CASE: I-751
APPLICANT: Ghanaian
LOCATION: Cleveland, Ohio
Our client contacted our office in early July 2014 regarding his I-751 application.
He is from Ghana and married a U.S. citizen in 2011. Through his marriage, he obtained a 2-year conditional green card in October of 2012. His conditional residency terminated in July 2014.
What was unique in this case was that after our client obtained his green card, their marriage suffered and they eventually got divorced. However, after a few months, they got remarried again. Those set of facts typically would raise red flags with immigration, but we got their story and obtained documents about their relationship and filed the I-751.
To comply with immigration requirements, our client and his wife had to file an I-751 Joint Petition to Remove Conditions. He retained our office on July 7, 2014 and our office prepared an I-751 application for our client with other supplemental exhibits. We made sure the application was extensive as their situation, post conditional residency application, was unique.
On August 19, 2014, our office filed an I-751 application to the USCIS with multiple affidavits from his friends and family members, joint tax filing records, joint bank statements, utility bills, insurance policies, and photos of our client and his wife to demonstrate the bona fideness of their marriage. The divorce decree plus new marriage certificate were also submitted. The beneficiary even had a domestic violence case which was brought down to disorderly conduct.
Once the application was filed, the fingerprint notice was issued two weeks later. However, USCIS issued a Request for Evidence (RFE) on December 3, 2014. The USCIS requested our client to submit more documentary evidence to prove the bona fide nature of his marriage with his wife. In response to the RFE, our office prepared the response and gathered more joint documentary evidence to demonstrate the bona fide nature of their marriage We filed the RFE response on February 5, 2015.
As expected, the USCIS scheduled an interview for our client’s I-751 application. On April 2, 2014, our client and his wife were requested to appear for their interview at the USCIS Cleveland Office. Prior to the interview, our office prepared them thoroughly. We also accompanied them at the interview as well. The interview went well, and as a result, on the same day of the interview, the USCIS approved our client’s I-751 application and our client received his 10-year green card which removed the conditions