To immigrate to America can be a scary procedure. Especially for the people who are new to this country, customs, and language, tending for navigating the trickiest shores of the immigration. Maybe, citizenship becomes overwhelming by the end. It depends on if you are looking forward to gaining a work visa, citizenship, a green card or to receive ESTA status of your visa’s approval, the moment it takes for completing this procedure can differ quickly, also. Luckily, there are a lot of resources which can help you, most of which are directed by the federal government.
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Gaining a Green Card
One method of gaining the right for staying in America legally is to acquire a green card. If you are looking forward to becoming a legal citizen, you should first be a permanent citizen, or you must be holding a green card. After 5 years to be a legal citizen of the country, you become eligible for applying for permanent citizenship. Although it can feel like a long duration to wait, it is compulsory.
Generally, the process of acquiring a green card has few steps, and the first step is an interview at the USCIS (the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services). Many big states have these offices. For finding the local office, you can visit the website of USCIS. Moreover, you can receive ESTA status if you are using the ESTA services.
If you are visiting the US from a foreign state, you should have ESTA, which determines your eligibility for traveling into the US as per the Visa Waiver program. The authorization through ESTA doesn’t determine if you are admissible in the US or not. Before the interview, you are needed to provide a photograph, fingerprints, and a signature. These things make the department know about conducting security and background check on you.
Procedure duration for a green card
The duration needed for the procedure to gain a green card may vary depending upon your conditions.
- The duration between applying for a green card and for the interview may differ, ranging from 4 to 10 months.
- If you are living in the country and have married to a citizen, the whole procedure may require 2 – 3 years.
- If you are a foreigner, things may become a little long, ranging between 11 – 19 months.
- If you are living abroad and get married to a holder of green card, this procedure may take 2 – 3 years.
Green card for conditional and permanent residents
The green card stays valid for around 10 years for the permanent residents of the country and only 2 years for the conditional permanent residents. The Conditional permanent residents aren’t allowed to renew the card; however, they should file for the permanent cards 90 days sooner their cards are due to expire. The permanent residents aren’t different from the conditional residents other than the sort of cards they hold and clearance which they provide. You may require completing the forms for applying for the permanent residency as well as for the green card. Another great place for starting to review these forms are the ESTA offices where you can easily know about the details of the visa ESTA services and immigration procedures too.
Having a relationship with a U.S. Citizen
If you have some relatives that live in the US like a child, parent or spouse, who are also the citizens of the US, you become eligible for becoming the citizen after you hold the status of green card for 5 years (it will be 3 years if that relative is the spouse. For becoming the US citizen, however, it isn’t needed to pass any civics and language test. You can expect to wait between 6 to 7 years as a whole for the process to get completed.
If you are a child or the spouse of any legal permanent resident, you become eligible to getting immigrating to the US. A person can expect to wait for around 13 years for the procedure to get completed and this waiting duration to get visa ESTA depends on the home country of the applicant.
Professionals and Skilled Laborers
If you own a degree of bachelors or equivalent along with any specialization, either from the US or from any other country, you become eligible for staying in America. If you work in a company that belongs to the US and your boss wishes to have you there, you can become eligible for staying in the country.
The legal fees may imply, however, if your boss can help you and proves that you own special skills, you may get approval for working in America. From there, you can begin your citizenship procedure, and the best place for doing this is the visa ESTA immigration services.
