What Happens at the Green Card Marriage Interview?

If you are part of a married couple that includes a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident and a foreign national, and you have applied for the foreign national to get a U.S. green card (lawful permanent residence), the final step in your application process will be an interview with U.S. immigration authorities. Here is what to expect, and how to make sure your conduct and answers at the interview don't lead to suspicion about your marriage or to a denial of your application.

Why Is a Personal Marriage Interview Necessary?

The personal interview serves various purposes. U.S. immigration authorities interview many people who apply for green cards, not just married couples. The interview gives them an opportunity to make sure that all the applicants' paperwork checks out against what they say in person, to examine their original documents (since applicants typically and wisely send in copies with their applications), and perhaps most importantly, confirm that the family relationship is legally valid (normally proven with a government certificate or birth, marriage, or whatever is appropriate).

However, in the case of married couples, the interview serves an additional purpose. It's to make sure the marriage is real and bona fide, not just a sham to get the immigrant a green card. Due to the relative ease and speed with which foreign nationals become citizens through marriage, many have been known to marry for immigration benefits rather than for love and the desire to join their lives and households. The existence of a marriage certificate is a good start, but it proves nothing about the couple's true intentions. The U.S. government is well aware of this, and will ask a number of personal questions of one or both spouses, in order to test whether they’re telling the truth.

Where Will the Green Card Marriage Interview Take Place?

Exactly where the U.S. spouse and the intending immigrant attend an interview depends on which process the couple is using to apply for the green card.

Most applicants, including virtually all of those living overseas, go through what's called “consular processing.” This means the interview is held at a U.S. consulate or embassy in the immigrant’s home country. For a consular interview, the U.S. spouse is not required to attend, though it’s not a bad idea for them to do so. The U.S. spouse's ability to serve as a financial sponsor is another common source of questions. If the U.S. spouse does not attend, and the consular officials have any doubts about the marriage being real, they might arrange for the spouse to be separately interviewed in the United States.

A few green card applicants who are already living in the United States will have the opportunity to use a procedure called “Adjustment of Status,” in which they submit their paperwork to, and are interviewed at, an office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). In that case, both spouses are expected to attend the interview at a USCIS office. This is usually in the nearest major city to them (depending on USCIS office jurisdiction).

What Happens During the Green Card Marriage Interview?

At the USCIS interview, an immigration official will review the paperwork and ask basic questions to confirm who the applicant is, where both members of the couple live and work, and whether they will be financially secure enough to avoid the immigrant becoming a "public charge," meaning having to receive government assistance (sometimes called welfare) in the United States.

You’ll want to review your personal copies of your application materials before the interview, and come prepared with documents showing that you and your spouse share a life together, such as:

• shared contracts, leases, or a mortgage for an apartment or a house; or if you are currently living apart, copies of plane tickets, phone bills, and letters showing your regular visits and communications
• your children’s birth certificates (if you have children)
• photos of your wedding, shared vacations, and other family events
• shared financial/banking statements
• shared credit card statements
• shared insurance policies
• sworn statements from people who know you both and who can swear you are a married couple.

The U.S. immigration or consular official will also ask personal questions to test whether your marriage is real. The official is free to ask a wide range of questions, and there is no set list. A few possible examples include:

• How many people were at your wedding?
• What types of drinks did you serve at your wedding?
• Where did you meet?
• What color are the curtains in your bedroom?
• What did you do for your spouse’s last birthday?
• What form of birth control do you use, if any?
• Who drives the car if you're riding together in it?
• Who pays the household bills?
• Who does the cooking?
• What does your spouse like for breakfast?

If your marriage is legitimate, and if you truly know and have lived with the person you married, none of these questions should be especially difficult or tricky. Nevertheless, it is best to make sure you both remember how you met and other details about your relationship, which even the closest of spouses can recall differently. If all goes well, the immigrant will be approved for an immigrant visa or permanent residence at this interview.

If the foreign national seems not to know much about the U.S. spouse, or the U.S. spouse is also being interviewed but seems to be giving contradictory answers, the immigration official could get suspicious. If you’re in the United States at an adjustment of status interview, you and your spouse could then be separated and have to attend what’s known as a fraud or "Stokes" interview, discussed next. If the immigrant was interviewed at a U.S. consulate, then as discussed before, the U.S. spouse may be separately interviewed in the United States.

What Happens at a Marriage Fraud or "Stokes" Interview?

At a fraud interview, an immigration official will separate the two spouses and ask the same questions of each. Then the official will compare the two sets of answers to see how well they match up.

If one of you, for example, says that you served champagne at your wedding and have blue curtains in your bedroom, while the other one says you served lemonade and have white curtains, you could have a problem. Your case is likely to be denied, and if the immigrant is in the United States, they will be placed into removal proceedings for possible deportation from the United States.

Being placed into removal proceedings does, however, give you another opportunity to present your case in front of an immigration judge. But the law says the judge must look even harder at your marriage than USCIS did, on the assumption that it's a fraud.

If You’re Given Conditional, Not Permanent Residence

If your marriage is less than two years old at the time you are approved to get a green card, you will be given what’s known as conditional rather than permanent residence. The conditional status is good for only two years.

Within the 90 days before those two years are up, the foreign-born and U.S. spouse are expected to jointly submit a USCIS Form I-751 showing that the marriage has continued through this period and asking to convert the immigrant’s conditional residence to permanent residence. (There are exceptions available for situations such as death or divorce, in which the foreign national may file the I-751 on their own, also requesting a waiver of the joint filing requirement.)

Along with a jointly filed Form I-751, you’ll need to provide documents showing that you continue to live together and share financial and other aspects of your life. These are similar to the documents you provided in order to get the green card initially, but they will need to cover the most recent two years of your marriage.

After reviewing this application, USCIS may require the couple to attend another personal interview to discuss the marriage and other immigration-related matters.

Once the immigration officials determine that the marriage is valid (or was valid in the case of death or divorce), the green card will be reissued as permanent legal status without any conditions.