By MAYA KARA and BRUCE MAILMAN
Special to the Saipan Tribune
Over the years, we have assisted hundreds of clients obtain family-based green cards. All of these required the filing of various documents including an Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status (Form I-485). The procedure for adjudication of this petition includes a personal interview, conducted by an officer of USCIS, with the U.S. citizen sponsor and the alien relative who is seeking to become a lawful permanent resident, LPR, of the United States. Until March last year, for residents of the CNMI, this interview usually took place in Guam. (Interviews for applications made through the U.S. Department of State are conducted at the appropriate U.S. consulate abroad, and use State's Form DS-230 rather than the I-485 used by USCIS.) Since late March 2009, these interviews are now conducted at the USCIS Application Support center, at TSL Plaza, in Garapan. When interviews were conducted in Guam, we did not accompany our clients to the interview because it was not cost effective for the client. Now that interviews are conducted on Saipan, we do accompany our clients to the interview, and have attended nearly 100 interviews. The following discussion is based on our personal experience in accompanying our clients to USCIS interviews for adjustment of status.
Our clients are usually quite anxious about the interview. They have seen movies and heard urban legend tales of horror as to how difficult, tricky and just downright mean the interviewers can be. We have found this not to be so, with very few exceptions. The job of the interviewing officer is to (1) review the application to make sure it is complete; (2) to look at original documents and ensure that they are genuine; and (3) to personally assess the applicants to make sure that there is no fraud.
There are several scenarios for sponsoring a relative for a green card: one spouse petitioning for another; parent petitioning for a child, and adult child petitioning for a parent. Interviews involving adult children sponsoring parents are usually very easy. There is little likelihood of an adult child submitting fraudulent documents or faking the relationship to a parent. Interviews involving a parent sponsoring a minor child are also fairly straightforward, for much of the same reasons. Most often the child is from a prior relationship and is now being incorporated into a new family created by the alien parent and the U.S. citizen spouse. It is not essential for a stepparent to adopt his or her spouse's child, but both stepchildren and adopted children qualify to become LPRs. If the petition involves an adopted child, there may be some delay, and sometimes there are difficulties if it is a foreign adoption. The more difficult interviews are those involving spouses, especially if it is a new marriage and there are no children. It is in this scenario that fraud is most prevalent.
The following is the advice we give to our clients who have an upcoming interview:
If you were both free to marry (not married to someone else at the time), neither of you have a criminal record, and your marriage is real, you have nothing to worry about. In our experience, the greatest concern of USCIS with respect to marriage-based applications is fraud. If you married your husband or wife to get immigration benefits, the chances are, that will come out, sooner or later. Remember even if you get a green card, or even if you proceed to citizenship, it can be revoked later if it comes out that you were involved in a sham marriage.
Marriages for the purpose of gaining an immigration benefit are of two types: bilateral fraud and unilateral fraud. Bilateral fraud is when one party pays or promises a benefit to another to marry and apply for a green card. This type of fraud relatively easy to uncover: the parties usually do not actually live together; they do not know much about each other; their stories are inconsistent, the citizen spouse will often withdraw the petition when he or she is informed by the USCIS officer that marriage fraud is a criminal act and that jail is a possibility. Unilateral fraud is much more subtle. Unilateral fraud is when the U.S. citizen enters into the marriage in good faith and the alien spouse has a hidden agenda: immigration benefit. In this type of fraud the parties typically live together as husband and wife, at least until such time that the alien spouse obtains an unconditional green card. This type of fraud is more difficult but not impossible to uncover.
According to the Field Adjudicator's manual, which is available online at www.uscis.gov., the following are factors that adjudicators look at in evaluating the validity of a marriage:
-Large disparity in age;
-No common language;
-Vast difference in cultural and ethnic background;
-Family and friends don't know about the marriage;
-Marriage arranged by third party;
-Marriage took place immediately before beneficiary's status in the U.S. (or in the CNMI) terminated;
-Not living together since marriage;
-Alien spouse is friend of family of U.S. citizen spouse (i.e. marriage may have been done as a “favor”);
-U.S. citizen spouse has had prior alien spouses for whom he/she filed petitions for green cards.
Not any one of these factors is likely to result in a denial, but the more of these factors that are present, the more evidence will be required to avoid a denial. We have had clients approved who had one or more of the above indicators, but we needed to work harder and come up with more evidence than is usual. We have had several couples whose courtship was entirely via electronic media: e-mail, social networking, text messaging or telephone. In one instance, we printed out hundreds of email messages in a foreign language and had them certified and translated. We had a couple who met via an online dating service and didn't meet until their marriage ceremony. But they had videos of an elaborate wedding in another country that took several days and involved hundreds of relatives. They also had a second wedding on Saipan, also involving a large family. They also had very convincing demeanor and lots of joint documents.
As for the questions you might be asked, the following are some general subject areas about which you should be able to give answers: how and where did you first meet; who introduced you; where did you go on your first date; if you don't speak the same language, how did you communicate; how often did you see each other during your courtship; where did you go; did you meet each other's family members; who asked whom to marry; where did you get married; who attended your wedding and your relationship to each person; where do you live and who do you live with; be ready to describe your residence in detail, both inside and out; be ready to describe your neighborhood including who your neighbors are.
In addition to being able to answer questions, your demeanor is critical. Demeanor is all of the subtle non-verbal signals that pass between people when they are interacting. How you interact with your husband and with the interviewer are both important. You need to not be too nervous; you need to answer directly and clearly; you need to look at your spouse; you need to look at the interviewer. There are a lot of cross-cultural issues that come into play. One hopes that the interviewer is trained to make allowances for behaviors of persons of a different cultural background.
Joint documents are also important. Over the course of marriage, a couple acquires a lot of joint documents. You are expected to produce such documents for the interview. Some possible joint documents are: home ownership, rental agreement or rental receipts in both your names; utilities accounts in both names; joint bank accounts, credit cards, debit cards; joint car ownership and auto insurance; life insurance, retirement benefits, health insurance where one spouse designates the other as a beneficiary; joint tax returns. Again, if it is a new marriage you will not have too many of these documents. You will need to work harder at convincing the interviewer that your marriage is real. This is where notes, letters, photos and so forth come in. If the marriage is established, you will have more of these documents and less difficulty in proving the validity of the marriage. If you have children, the presumption will be that you are together to make a life, not to scam a green card, and the interview should be very short and uneventful.
We screen our potential clients very carefully for marriage fraud and refuse representation if we don't think the marriage is genuine. We have fired clients when we found out that they lied to us. There is always the possibility that some have gotten past us. The human capacity for deceit is infinite, especially when the person is desperate.
That being said, the majority of the people who come to us for help with green cards have genuine marriages or other qualifying relationships, and have little problem during their interviews. After all, they only need to tell the truth.
The information contained in this column is intended as general information only, and not as individual legal advice. Readers should obtain professional legal advice before taking action with respect to their individual situations. Readers may submit questions regarding federalization or immigration issues to the authors by email to lexmarianas@pticom.com. Readers may also e-mail written questions through the Saipan Tribune at editor@saipantribune.com.
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