren) remain behind.
If my government cares little about its own citizens and their children, why should the government care more about a non-citizen?