REMOVE CONDITIONS

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Remove Conditions

Your conditional permanent resident status is only valid for two years and cannot be renewed if you:

Received your conditional permanent resident status through marriage to a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident; or
Were admitted to the United States as a fiancé(e) of a U.S. citizen and then married the U.S. citizen.

Instead, you must file a petition to remove the conditions on your permanent resident status or risk losing your lawful status.

In general, you must file Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence, with your spouse within 90 days of your two-year Green Card (officially known as Form I-551, Permanent Resident Card) expiring. If you do not submit Form I-751, we may automatically terminate your status and issue you a Notice to Appear (NTA).

If you are a conditional permanent resident child, you may be eligible to be included on your parent’s Form I-751 if you received your status on the same day as your parent or within 90 days after your parent received conditional status. Otherwise, you must file your own Form I-751 with your stepparent.

When am I required to remove conditions?

You are required to remove conditions by filing an application within 90 days of your expiration date on the conditional resident card. You know when you are conditional resident one of three ways: 1) your card shows “conditional resident, 2) your approval notice shows category CR, 3) you filed initially for adjustment of status within 2 years of getting married.

It may sound simple, but the steps require significant time and in-depth analysis of your immigration history and the legal requirements. We recommend to speak with us as early as you are thinking about it. Do not wait until you are 100% sure you want to hire this candidate. Consult with us in the early stages. Consider as your consultant. We can save you time and stress. We keep you updated every time there is a notice from the government and new policies by the President (Executive Branch).

We are here to guide families every step of the way. We offer these services as a one-time fee or monthly representation fee.

Can I remove conditions without my spouse or stepparent?

You may file Form I-751 to remove conditions on your permanent residence status without your spouse or stepparent at any time after you are granted conditional status if:

You or your parent entered into the marriage in good faith, but your spouse or stepparent subsequently died;
You or your parent entered into a marriage in good faith, but the marriage ended through divorce or annulment;
You entered into a marriage in good faith, but either you or your child were battered or subjected to extreme cruelty by your spouse;
Your parent entered into the marriage in good faith, but you were battered or subjected to extreme cruelty by either your parent or your parent’s spouse; or
Termination of your status and removal from the United States would result in extreme hardship.

What if I'm going through a divorce?

You will need to provide bona fide evidence of your marriage up until the point of filing divorce. It does not matter if you filed for divorce or if your spouse filed first. Our Houston immigration law firm has received approvals for many clients who had a pending divorce or completed divorce by the time we had to file this application with evidence. The majority of our cases involved clients who had not filed divorce but were separated, or recently filed for divorce. We still received approvals for permanent residence.

What if i forget to remove conditions before the deadline?

Your case can be referred to the Immigration Court officially known as Executive Office of Immigration Review. This means that the government is starting the process of removing you from the United States. Although your first court date is an opportunity to share your story with the judge, it is important to file the remove conditions application to USCIS as soon as possible. This way we can provide a copy of this to the judge, so that he or she is not waiting for it. Even if your application is after the deadline, you need to file it as soon as possible and provide a sufficient reason why it was late.