Illegal citizen or not. Just wondering.

[oleguy]

If you came from Mexican illegally and married a American citizen, then divorced after 12 years, are you illegal again? Might add, never became a naturalized citizen during the length of the marriage. I have children from the marriage that I have custody of and provide for.

[guest061212-1]

If you can deport your ex, do it!

[Capt. Lincoln F. Stern]

I have a friend who did that to her EX.. when they got divorced he laughed at her and said "I am still a US citizen" so she called Immigration and was told he had a set number of days (she never told me how many) that he had to apply for citizen ship in.

He did not, and he was deported.

Kids however add a dimension that might cause issues.

[Guest081115-1]

Complications
Complications in deportation efforts ensue when parents are illegal immigrants but their children are birthright citizens. Federal appellate courts have upheld the refusal by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to stay the deportation of illegal immigrants merely on the grounds that they have U.S.-citizen, minor children.[68] There are some 3.1 million United States citizen children with at least one illegal immigrant parent as of 2005; at least 13,000 American children had one or both parents deported in the years 2005–2007.[69][70


Do you want her to completely be out of your children life?

[Mr E]

Being married to an American does not make an illegal immigrate legal.
An immigrant with a Permanent Legal Resident, green card, can stay since they are legal. This should have been done before or at least during the marriage. If not than she should shortly since her children are American but it can be hard as Feisty Kat touched on briefly.

Otherwise once the date on any long term visa passes she would be once again considered illegal if she was not considered one the entire time.

[Mojojo]

Originally Posted by oleguy

If you came from Mexican illegally and married a American citizen, then divorced after 12 years, are you illegal again? Might add, never became a naturalized citizen during the length of the marriage. I have children from the marriage that I have custody of and provide for.

It depends, if she petitioned for you and you received LPR then you are good to go! If you stood by and did nothing then yes it could happen. People often get the misconception that having USC children automatically entitles you to stay however that is simply not true, sometimes they will send you back with your USC kids. Perhaps you could look into Adjustment of status if your not LPR already, or if DHS has you in proceedings and your record is clean, you've been here over 10 years and your departure would cause severe hardship to your USC or LPR dependent then you may qualify for cancellation of removal.

USCIS

Hope that helps!