My wifes trouble with immigration and a zero status

[qman383]

Hello everyone,
I am an American citizen, my wife is a British Citizen. She arrived here in 1997 and married in 1998 to her first husband. They both had a child together. In 2003 after 5 years of marriage she applied to have the conditions removed from her green card. She found out that she was to have done that after 2 years. She paid the money and turned in her greencard. She received a letter from INS so that she would at least be able to travel back to England while she was being processed. She never got her green card and never got a response back from INS after calling them numerous times. In 2004 her marriage went bad and she divorced and still heard nothing from INS after again talking to numerous people. I met her in 2004 and we finally married in 2007. She made an appointment and saw someone from INS who told her that she had zero status and she could face possible deportation. They also told her that she was supposed to have filed an I-751 waiver but the time frame for filing had passed. They told her that she could try anyway and write a letter explaining why she had not filed in the timeframe. INS said that there are no guarantees that this would work and if not she would have to file a new spouse visa again and pay another 2000 plus dollars using me as her sponsor. This is not right what they are doing to my wife. We now have a daughter together but her ex has custody of her first child and we are planning on moving to England. She does not want to leave and face a ban from visiting the U.S. Can anyone tell us what to do? INS thinks we are made of money and we dont have 2000 plus to spend. Please help?

What part of the country do you live? if you are on the North East I could recommand some good immigration lawyer in the Greater Boston area. But the best thing to do consult with a lawyer or file the adjustment status form you were told to file, usually immigration take time to respond to your request one thing i know they will get back to you. Since you are a US citizen pay a visit to your US senator office or US Rep. explain your situation some one should be able to help you make you sure you are some one who vote.

Thank you for your response. I live in Eastern Tennessee. My wife and I have talked about getting an attorney but they are too much for us to afford, Just to consult with an attorney can cost any where to 100 to 400 dollars an hour. She is going to file the I-751 waiver which will cost us 580.00. Its like INS said there are no guarantees. We just want to get something so that she can travel out and not have to worry about getting back in to the U.S. I have tried to contact our senator in the past for other issues only getting canned responses and no follow up.