Keep your family together. Start with the truth about your options.

A citizen petitioner can file for the relationships listed above; a lawful permanent resident petitioner, for a spouse and unmarried sons and daughters. A marriage must be legally valid where it took place, and every earlier marriage of each spouse must have ended — by divorce, annulment, or death.

Time in the United States without status can trigger bars to readmission. Certain criminal convictions carry immigration consequences beyond the case itself. Prior visa violations and misrepresentations follow a person from application to application. Some of these problems have a waiver available; some do not.

A marriage-based case completed inside the United States grants conditional residence first when the marriage is less than two years old at approval. The couple files together near the second anniversary to remove the condition — a second filing with its own deadline, which people miss when nobody tracks it.

Some grounds of inadmissibility can be waived on a showing of hardship to a qualifying relative. Whether a waiver exists in your situation, what it requires, and whether it is worth the risk of filing are case-specific questions — general information on this page cannot answer them.

Passports, birth certificates for everyone in the case, the marriage certificate, and the decree that ends every prior marriage of each spouse.

The record of entries and exits, current or former immigration status, any prior applications and their outcomes, and any notices the agencies have sent.

For marriage cases, the record of a life lived together: joint leases or mortgages, shared accounts, correspondence addressed to both spouses, photographs across time, and statements from people who know the couple.

The petitioning relative signs an affidavit of support and backs it with tax returns and proof of income, so the government can see the new resident will not need public benefits.

It depends on the relationship category, whether the case finishes inside the country or at a consulate, and how busy the office handling it is. USCIS publishes its processing times and the State Department publishes the visa bulletin; both are the honest sources for the current wait. We cannot promise how long any case takes.

An applicant who adjusts status inside the United States can generally apply for an employment authorization document while the green card application is pending. Work authorization for people on other paths differs, which is worth confirming for the specific case.

Entry without inspection complicates adjustment of status: as a general rule, a person who entered without permission cannot complete the process inside the United States, though exceptions exist and some cases run through a consulate with a waiver instead. This is one of the facts that most changes a case — review it with a lawyer before anything is filed.

A resident spouse can petition, but the visa category for spouses of residents has an annual limit, so the wait is usually longer than for spouses of citizens. If the petitioner later naturalizes, the case can move to the citizen category.

A denial comes with its reasons in writing. Depending on why, the options can include asking the agency to reopen or reconsider, appealing, or filing again with better evidence. A denial is not always the end, and it is never a reason to ignore the notices that follow it.

The applicant always goes. In marriage cases the officer can also ask the petitioning spouse to attend, and can question the spouses together or separately. Which of those happens is the officer's call, not something the applicant chooses.