Legal Question in Family Law in Washington

Under Washington law, the husband of a woman who gives birth is legally presumed to be the child's father. After the child is born, you can initiate a paternity action and ask the court for an order for a genetic test. Regardless of whether the parties divorce, you can establish your paternity, which will also necessarily establish an order of child support on your behalf towards the child, assuming you are the noncustodial parent with rights to visitation, and your name will then be placed on the child's birth certificate.

If you become the primary residential parent of the child then the mother will necessarily owe you child support and can ask for a residential schedule or parenting plan to be issued giving her visitation rights with the child.

There is something else that you need to consider in all of this: the potential immigration ramifications of what is happening. If your girlfriend is here on a conditional green card, also known as a conditional legal permanent resident card, and is waiting to get the 10 year "unconditional legal permanent resident card" the issue of this child may raise some problems as to the validity or genuine nature of the marriage when it comes time for immigration to adjudicate the I-751 application to remove the conditions on permanent residence.

Depending on where your girlfriend is in the application process, it may not be a problem, however if she has an immigration attorney who helped handle that application, I suggest she discuss it with them. You may also want to seek independent counsel of your own to sort out what issues you have that I may be unaware of given your brief description above.

I am happy to help you in that regard, so feel free to contact my office.

Very Truly Yours,

I forgot to mention one thing in the earlier response posted above. If for any reason something happens with your girlfriend where USCIS denies the I-751 application to remove the conditions of permanent residents, although she may be placed into removal proceedings, if you are a United States citizen and you marry her, you can also petition for her to remain in the United States and adjuster status to get a green card that way.

In other words, I think regardless of who she ultimately is married to (assuming you and she are talking about getting married) then perhaps her immigration situation is not very serious at all. Ultimately though, I cannot strongly enough emphasize how important it is for you to talk to an attorney to get all the details sorted out about your case and go from there.

Best of luck,