By the Staff of New York Immigration Attorneys (combined with official sources such as the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services), The Law Offices of Spar & Bernstein
The immigration process can be a daunting one, if not impossibly complex.
It’s easy to feel completely overwhelmed by the hundreds of laws as well as bylaws, so easy to get lost in a maze of countless numbers and letters joined oddly together by hypens.
It’s for this reason that we at The Law Offices of Spar & Bernstein, which has been handling immigration cases – and successfully, we might add – for more than half a century, have decided to put together a list of the Things You MUST Know about Immigration.
We’ve compiled 20 points in all.
We truly hope this helps keep you from making the mistakes that can, unfortunately and in a heartbeat, completely destroy your immigration case.
What we’ll do, making it easier to absorb, is share our MUST know things over four blog posts, starting with these five:
1) You MUST know the difference between a visa and an I-94. The major differences between the two are as follows:
a. The I-94 is stamped with a date that indicates how long the foreign national can stay in the United States for that particular trip. Your stay in the US is not determined by the expiration date of your visa.
b. The I-94 card gives you permission to remain in the US, while a visa is a permit to seek entry to the US.
c. The I-94 generally has a validity period shorter than your visa.
d. The I-94 card is completed by an Immigration Inspector when a foreign national is inspected upon his arrival in the US, whereas a visa is issued by the US State Department and is obtained at an American consulate outside the United States.
2. You MUST know the difference between a green card and citizenship.
a. Permanent Residence (a “green card”) grants the right to live in, leave and reenter, and work in the U.S. It does not grant, for instance, the right to vote in U.S. elections. Permanent Residence may be deemed abandoned if the U.S. government believes that the permanent resident has not maintained sufficient ties to the U.S. to demonstrate intent to keep it. It can also be revoked if, for instance, the permanent resident commits certain crimes.
b. Citizenship includes all those rights, plus the right to vote and certain other rights and it cannot be deemed abandoned even if the citizen resides abroad for long periods of time without strong ties to the U.S. It can be taken away, but normally only if the naturalized citizen can be proven to have misrepresented something during the naturalization process (or does something which could also cause removal of citizenship to a U.S.-born citizen, such as fighting with a foreign army against the U.S.).
3. You MUST know the difference between immigrant and non-immigrant intent.
a. Immigrant intent means the person intends on staying in the U.S. permanently.
b. Nonimmigrant intent assumes person intends on returning to his or her home country or country of last residence. Therefore, it is imperative that this person maintains a residence abroad that they have no intention of abandoning. In plain English, you will often be asked to provide an overseas address as evidence of your ties to your home country. Also, every effort should be made to retain an address overseas as well as other ties (bank accounts, etc.) to that country.
4. You MUST know that The United States Citizenship and Immigration Service is distinctly separate from the National Visa Center. The protocol is this: After the immigrant petition filed in the U.S. has been approved by USCIS, the petition is forwarded to the NVC for processing. The NVC plays an important role in the next steps of the U.S. immigration process, providing instructions to petitioners and sponsors, and receives from sponsors, the required Affidavit of Support forms, fees, other required documents, and much more.
5. You MUST know that the National Customer Service hotline does not always give correct information. Always double and, if you can, even triple check the information.
The Law Offices of Spar & Bernstein, 225 Broadway, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10007. Phone: 1-212-227-3636, 1-800-law-link, 1-800-529-5465 Email: info@lawsb.com
