No it doesn’t. It doesn’t automatically allow a person to enter or stay in the United States. You still need to secure a Visa.
Even if you do everything right, and the spouse never illegally entered the country in her past, it would still take at least 5 months to get a VISA and permission to enter the country. It could easily take much longer.
Fastest thing to do, I think, would be to go to Mexico legally, marry her, apply for a VISA, then wait the 6-18 months for her to enter legally.
If she is illegal she is still going to have a hard time at the border getting in and out of Mexico isn’t she? What do they do with illegals trying to go back in to Mexico? What kind of ID does she have?
I would be afraid she could get into Mexico but then not be allowed back. I wouldn’t go anywhere unless I had real advice from a lawyer, and then I would still be careful (I have 2 friends who married Canadians, and even though they were here legally, they still had times when they could not travel from one country to the other. They also often got conflicting advice from different offices, supposedly from people who knew what the law was.)
It’s tough. Your friends need a lawyer.
Presumably the gov’t doesn’t know he’s here now (or they’d deport him), so how would they know how long he has been in the country illegally when they send him back?
Well, if it’s any consolation to Jack & Jill about all the paperwork that is necessary, tell them my story. During the Korean War I was (fortunately) stationed in Japan. After a year or so, I decided to bring back a souvenir, so we decided to get married.
To get her back under the War Brides Act all I had to do was submit an application for permission to marry to the Supreme Commander (MacArthur when I started, Ridgeway when I finally finished).
I was lucky enough to have a jeep with driver and an interpreter at my disposal, and it still took me six months. When my application was ready, it was about a half inch think and had 104 completed forms.
When the permission came through, we were married by the Vice Counsel of the United States. Impressive, huh? It worked out OK as we’ve been married 55 years.
So, tell J&J not to dispair. To paraphrase, the mills of the government grind slow but exceeding fine.
If you do a land crossing, all a Mexican needs is Mexican ID. Or American ID. Or no ID at all if you stay within the border free trade zones. There aren’t Americans at the border registering when you leave. The US doesn’t know you’ve been gone until you come back.
Gah, “despair.” :smack: Too late to try Edit.
My son is English. He travelled to the USA on a tourist visa in 1997, met and married an American girl and decided to stay. Eventually he was given a Green Card and settled in Kentucky. Things were fine for a few years, but after 2001 everything changed. In 2002 he went along to Lexington to go through what had previously been routine formalities at the INS offices. The official looked through his file, told him there had been an error, he should have left the US in 1997 and applied for a regular visa. (Even though he’d been in touch with the authorities throughout his time in the US and they’d never mentioned it before).
He was promptly arrested and thrown into prison. No right of appeal exists. After a couple of months detention he was deported to England, having been stripped of all his money and possessions. He is debarred entry to the US until the year 2012.
My son’s mistake cost him dear. Be very, very careful with the INS. They are unforgiving.
I’m so sorry about your son, aldiboronti. I’ve had my own frustrating dealings with the INS/BCIS over the years (they routinely give out conflicting advice – as your son found out – and lose an unbelievably high percentage of paperwork that they acknowledged as having received), but nothing that bad. The “couple of months’ detention” seems over the top even for them, however. If you don’t mind my asking, would they have allowed him to leave at his own expense sooner than that? And what possible justification did they make for taking his money and possessions?
I currently work in a consular section of a U.S. Embassy in Latin America. Since coming here I’ve done over 15,000 visa applications, about a third of those immigrant visas.
Immigration visas are usually family-based and always petition-based.
If an American citizen marries someone who is illegally in the U.S., the person who is illegal may adjust status in the States, after a period of interviews with the Department of Homeland Security (what INS used to be.) So much of any case depends on the specifics, so I’ll confine myself to just saying that it can happen.
If someone who was illegally in the States left,married an American citizen in their country of origin, then tried to get back into the country, he/she would be denied entry. Sometimes DHS will have illegals return to their country of residence to apply for the immigrant visa, but not always. If someone has an immigration ineligibility, he/she needs a waiver of that ineligibility before they can be issued any type of visa. If all they have is unlawful presence, then those waivers usually take about 3-6 months to process. If someone has committed a certain set of felonies, defined as a “crime involving moral turpitude” then it’s more serious.
And above all, if someone is present in the U.S. unlawfully after a previous immigration violation, they are usually inadmissable under any circumstances. If you’ve been ordered removed or deported, you have a 10 year bar to reentry.
Marriage to a U.S. citizen automatically grants you exactly jack squat. It allows the U.S. citizen spouse the right to apply for your legal immigration, subject to approval by DHS and the State Department, but there is no automatic privelege. Immigration fraud is serious and if I or my colleagues find out you’re practicing it, things are unpleasant.
He entered legally with a tourist visa that eventually expired and he never left.
He was told that all his earnings while working in the US, and the possessions gained therewith, were subject to confiscation, as they were accrued while he was in the country illegally. He had no way of questioning this as he was not entitled to a lawyer.