Whitfield County, GA Immigration Law Firms & Lawyers

The simplest solution is to marry the mother of your child so that she could file an immediate relative petition for you. Whether you have other means of obtaining a long-term status in the U.S. depends on your education, professional credentials, and availability of a U.S. employer who would sponsor you; without this information, there cannot be a meaningful discussion of your options. However, one point is certain: any other solution that might exist will be costlier, time-consuming, and less likely to succeed.

As you may know, eligibility for naturalization includes two similar-sounding, but different, components: (1) legal residence and (2) physical presence. In general, a single absence of 180 days will trigger a rebuttable legal presumption that a Permanent Resident has abandoned his/her residence in the U.S., and a single absence of one year or more will trigger a non-rebuttable legal determination of abandonment of status. Beyond this, a petitioner for naturalization generally must show that during the relevant period of time (generally, the 5-year period immediately before the filing of the petition for naturalization, plus the period between filing and date of oath ceremony) he/she spent no less than half of all the days physically present in the U.S. There are some exceptions to these rules, but more information would be needed to assess whether they might apply to your children. Especially in light of the risk of an adverse determination about "abandonment," as well as the importance of success with the naturalization petitions, it would be wise for your family to engage an immigration attorney to carefully review all of the details about each child, to assess eligibility and to properly handle the naturalization petitioning process. Some immigration law firms, including mine, offer legal services on a "flat fee" basis so that a client will know the total expense from the very beginning, and a few immigration law firms, including mine, offer an initial consultation free of charge.

Generally, the National Visa Center or the Consular post will routinely require that an Affidavit of Support be submitted with the application for a visa or request for lawful permanent residency. This request can include a request for tax returns and proof of employment or assets. Be careful if a non attorney is assisting your family member with the process, since non authorized form fillers have been known to commit fraud.