Under U.S. immigration law,immigrants may obtain a permit (“U.S. permanent home”) by weding a U.S. citizen. The U.S. citizen must,nevertheless under the regular course,petition U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (CIS,formerly called “INS”) for a green card and an immigrant visa application for his/her immigrant spouse based upon the marriage. This process once finished results in the immigrant’s attainment of U.S. permanent residency– i.e.,permission to work and live in the U.S. on an irreversible basis. However this procedure is not always useful to the immigrant– in many instances,it supplies among the most abusive ways a sponsoring spouse can exercise control over the immigrant,by holding the immigrant’s tentative immigration status over her. With an advanced degree or recognized talent,one might try to qualify in other ways:
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A commonality in nearly all violent marriages involving an immigrant spouse is the danger of deportation,frequently in the form of the abusive U.S. resident or legal irreversible local partner threatening to withdraw his/her sponsorship of the immigrant’s visa petition,not submit at all,or contact CIS and lie about her in an effort to have her deported.
Frequently,immigrants are offered the final notice that they either inform no one about the abuse and therefore,let it continue,or else face deportation. This threat of deportation,a type of extreme psychological abuse,can be more frightening to an immigrant than even the worst physical abuse imaginable. Lots of immigrants have kids and relative in the U.S. who depend on them and lots of fear going back to the country they got away,for fear of societal reprisal,inescapable hardship,and/or persecution.
Abused immigrants who are married to a U.S. resident or Lawful Permanent Resident or who divorced their abuser in the previous 2 years may now petition on their own for an immigrant visa and green card application,without the abuser’s knowledge or authorization. In this personal procedure,CIS agents are lawfully bound to refrain from contacting the abuser and informing him/her anything of the mistreated immigrant’s efforts to get a green card under VAWA.
This process likewise supplies short-term defense from deportation for immigrants not in deportation already (called “postponed action status”) and renewed work permission to legal irreversible locals who normally face a longer waiting period due to visa number stockpiles.
Even more,the immigrant partner does not need to appear prior to a judge (the procedure is paper driven) and s/he may leave her abuser at any time,without damage to her immigration status. Even an immigrant partner who is not married to a legal permanent citizen or U.S. citizen however is rather married to an undocumented immigrant or an immigrant holding a temporary work or visiting visa has choices under VAWA. Because VAWA was changed in 2001,now no matter the immigrant or abuser’s status,the immigrant may get legal immigration status through the brand-new “U” visa,which enables the immigrant to ultimately get a permit if s/he has shown useful or most likely to be useful to a law enforcement investigation of a violent criminal activity.
The above programs that abused immigrants often do have options. An abused immigrant does not have to continue to live with the risk of physical,monetary or psychological damage from an intimate partner since of worry of being deported.