Chapter 1 Where to Begin on Your Path Toward Immigration

• Library: U.S. Immigration Made Easy (Nolo) (2023 Ed.)

CHAPTER 1Where to Begin on Your Path Toward Immigration

A. Roadmap to U.S. Immigration

B. The Typical Application Process

C. Immigration Eligibility Self-Quiz

If you've already tried to research how to immigrate to the United States, you might have come away more confused than enlightened. We've heard immigrants ask frustrated questions like, "Are they trying to punish me for doing things legally?" or "Do they want to let me in or keep me out?"

The trouble is, the U.S. immigration system is a little like a mythical creature with two heads. One head might smile and grant people the right to live or work in the United States, temporarily or permanently. The U.S. tends to be the most welcoming toward people who:

• will pump money into the U.S. economy (such as tourists, students, and investors), or
• can fill gaps in the U.S. workforce (mostly skilled workers).

This creature's other head wears a frown. It is afraid that the U.S. will be overrun by huge numbers of immigrants, and depending on the political climate can reflect racist and nativist sentiments. It tends to try especially hard to keep out anyone who:

• doesn't fit the narrow eligibility categories set forth in U.S. immigration law
• has a criminal record
• is a threat to U.S. ideology or national security
• has spent a long time in the U.S. illegally or committed other immigration violations
• is attempting fraud in order to immigrate, or
• will not earn enough money to stay off government assistance.

Not surprisingly, these two heads don't always work together very well.

You could find that, even when you know you have a right to visit, live, or work in the U.S. and you're trying your best to fill out the applications and complete your case properly, you feel as if you're being treated like a criminal. The frowning head doesn't care. Sadly, it views you as just another number and as no great loss if your application fails—or is, literally, lost in the files of thousands of other applications.

CAUTION

Have you heard people say that a U.S. citizen could simply invite a friend from overseas to live here? Those days are gone. Now, every immigrant has to find a legal category to fit within, deal with demanding application forms and procedures, and pass security and other checks.

CAUTION

Almost everyone should consult an experienced immigration attorney before submitting an application. Unless your case presents no complications whatsoever, it's best to have an attorney confirm that you haven't overlooked anything. However, by preparing yourself with the information in this book, you can save money and make sure you're using a good attorney for the right services.

EXAMPLE: An American woman was engaged to a man from Mexico and figured, since she herself had been to law school, that she didn't need an attorney's help. She read that a foreign-born person who was in the U.S. on a tourist visa could get married and then apply for a green card within the United States. Unfortunately, what she didn't realize was that this possibility works only for people who decide to get married after entering the United States. Applying for a tourist visa with the idea of coming to the U.S. to get married and get a green card amounts to visa fraud and can ruin a person's chances of immigrating. Are you already confused? The U.S. immigration system doesn't always make a lot of sense. This is why an attorney's help is often needed—to get you through legal hoops that you'd never imagined existed.

A. Roadmap to U.S. Immigration

Because this book covers a lot of territory, it helps to have a road map—particularly so you'll know which subjects or chapters you can skip entirely.

Take a look at the imaginary map below, then read the following subsections to further orient yourself.

As you can see, the first stop along the way is the Inadmissibility Gate. This gate represents a legal problem that can stop you on your path to a visa or green card before you've even started. If, for example, you have committed certain crimes, been infected with certain contagious diseases, appear likely to need welfare or government assistance, have violated U.S. immigration laws, or match another description on the U.S. government's list of concerns, you are considered "inadmissible." That means you won't be allowed any type of U.S. visa or green card, except under special circumstances or with legal forgiveness called a waiver. This gate gets closed on a lot of people who lived in the U.S. illegally for more than six months. Even if you think you haven't done anything wrong, please read Chapter 3 for more on the problem of inadmissibility.

If you get past the Inadmissibility Gate, the next stop along your theoretical journey is the Eligibility Bridge. This is where you must answer the question, "What type of visa or green card are you eligible for?" Answering this will involve some research on your part. You might already know the answer—for example, if you've just married a U.S. citizen, it's pretty obvious that you want to apply for a green card on this basis and should read the appropriate chapter of this book (Chapter 7). Or, if your main goal is to attend college in the U.S., then you probably know that you need a student visa, and can proceed straight to the chapter covering that topic (Chapter 22).

Roadmap to U.S. Immigration

If you don't already know you're eligible for a certain type of visa or green card, however, start by reading Section B, below, which reviews the possibilities for spending time in the U.S. and directs you to the appropriate chapters for follow-up.

You'll see that this book covers more than just permanent green cards—we know that not everyone will either want, or be eligible to receive, the right to live in the U.S. their whole life. There are many useful ways to stay in the U.S. temporarily, for example on a student or employment-based visa. And even if you don't fit into one of the usual categories, there might be an emergency or other special category that helps you.

Not many people will travel down the Citizen Parents or Grandparents Alternate Access Road. It's for the lucky few who, after doing a little research, realize that they are already U.S. citizens because their parents or grandparents had U.S. citizenship. Okay, we admit that this is rare. Most people would not be picking up a book on immigration if they were already U.S. citizens. Nevertheless, a few people are surprised to find that, because their parents were either born in the U.S. or became U.S. citizens later (possibly because their own parents were U.S. citizens and...