To be eligible, you have to be placed in deportation proceedings. Many of my clients are placed into these proceedings by committing a crime. They serve their sentence and they’re automatically taken over to the Department of Homeland Security, and placed into custody. If you do find yourself in that position, you are eligible to apply for a Green Card in front of the immigration judge if you can satisfy the following requirements.
You have to be in the United States for 10 years prior to being placed into immigration proceedings. You have to be a person of good moral character, which is a statutory definition. You cannot be convicted of an aggravated felony or a crime involving moral turpitude. This also applies when that crime has a maximum sentence of one year or more and the sentence was six months or more.
The last thing, which is the most difficult, requires you to show that your deportation would result in exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to either your spouse, your children, or your parents, who all either have to have permanent resident or citizen status. If you do find yourself in that situation, even if you have a criminal conviction which may initially bar you from applying, you should still call me, an experienced immigration attorney. There are ways that we can perhaps vacate your criminal conviction to make you eligible.
John Sesini is an experienced immigration attorney with offices in Green Bay and Milwaukee Wisconsin. If you have any questions regarding these matters, please contact the Sesini Law Group, S.C. and schedule an initial consultation.