My marriage-based I-130 has been approved. Will they cancel my green card interview?
Hi, I'm Jim Hacking, immigration lawyer practicing law throughout the United States at our offices in St. Louis, Missouri and San Diego, California. My man, Norman, wants to know, "We filed our I-130 separate from our I-45. The I-130 has been approved after an interview. Are we going to have a separate interview for the green card?"
I just had this scenario happen. I went to an interview this week up in New Jersey where the I-130 had been approved after a Notice of Intent to Deny. My wife, Amany, and one of our attorneys did a stellar job beating back that Notice of Intent to Deny and the I-130 was approved, but then the beneficiary was scheduled for a green card interview. In answer to your question, Norman, everyone has a green card interview. You can't receive your green card unless you go through the I-45 with an immigration officer.
Now, in theory, if you did the whole interview at the I-130 stage, if they interviewed you on the 45 and on the I-130, they could approve the I-130 separately from the 45, but if you haven't been asked all those security questions, all those questions about whether you've ever been a drug dealer or a prostitute or helped anyone enter the United States illegally or lied to obtain an immigration benefit, unless you've answered all those questions, you're not going to get that green card without a actual green card interview. It might be easier.
But one tip is that if you have an approved I-130 and you're going for a 45 interview, even though the 30 has been approved, you're going to want to bring your spouse and you're going to want to bring updated marital evidence. Those are both really important, because the officer who's conducting your green card application might not be the officer who approved the I-130 and they might want to at least poke around on the I-130.
Now, the case I had in New Jersey this week, they actually had a full-blown Stokes interview, which is when they separate the couple, and they went back to revisit the approved I-130, which is certainly within their authority. They always have the right to revoke or send a Notice of Intent to Revoke that I-130 if they want to. You have to be ready for anything, I say that all the time. If you're applying for a marriage-based green card and your I-130 has been approved and you're wondering if you're going to get out of having a 45 interview, the answer to that question, my man, Norman, is no. You're going to have that separate 45 interview, which means you'll probably end up having two interviews.
If you have questions about this, give us a call at 314-961-8200. You can email us at [email protected]. You can find us in our Facebook group, that's called Immigrant Home. We share a lot of information in there, love to have you. Also, subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you get updates whenever we make videos just like this one. Finally, every Tuesday and Thursday, usually at noon central time, I'm live in our YouTube channel and in our Facebook group answering all of your immigration questions for free. Hope to see you there. Don't forget to find us on Instagram @HackingLawPracticeLLC. Thanks a lot, have a great day.
