Over one million estimated illegal immigrants reside in the state of Texas. As the most populated city in Texas, Houston houses its fair share of these illegal immigrants. In many cases, these illegal immigrants live, work and function normally with other Texans. In fact, many of these illegal immigrants are lucky enough to find love and marry United States citizens while residing here illegally. Many people believe these illegal immigrants are automatically legalized the moment they say "I do."
Unfortunately, immigration laws in the United States provide a different outcome for many such illegal immigrants. By definition, illegal immigrants have no legal status in the United States. Therefore, they may not simply have a spouse file an I-130, Petition for Alien Relative, in order to receive a green card. Ordinarily, immediate family members (such as a spouse) of a U.S. citizen have special priority for green cards. Due to this special priority, these aliens do not have to wait for a visa number to become available. Without question, it is much easier to receive a green card through this process.
Illegal immigrants without status will not be able to take advantage of this special priority. Complications will arise because illegal immigrants with no legal status in the United States could be subject to a bar on admissibility for up to 10 years, depending on the amount of time spent in the United States illegally. This means these illegal immigrants would have to leave their families and return to their home countries in order to wait out the bar on admissibility.
In such cases, the only hope left is to file an I-601, Application for Waiver of Ground of Admissibility. However, these waivers are only granted if the applicant can show extreme hardship to a U.S. citizen. As you might imagine, extreme hardship is not an easy threshold to meet.
Ultimately, the easiest way to avoid these problems is to always have legal status in the United States. Of course, for illegal immigrants, this means a return trip to his or her home country will be the only way to avoid inadmissibility. These illegal immigrants must leave their families and return to their home countries to apply to enter the United States legally. This presents problems for many immigrants that have spent almost their entire lives in the United States. Many don't know anyone from their "home" country or even speak the language, but nevertheless, they are forced to go back in order to avoid the ban on admissibility. Additionally, with increased dangers in Central and South America, some who return to their home countries are unable to make it back at all. For some, the risks associated with returning to their home countries are far greater than the risks associated with staying in the United States illegally. As a result, many illegal immigrants will continue to live here illegally despite their special priority in being married to a U.S. citizen.
