Legal Question in Immigration Law in California

Do you mean that your fiancee came to USA legally on a visa and then overstayed that visa? Does she have her old passport/border crossing card/etc - as an evidence that she was inspected and lawfully admitted to USA?

Did any other relative or employer ever file any petition for her or her parents in the past?

If you require a case-specific advice, guidance and help with the USCIS applications, please email me directly at Attorney [@] law-visa-usa.com

Before you file anything with the USCIS (former INS), we have to make sure that she is indeed eligible to apply for permanent residency/green card without having to go back to Mexico.

If you are a US Citizen, you may sponsor her for an immigrant petition, and she may get her green card without having to leave the US, assuming she can prove that she entered the US legally. She cannot apply for citizenship until she has been a green card holder for 3 years.

If you cannot prove she entered legally, then unless she has had a previous immigrant petition filed for her prior to April 30, 2001 and can show proof of physical presence in the US on December 21, 2000, then she may have to go back to Mexico to obtain her visa. However, since it seems she has overstayed illegally in the US for more than 1 year, she will be subject to a 10 year bar, once she leaves the US. A waiver application may be filed to excuse her illegal stay, but she would have to file for this wavier once she's already out of the country.

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