Adjustment of Status

[RachnaPurohit]

My ex wants to add my son to his green card application. He is mentioning that once he files his application, he has to be physically present in the USA (I and my son live in Canada) and cannot leave the country until he gets his approval letter. I wanted to know how long it generally takes to get the approval letter. He is thinking of filing the application in the first week of August. What timeline should I be expecting in getting the approval letter?

Secondly, When my son gets his green card, does he need to stay in the USA for some time in 5-10 years to maintain his green card or he can stay in Canada and still his green card will be valid?

[newacct]

There are two processes of getting a green card: Adjustment of Status (AOS) from inside the US, or Consular Processing (CP) from abroad. If you do AOS, you generally cannot leave the US while it is pending unless you are first granted an Advance Parole, you can apply for Advance Parole with AOS, but it takes many months to get. But if you do CP, then you are abroad during the whole process, and you get the immigrant visa abroad, and you would use that immigrant visa to enter the US and become a permanent resident. Since your son is living in Canada, he should almost certainly do CP. In fact, he is not supposed to enter the US on most types of nonimmigrant visas (with the exception of H or L visas) with the intent to file AOS during that stay. So unless your husband is on H1b or L1, and thus your son can get H4 or L2, the only correct way for your son to get a green card would be by CP from Canada. It's possible for your ex to do AOS while the son does CP -- in that case, your son would have to wait until after your ex gets his green card before your son's CP starts. But your son doesn't have to immigrate right away with your ex -- your son can immigrate as your ex's derivative beneficiary at any time after your ex gets his green card, as long as your ex still has his green card and your son is under 21 and unmarried.

If your son becomes a US permanent resident (i.e. green card holder), he must maintain residence in the US. He cannot just visit once in a while. If he is not ready to live in the US, he should wait until he is ready to move to the US before he applies for a green card.