Q: My fiancé is a U.S. citizen and we are planning on getting married in two weeks. I came to the U.S. on a nonimmigrant visa which has expired. My fiancé has a child in another country and must go there to try and get custody of her child, which means that she will have to live there for at least six months. Since I have overstayed my visa I cannot leave the U.S. She will be coming back to the U.S. once a month to be with me but only for a few days each time. Can she still petition me for my green card?

A: It does complicate the application where the husband and wife are living in two different places. You will have to provide strong documentation of the fact that you share your lives together despite the separation. We have had success with cases where the couple were separated but had a good reason for it. However there are certainly no guarantees here. We have also seen a number of cases fail because the husband and wife did not seem to know enough about each other or could not provide enough documentation of sharing their lives together because they spent so much time apart.

If you go forward with this application you should be prepared to document your relationship. Alternatively you may want to consider waiting until she returns to the U.S. before filing the petition.

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Q: My U.S. permanent resident mother filed an I-130 immigrant petition for me when I was under 21 and unmarried. Now the I-130 is approved, but I have been married and divorced since the filing of the petition. Does this change my status?

A:  The petition filed by your mother is no longer valid and she must file a new petition for you. Permanent Residents cannot petition for married children and we are assuming that your mother did not naturalize before you married. On the date that you married the petition became automatically revoked. Your divorce did not reinstate the petition.

However since the old petition was approved, you should be able to recapture the priority date from the old petition for the new petition. Make sure you include a copy of the approval notice for the old petition when you file the new petition.

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Q: I am a green card holder. My I-131 Reentry Permit is going to expire in February. Can I apply for a new Reentry Permit so that I can continue to stay abroad without returning to the U.S.?

A: No. Reentry Permits cannot be renewed abroad. You must be in the U.S. to file for a new Reentry Permit. So if you are not coming back to the U.S. between now and February then filing for a new Reentry Permit is not an option. You would have to come back to the U.S. and file for the new permit and stay here long enough to have your biometrics (fingerprints and photograph) taken by USCIS.

If you have been abroad for more than one year during this trip then you should return before your Reentry Permit expires. If you have not been abroad for more than 180 days during this trip, then you should be fine returning without a valid Reentry Permit. However you will find that some CBP officers prefer to see a valid Reentry Permit if you spend most of the year abroad. It is not required by the regulations where your tips are shorter than 180 days, but it makes getting through immigration easier.

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Q: I am a U.S. citizen. My husband came to the U.S. on a visa, but overstayed his I-94 card. I want to petition for him so he can get his green card, but he lost his passport and I-94 card, so I cannot prove that he entered the U.S. legally. What can I do?

A: You can file for a replacement I-94 card with immigration Form I-102. This takes several months. While you can file the green card application with the receipt notice from the Form I-102 there is some risk. Sometimes USCIS does not have a record of the entry in their system or is unable to find it because you cannot provide enough information to help them find it. Therefore you may want to consider waiting until you get the replacement I-94 card before filing the green card application.