Printable View
Hi,
I met a woman 5 months ago that came here from Mexico on a work visa. Her visa expired and she has been staying here illegally. She is working at a restaurant illegally. I am wanting her to become a legal citizen and have thought about marriage to her. What is the best and quickest route I can go to get her here as a legal citizen? Will she need to go back to Mexico since she is here illegally? Please help!
Thanks!
I will assume that when you talk about marrying her, it is because you are in love, and not solely for the purpose of getting her a green card.
Since she entered the country LEGALLY, If you marry, she would be able to apply to adjust her status based on marriage to us citizen. Link below is info on how this works.
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/usc...0045f3d6a1RCRD
If marriage is the way you want to go, definately DO NOT let her leave. If she leaves now, she will be subject to an exclusion period of 3 or 10 years due to the overstay.
Through marriage, the overstay will be forgiven, the working illegally will generally not hurt her, as long as she has been paying taxes on her earnings.
She could try to arrange for another work visa, but I am not sure how the overstay will affect that. My instinct would say she would most likely be denied.
Marriage would be the best bet to get the green card, but I should warn you the process is not designed to be easy or cheap. It takes a lot of work, a lot of reading up on the process, a lot of money and you they basically assume the marriage is a fraud, and you have to show proof of how it is legitimate...assets together, photos, cards, bills...etc.