Your permanent residence, done right from the start

Permanent residence — the green card — is the goal for most of our clients. There are many paths to get there, and the difference between choosing well and choosing poorly is measured in years.

What we do

• Adjustment of status within the United States, when you are eligible to process without leaving the country.
• Consular processing when the case proceeds from abroad.
• Waivers, including unlawful presence waivers — where extreme hardship to a qualifying relative must be shown. It's one of the most technical pieces of these cases.
• Removal of conditions on two-year conditional residence.
• Residence through family, humanitarian or employment paths, depending on your situation.
• Cases with obstacles: prior entries and departures, prior removal orders, or criminal records affecting admissibility.

Before filing, admissibility has to be reviewed

This is where most cases get damaged. Someone can have a relative who petitions for them, meet every requirement on paper, and still have a bar to admissibility that is triggered upon filing. In some cases that means years of separation.

Reviewing the complete immigration history before filing anything isn't an extra step: it's what prevents the damage.

Who qualifies

Most of our cases come through family. The rules differ depending on who petitions:

• Immediate relatives of a U.S. citizen — spouse, parent, or unmarried child under 21. There is no annual cap and no waiting line for a visa number.
• Preference categories — adult children, siblings, and relatives of permanent residents. These are capped, so the wait depends on your priority date on the monthly Visa Bulletin and on your country of birth.
• Humanitarian paths — VAWA, U visa, T visa, and SIJS have their own rules and, in several cases, their own fee exemptions.

The category you fall into changes almost everything: the wait, whether you can work while the case is pending, and whether you can process inside the country at all.

What it costs in 2026

• $1,440 for Form I-485, the adjustment of status application, for applicants 14 and older. Biometrics are included — there is no longer a separate $85 fee.
• $950 for a child under 14 filing together with a parent. A child under 14 filing alone pays the full amount.
• $675 by mail or $625 online for Form I-130, the family petition, when one is required.
• The medical exam with a USCIS-designated civil surgeon, paid to the doctor and not to the government. It varies by provider in the Atlanta area.

Two details cost families real money, and most websites still have them wrong.

• The work permit is not free anymore. Form I-765 filed with a pending I-485 costs $260 if the I-485 was filed on or after April 1, 2024. Many pages still say it is included at no charge. That was the old rule.
• Neither is the travel document. Form I-131 is only free for people who filed the I-485 before April 1, 2024. File today and you pay the full fee.

There is also no online filing discount available to most of our clients. USCIS opened electronic filing of the I-485 in 2026 for certain employment-based categories only — family-based cases still file on paper.

Underpaying does not delay your case. It gets the entire package rejected and returned. The fee is not refunded if USCIS denies the application; you pay for it to be processed, not approved. Confirm current amounts on uscis.gov before filing, because fees change.

How long it actually takes

There is no single answer, and anyone who gives you one is guessing. Published ranges run from roughly nine months to well over three years. What actually drives your timeline:

• Your category. An immediate relative of a citizen has no visa line to wait in. A sibling of a citizen may wait more than a decade before the case can even be filed.
• Your country of birth. Mexico, India, China and the Philippines have their own backlogs in the preference categories.
• Which office handles it. Interviews for our clients happen at the USCIS field office at 2150 Parklake Drive NE in Atlanta, 30 to 45 minutes from Gwinnett outside rush hour.
• Whether an RFE arrives. A request for evidence adds months. Most are avoidable with a complete filing.

We give you a realistic range for your specific category at the first consultation, not a promise.

Mistakes we see often

• A missing signature. A form without a handwritten signature is rejected outright, with no review of the case behind it.
• Blank fields. Where something does not apply, it needs "N/A" or "None". Left blank, USCIS can reject the form.
• Documents without certified translation. Every Spanish-language record needs a certified English translation. A translation done by a relative does not meet the requirement.
• The wrong filing fee. More common than it sounds, because the rules changed. See the fee section above — the work permit and travel document are no longer bundled at no cost.
• Arrests the applicant believes were erased. A state expungement does not erase the record for immigration purposes. It must be disclosed. The background check will find it, and having concealed it weighs heavier than the record itself.
• Denying informal work. Working without authorization is one thing; stating under oath that it never happened is another. A material misrepresentation is treated as fraud and carries its own bar, which then needs its own waiver.
• Thin evidence of a shared life. In marriage-based cases, photographs are not enough. Joint bank accounts, a lease in both names, insurance policies, joint tax returns.
• Contradictions at the interview. Different answers about household routine or key dates. USCIS also compares what you say now against what you stated in earlier applications.

Any one of these deserves review before anything is filed. In some cases, filing without that review does not just risk the green card — it can expose you to removal proceedings.

If your application is denied

A denial is not always the end, but it changes the ground you are standing on. The options depend on why it was denied:

• A motion to reopen or reconsider, when there is new evidence or a legal error in the decision.
• Filing again, when the problem was a curable defect rather than ineligibility.
• Renewing the application before an immigration judge, if you are placed in removal proceedings — the Atlanta Immigration Court, at 180 Ted Turner Drive SW or 401 W. Peachtree Street.

The risk worth understanding before you file: if your I-485 is denied and you have no other status, USCIS can issue a Notice to Appear. That is precisely why the admissibility review comes first.

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