Conditional Resident

Immigrants can receive conditional resident status for up to two years based on two criteria which are as follows:

• After getting an immigrant visa from the US consulate, they enter the United States
• They were approved by USCIS for United States residence and their marriage to a spouse that is a United States resident was less than two years old at the time

A conditional resident or conditional permanent resident receives a two-year validity green card. If the conditional permanent resident wants to remain a permanent resident, they must file a petition within 90 days before the card’s expiration to remove the condition. You cannot renew a conditional card. You will lose your permanent resident status if the conditions are not removed.

For entrepreneurs, the removal of conditions on their green card requires the filing of a Petition by Entrepreneur to Remove Conditions Form I-829. An entrepreneur, in order to have the conditions removed, will want to prove the following:

• Their enterprise is either in the process of generating or has already generated employment for at least 10 United States workers
• Within the enterprise they are sustaining active participation
• They have invested the prerequisite capital
• That they did not, simply as a means of evading United States immigration laws, invest in the commercial enterprise to obtain their status

For a marriage based green card, to remove the conditions, an individual must file Form I-751 Petition to Remove the Conditions of Residence.

If you wish to travel as a conditional United States resident, you must, when traveling, bring your foreign passport. This will get you into other countries. But you must also, for re-entry into the United States, present an unexpired conditional resident green card.