Palm Harbor, FL Immigration Law Firms & Lawyers

I do not believe that there is any visa status that would meet your goal of having your sister remain in the US until her final days. Even if you are a US citizen and petition for her, the period of time for her to immigrate is is approximately 10 years, and during that period, U.S.C.I S. will not allow her to stay legally. Perhaps if your sister's end is soon approaching, the agency may be sympathetic and allow her extensions of her visiting visa, but if she is in fairly good health with no immediate end in sight, there would not appear to be anything within the law to allow her to stay until her final days.  

You would have to file with USCIS a packet of several forms: Form I-130 Petition for an Alien Relative; Form I-485 Application to Adjust Status; Form I-765 Application for Employment Authorization; Form I-131 Application for Travel Document; Forms G-325A for yourself and for your wife; and Form I-864 Affidavit of Support. All these forms are available on-line at uscis.gov, along with instructions for each form. Pay special attention to the requirements for supporting documents; failure to include even one of them can result in denial of your application or in a long delay of its processing. The filing fees are noted in the instructions; basically, you need to be ready to pay $420 for I-130 petition and $1.070 for everything else. Should you find yourself averse to the task of unraveling the instructions, or to the risk of making a mistake in the application package and the resulting loss of the filing fees (when USCIS denies an application, it does not refund the filing fees), retaining an immigration attorney would cost you about $3000 (+$500 if you want the attorney to accompany you and your wife to the interview with USCIS officer). If the paperwork id done right, your wife should receive employment authorization card in about 3 months after filing; and you and your wife are likely to be summoned for the interview sometime between 3 and 12 months from the date of the filing. If USCIS approves the case, your wife will receive her conditional green card, valid for 2 years, within 1-2 months after the interview.

The general rule is that one can’t adjust status from a crewman visa to get a green card through marriage. Had you married your ex and then applied for a visa at the consulate in South Africa that may have resulted in success or had u applied for a fiancé visa and then entered the states and got married. Without knowing all the facts and issues of the case, that is my guess. You need to retain counsel to review all the documents and look at all the evidence to form a proper opinion and strategy.