Section 9 Divorce During the Two-Year Conditional Residency Period

• Library: Immigration Law Impacts in Family Law 2011

If the couple divorces during the two-year conditional residency period, the CPR’s ability to remain in the United States largely will depend on the CPR’s ability to establish to the satisfaction of USCIS that, despite the divorce, the marriage was bona fide, and that the CPR did not enter into the marriage primarily for immigration purposes.

Under prior USCIS guidance, once divorce proceedings were initiated, the couple no longer could file a joint petition to
remove the condition. In addition, a waiver of the joint filing requirement—see discussion of the waiver of the joint filing requirement in §10 below—could be filed only after the CPR had received a final divorce decree. The effect was that CPRs, for whom divorce proceedings had begun, but were not yet finalized, were unable to have the condition on their residency removed without having their conditional status terminated and being placed in removal...