There are many ways to speed up the green card (immigrant visa) process. This post focuses on family-based visas; some tips apply to employment-based visas too:
- Most important tip: if your family member in the U.S. is eligible to apply for citizenship, encourage them to get their application in! Some green card holders wait and wait and wait. That’s risky for them as they can be deported or denied re-entry if they stay out of the U.S. for a long time. Many countries including the U.S. allow dual nationality. Click here for some basic information on the process. The government now accepts credit card payments, and click here for information on fee waivers.
- Get married! If you’re waiting for an employment-based visa such as EB-2 or EB-3 (nurses), you can marry and your spouse and children if any will also be eligible to immigrate. Adult children of U.S. citizens can also marry while waiting. Adult children of green card holders – F2B category – cannot marry. If they do, the petition will automatically be revoked.
- If you will need police certificates from countries you used to live in, get them. Some countries take a long time to provide police certificates. You can check the requirements for specific countries at this State Department link. You won’t need a certificate from the U.S. and don’t get the certificate from the country of residence until closer to your interview date because it can expire. But if you lived in a third country for a year or more after the age of 16, you can get it in advance as long as you don’t go back to that country.
- Arrange for a joint sponsor in advance if you need one. This normally does not apply to employment-based visas. Almost every petitioner must submit an affidavit of support, even if they have no or little income. If that’s the case, you can have another person be a joint sponsor. This does not need to be a relative, but does need to be a U.S. citizen or green card holder. Click here for information on the requirements. If you’re getting close to visa availability, get the last three (or at least the last) tax returns for yourself and any other sponsors. You can’t complete the I-864 form until it’s time to submit it but you can be prepared.
- Keep your address updated with both USCIS and the National Visa Center (NVC). Often one of these agencies writes to the petitioner (U.S. citizen or green card holder) or beneficiary (foreign relative) and gets no reply because s/he has moved. People wait decades in some visa categories; make sure they can find you when they need to. For USCIS updates go to this page. To update your address with the NVC, go to their contact page and contact them. If you had an attorney and now don’t, make sure they know this so they will mail all notices to you.
- IF your visa is current but you’re not ready to immigrate yet, be sure to contact the NVC or USCISA at least once each year. That will keep your visa available, unless other changes disqualify you.
- If your family petitioner dies, let the government know. They have no discretion to still approve your visa so don’t think they’ll be kind to you at the interview and approve it anyway. But you might be able to apply for humanitarian reinstatement, and the sooner you do that after the death, the better. Read this post for more information.
- Consider contacting an attorney. Yes, this is good for my business, but it’s also good for you. Even if you are good with forms, you probably don’t know the law or the processes, and you can run into all sorts of problems and delays. We get hired by so many people after they’ve submitted their applications and it’s much harder to straighten out problems than to avoid them in the first place.
