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

226 points proberts | 1 comments | 05 Dec 25 16:04 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

As usual, there are countless immigration topics and I'll be guided by whatever you're concerned with. Please remember that I can't provide legal advice on specific cases for obvious liability reasons because I won't have access to all the facts. Please stick to a factual discussion in your questions and comments and I'll do the same in my answers!

Previous threads we've done: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=proberts.

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lackstein ◴[05 Dec 25 19:59 UTC] No.46166494[source]▶
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?

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kdazzle ◴[05 Dec 25 21:47 UTC] No.46167830[source]▶
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...

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rayiner ◴[05 Dec 25 22:02 UTC] No.46167969[source]▶
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.

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delfinom ◴[06 Dec 25 05:08 UTC] No.46170896[source]▶
>But you can’t get an adjustment of status if you are in violation of your current visa terms.

This is both right and wrong. Congress passed a law ages ago that grants forgiveness to overstaying spouses once the greencard is issued. The AOS process is allowed.

The hole however is the AOS does not extend your authorized stay if you were out of status when it was filed. So this leaves one vulnerable to the ICE arrests.

However, your AOS can still be processed even when arrested because of the forgiveness granted by law, so it just becomes an issue of having a good lawyer to get a judge to intervene.

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1. USMCAThrowAway ◴[06 Dec 25 05:38 UTC] No.46171017[source]▶
Exactly. Unauthorized work is also forgiven.