Green Card Canuck want to marry a Canadian...

I am a Canadian living and working in the USA on a green card. I will continue to do so for the forseeable future. I want to marry a Canadian and have her move here to live and ideally work. What are my/her options? Any realistic guidance is greatly appreciated.

How long until you can apply for citizenship?

As soon as you get married, you can start the petitioning process, however with you as an LPR, it is going to take several years to get your wife into the US. If you were a citizen of the US, it would only take about 1 year.

For marriage based immigration to the US check out http://www.visajourney.com

And the I-130 form at USCIS http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis (go to Immigration Forms, scroll down to I-130)

You need to file an I-130 for her as Reba pointed out, as soon as you get married but it will take longer if you are an LPR. About three and a half years if I'm reading the processing times correctly (hard to tell, because you can't be sure how many they process per year).

If you are a citizen the visa number comes up immediately and she can apply for a visa straightaway. Even then it takes the consulate the best part of a year to issue it.

Going by the comments on here it's taking USCIS about six months to process citizenship applications, but of course you need to have met the residency requirement.

It is possible to amend an I-130 if you go from LPR to US citizen, but I'm not sure there's any point for marriage because the visa number will be issued immediately when you are a US citizen.

So I guess the logic is, if you can get US citizenship at some point in the next three years, get it, then apply on an I-130 for her immediately when you get your citizenship papers.

Frankly I don't think there's any other way to do it, she won't qualify for any non-immigrant category like a work permit because she's married to an LPR so CBP won't believe she has non-immigrant intent (although as an LPR I suspect they'll let her in to visit you).

The only other way would be if she could independently immigrate into the US in her own right, which would mean she would need to be an immigrant investor or some other US citizen relative would have to sponsor her. (Or an employer would have to sponsor her on I-140 but that usually takes years as well).

Hi, Steve and Reba,

I am also a Canadian US green card holder who is planning to petition my newly wed husband to US. It is really helpful for me to read your advice. Thank you.
In 6 month, I will fulfill the 5 year US residency requirement and be eligible to apply for US citizenship. Since it takes about 6 month for the government to process citizenship paper, is it possible for me to apply right now? That way, I could petition for my husband sooner.

Thank you very much.

Lynn

You can't apply any sooner than 90 days before you're eligible. So you'll have another (approx) 3 months to wait before you can send it in.

Here are the instructions for the N-400 naturalization application.

The application iteself is downloadable in PDF format for free from the USCIS website. http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis