I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

Hi Peter, thanks for the AMA!

I'm currently living in the US on TN status and am married to an American. Have you heard of anyone on TN status having difficulty applying for a green card? And do you have any sense of what the wait times currently are, particularly how long until you can get a travel authorization?

There was just an article in the NYT where ICE is arresting people at the end of their green card interviews for essentially no reason.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/us/trump-green-card-inter...

That’s misinformation. They’re being arrested because they were in the country illegally, usually overstaying a visa: https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/immigration/green-card...

They have a green card interview because they married an American. But you can’t get an adjustment of status if you are in violation of your current visa terms.

I havent been through the US process in a while, but usually that is allowed if your application is processing. You just can’t leave the country.

No, if your visa expires you need to maintain your legal status while a PERM application is pending: https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/maintain... (“This is especially important if and when you are waiting to apply for lawful permanent residence, commonly called a ‘green card.’ If you are in the United States without any immigration status, you are considered to be here illegally, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) may deny your green card application for that reason alone.”).

What’s happening here is that these people were here on tourist visas or completely illegally. Then at some point they married a U.S. citizen and filed a PERM application. But that filing doesn’t protect them from deportation for their original illegal status.